Activists Destroy Road Leading to Elliott Forest Timber Sale

[Anonymous communique sent to the EF!J]

Last night, under moonlight, our rowdy cadre of mountain beavers emerged from the hillside and destroyed the road leading into the Dean Scholfield timber sale in the Elliott State Forest. A three-foot deep trench now blocks the sale’s entrance. Long lengths of rebar were cemented into three holes in front of the trench, preventing bulldozers from easily reconstructing the road.

The Oregon Department of Forestry sold this old timber in February to Scott Timber, a subsidiary of Roseburg Forest Products. Much of this 51-acre sale has never been logged before. Dean-Scholfield borders a parcel of unsurveyed potential marbled murrelet habitat, as well as the Hakki Ridge parcel that Seneca Jones purchased last year, which contains swatches of old growth and documented murrelet nesting habitat.

As Oregon’s state land board moves away from the prospect of land privatization and large scale destruction of Marbled Murrelet habitat in the Elliott, many will be ready to compromise– to say “go ahead, have some, thin a lot, clear cut a little, so long as it doesn’t violate the Endangered Species Act.” But for those of us who are intimately connected to this land, a clearcut is a clearcut. No matter if the trees are 100 or 250 years old: the mountain beavers will be trampled, trapped and poisoned and the coho salmon downstream will struggle to survive as temperatures rise and silt settles on the gravel beds. The ancient myrtle that is reaching towards the sky and watching the forest around it mature into old growth will be carelessly thrown into a slash pile, burned as hog fuel at the mill. Regardless of the “average dbh” or “stand age” of the timber within Dean Scholfield, the human community down hill will breath in the drift and drink the water contaminated by the aerial spraying of herbicides.

And so we say “No Compromise”. The destruction of never-before-logged forest in the Elliott, the clear cutting, and the land privatization all must come to an end. We have been labelled many things: pests, vermin, vandals, and “eco-terrorists.” So we’ll do what we do best, and continue to gnaw at your roads and your profits. To the Oregon Department of Forestry, the State Land Board, Roseburg Forest Products and all others who seek to destroy our wild and sacred forests: We won’t stop until you do.

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