In my twenty years of teaching at community colleges I was continuously fascinated by the experiences that my students shared in class. One student in my environmental history class a couple years ago had been a lumberjack in the northwest. He described to the class what that entailed, confrontations with protesters, and even what an unpleasant experience it was to strike a tree spike with a chainsaw. I couldn’t help thinking about this as I read Darren Speece’s superb Defending Giants: The Redwoods Wars and the Transformation of American Environmental Politics (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2017).
The Redwoods Wars transpired in the northwest coast of California from the early 1980s to the end of the twentieth century. From Speece’s description of the events in that twenty-year period, it certainly sounds like so many battles fought over a long, grueling war as local activists battled both external environmental groups and a multinational corporation. Their objective was to ensure sustainability. They were radical for employing direct action to confront loggers and for seeking to regulate timber harvesting on private land. The battleground went beyond the forests, reaching into the courthouses, trailblazing a new front for both environmentalists and business resistance to regulations. Their great success was in bringing this local matter to national and even international prominence.
For much of the first three quarters of the twentieth century a corporatist approach protected the Redwoods from over harvesting. Save-the-Redwoods League and Sierra Club supported the California Board of Forestry who worked with Pacific Lumber to set harvest goals. For their part, Pacific Lumber was a paternalistic corporation who feared depleting a valuable resource. This arrangement had its drawbacks, of course, and the cooperation is a bit of a simplification, but this status quo lasted until the 1980s. What changed?
Well, lots of things changed, as Speece tells us. First off, Redwoods country became a prime destination for back-to-the-land hippie refugees fleeing urbanization. They arrived with an anti-government and anti-corporate mindset and many years of grass roots organization and protest experience. Second, an external firm, fueled by junk bonds and loaded with debt took over Pacific Lumber. This business had no interest in the local economy or sustainability. The Redwoods to them were one more resource to be leveraged to maximum financial payoff to stabilize their finances. Third, the emergence of a more militant environmentalism as exemplified by Earth First!. Finally, on the other end of the spectrum was the radicalization of the anti-environmentalist movement often referred to as the Sage Brush Rebellion.
Local activists battled the international lumber giant for two decades. This is the meat of the book and Speece covers much ground in detail, examining the personalities, intent, tactics, strategy, sources, and outcomes of each of the scores of battles waged during the Redwoods Wars. Direct confrontation created more distrust, and violence. Each success by either side further enflamed mutual hostility. A car bomb seriously injured activist Judi Bari. The FBI even arrested her on the assumption that she was a terrorist who was on her way to bomb someone else. Pacific Lumber violated laws and regulations in their quest to cut trees, an opening that activists sought to exploit with lawsuits. On their other flank, local activists resented and resisted efforts by national environmental organizations to take control of their protest movement. The dedication and strength of the local activists is one of the main points of Speece’s interpretation of the Redwoods Wars.
The Redwoods Wars ended with “The Deal,” a bundle of compromises brokered by the Clinton administration in an effort to shore up the president’s support among environmentalists in the lead up to the 1996 election. Pacific Lumber agreed to sell land to California and promised to file the necessary plans with the proper agencies. A deal on paper was one thing, lining up all the parties and implementing it took another few years. There definitely was a hang-over effect. Unsurprisingly, considering the emotional investment, both sides struggled with second-guessing and regrets.
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