Opponents of clear cutting the Elliott State Forest have occupied an ODF office in Mollala, Oregon. Last week, protesters blocked access to an impending timber sale that will clear cut more than 80 acres of state forest. A spokesperson for the group says that the protest is designed not to impair any forest fire fighting activities performed by the Mollala office of the ODF.
From a media release
Mollala, OR: As a culmination of the annual Trans and Women’s Action Camp, activists occupied the regional Oregon Department of Forestry office. Three members of the camp have locked themselves together inside the office using modified pipes. Currently the trio is refusing to leave until the Oregon Department of Forestry revoke their support for the 2011 Elliott State Forest Management Plan.
Today is the last opportunity for citizens to comment on the plan. Activists involved in the action criticized the plan for opening up areas to logging which were previously off limits. They also criticized the plan for increasing clear cutting to boost local timber jobs while not making any decisive moves to regulate or even monitor the large timber export industry which ships logs and jobs overseas.
The Trans and Women’s Action Camp, or TWAC was formed out of a need to make space for marginalized identities that otherwise may not be represented within the broader push for environmental justice. This action is organized and carried out by women and trans identified people. “As a trans person, my affinity with forests stems from the harsh reality that both of us are targets of oppression for merely existing. Systems of oppression such as patriarchy, homophobia, and transphobia are inherently linked to the violence towards forests such as the Elliott. I am in solidarity with all forms of resistance against the destruction of marginalized identities, human and non-human.” says Samuel Morrissey
Meredith Cocks of Portland, OR said, “It’s absolutely devastating to walk into the middle of a clearcut in the Elliott and know that after decades of fighting for forest protection this sort of logging is still accepted on public lands. This is some of our last intact coastal rainforest, a precious place that deserves our respect, not to be decimated by the ODF.”
