Feb. 20, 2023
For immediate release: PRESS RELEASE
Info: Email forestaction@riseup.net
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HUNGER STRIKE AND BLOCKADE FOR THE REDWOODS IN HUMBOLDT
Humboldt County, CA–On Sunday night, February 19th, forest defenders set up a sky-pod blockade, occupied by a protester commencing a hunger strike (statement below).
In January 2023 Humboldt Redwood Company (HRC) filed commencement to begin logging in Freshwater, California. The forest
that is being logged contains massive Redwood and Douglas Fir trees that are providing critical habitat to many endangered animals in the area.
HRC claims to log sustainably but there’s no such thing on an industrial scale when profit margins are the only concern. Forest defenders are determined to stop this logging plan.
STATEMENT FROM FOREST DEFENDER “ARISTOTLE”:
“As you’re reading this I am suspended above an entrance to one of Humboldt Redwood Company’s industrial timber harvest plans, blocking this entrance by the support lines of the net that is holding me. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and these are desperate
times indeed. On January 18th a forest defender named Tortuguita was murdered by state troopers while occupying the Weelaunee forest in Atlanta. They have since held activists with no bail or extremely high bail to prevent people from defending the forest. I am doing this to try and honor Tortuguita’s life and wish for the land to be protected, and in solidarity with activists in Atlanta facing extreme police repression.
I will not leave nor eat until HRC commits in writing to abandon this Timber Harvest Plan indefinitely. The police may try to use this as justification to extract me for “health concerns”. I am taking supplements that will allow me to subsist without food for months without endangering my health or safety. Any attempt to extract me is for the company’s profit, not a concern for my well-being.
This forest is filled with huge redwood and Douglas fir trees which are becoming increasingly rare as private timber ravages the landscape. It is already too late for 97% of the world’s native forests. Northern California is one of the very few places in the so-called “United States” where there are still intact forests. But not for long, if the industrial logging and commercial builders get their way.
These lands don’t belong to privatized companies. These are lands stolen from the indigenous people of this area and stolen from the many animal and plant species that call these forests home. The bears, Redwoods, huckleberry, hummingbirds, mushrooms, newts, owls, and every other species need this forest to continue surviving in an increasingly unlivable planet. Please stand with all of them and come defend this land!
LET THE FORESTS GROW!!”
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