Bold New Acts of Civil Disobedience Confront Biscuit Logging

SELMA, OR - Forest defenders halted business as usual for Silver Creek Timber Company and Portland based Columbia helicopters this Monday morning as they attempted to haul old growth logs from the backcountry of the Siskiyou Mountains to the Roseburg Forest Products mill outside Roseburg, OR. Citizens continue acts of nonviolent civil disobedience to shut down logging operations within the Fiddler old growth reserve timber sale, part of the massive Biscuit Fire Recovery Project. These actions follow more than a year of campaigning that produced tens of thousands of public comments and a series of major lawsuits that are still pending against this extreme logging plan, the largest in US Forest Service history. When old growth reserve logging began for the first time on March 7, the people's movement to save the Siskiyou Wild Rivers Area turned to direct action to demand democracy and accountability from their public agencies.

For breaking news from this morning see Biscuit Defenders Blockade Fiddler Again!

Citizens nationwide are coming to recognize that the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project is an historic confrontation of ideological agendas that will set precedent for decades of future public policy and land management. On the one side is the Bush Administration and regional politicians beholden to the timber industry for campaign contributions. Their policy is one of using taxpayer money to subsidize private resource extraction off of public lands. Theirs is a purely economic strategy benefiting the few at the expense of the many.

On the other side are the vast majority of Americans; recent polls show over 70 percent of whom are opposed to the practice of logging within old growth forests on public lands. Locally, regionally and countrywide, the majority of people prioritize clean water, endangered species, recreation and long term sustainability for local economies. These values are all associated with healthy native forest ecosystems and not with projects that give a short-term economic boost to a few big timber companies and leave behind ugly stumpfields, muddy rivers and government managed tree plantations.

The emotional controversy boiling over from the back woods of Southern Oregon is the visible frontline in a much larger struggle that strikes at the heart of our nations character. The people have spoken, and they are being ignored. Now, in a struggle born in the spirit of the movements for woman's suffrage and civil rights, people are using the tools left to them to leverage human dignity against the injustice and oppression of an unresponsive government.

The campaign opposing the extreme Biscuit logging scheme is settling in for the long haul As long as the USFS and the timber companies continue to commit crimes against the public trust by destroying what is left of America's natural heritage, people will continue to organize in innovative ways, using nonviolent means to oppose them.