For concerned citizens who are truly committed to ending the destruction of the remaining old growth within the next few years (while there is still something left to save!) there are few "legal" courses of action left open.

At this point our options seem to be:

Legal Appeals: Judges in Oregon routinely reject civil suits and appeals on timber sales, because they appear to be idealogically aligned with the industry. Even if they didn't regularly throw us out of court, the legal process would still be heavily stacked on the side of the party with more money. Court fees and legal costs severely limit the number of sales that can be effectively challenged in court.

Ballot Measures: The initiative process can be a very useful tool here in Oregon, and citizens have made great use of it in the past. However, it is also (to put it mildly) rather vulnerable to financial coercion from a well-funded industry, as was so recently demonstrated in the campaign against Measure 64. The most serious weakness of ballot measures, however, is the fact that it takes two years before the chance comes around again to make a difference, while they keep cutting every day.

Direct Action: If we climb the trees they are trying to cut, then they can't cut them down without killing us. (We are, incidentally, very grateful for the fact that we live in a civilized country, where the government is not willing to simply shoot us to get us out of the way. Many activists in other parts of the world are less fortunate.) We're sorry it has to come to this, but we've tried all the legal methods and we always lose, for the simple reason that the opposition has a lot more money than we do.

That's just the bad news, though. The good news is that direct action works! Check out these pictures of the Warner Creek Blockade to see what Cascadia Forest Defenders accomplished a couple of years ago, up the watershed a few miles from Fall Creek. And the Unit 36 canopy occupation in Fall Creek has been effective through an entire logging season, as of October 31st. This is despite the best efforts of the Forest Service to evict us through numerous attempted closures and confiscation raids.

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