By Michael Robinson, Colorado & Wild Rockies EF! – Earth First! Journal, Mabon (September 22), 1990
The late (deceased) Murrelet Grove rose on a small knoll about 40 miles inland of the northern California town of Eureka. It encompassed the headwaters of an unnamed stream that flowed into the Elk River. At a minuscule 200 acres, Murrelet Grove was one of the largest remaining old-growth Coast Redwood stands in private hands. Its centuries-old trees supported its namesake bird, the endangered (though not listed as such by the feds) Marbled Murrelet, which spends most of its time at sea but flies at dawn and dusk up streams to nest in the moss of an upper bough of an ancient tree—sort of an avian salmon.
When the first actions started there, Murrelet was surrounded by roads and clearcuts, including the remains of All Species Grove, butchered in 1987 despite heroic Earth First! resistance. When the actions ended, Murrelet was almost all gone, blending into an otherworldly landscape of bare rock skid roads, stumps and dust. Murrelet is “owned” by Maxxam Corporation.
Murrelet Grove was the site for more than a week in August of sustained backwoods blockades and machinery shutdowns. The actions signaled a significant shift in the tone of Redwood Summer, which previously emphasized public demonstrations and attempts to forge alliances with disaffected timber industry workers. In contrast, the fight for Murrelet Grove, while starting with classic civil disobedience, evolved into guerrilla-style slowdowns of logging trucks. The tactics refined in Murrelet hold the greatest new potential for future mass actions against destruction of wildlands. They also serve as an effective means of training monkeywrenchers.
One night in the first week of August, activists from the Wild Rockies and elsewhere sneaked into Murrelet. In their wake, massive rock blockades ap-peared on a nearby timber haul road. Unfortunately, blockades that took several activists hours to build were quickly demolished in the morning by a bulldozer. Plan 2 began as 24 activists locked themselves to gates and machinery the following morning. After being cut loose hours later by the police, several were forced to spend eight hours handcuffed in their heavy night (cold weather) clothes in a hot police van, a clear violation of the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Three days in jail followed that experience.
The next series of actions returned to the surreptitious blockade motif. About 70 people entered the area surrounding the grove. They varied in experience from those who spend most of their time in the backcountry, to newcomers who had rarely been camping. Working in small affinity groups, at night and in the more dangerous daylight, we built road-blocks of slash piles, downed logs, and rocks. These obstructions were sufficient to force log truck drivers to stop and move them by hand, and sometimes necessitated the diversion of a front end loader from its job piling trees to a new one clearing roads. For two days and nights activists played cat and mouse with Maxxam, blocking the roads surrounding and entering Murrelet. Security and police vehicles cruised the roads looking for blockaders; but attired in forest camouflage and lying flat in brambles and tall grass, we were hard to spot from a pickup truck.
Occasionally, we would dive into the thickets too late for concealment. The pickup would stop, and security or sheriff deputies would rush out. Since almost all the roads were dug into steep slopes, our only recourse was to tumble down virtual cliffs through a maze of second growth trees, vines and bushes. The wounded, recovering Earth is not hos-pitable to large, ungainly mammals. Almost all of us escaped, since few cops or security goons felt like following us down. Amazingly, nobody broke any bones in these escapades.
The second night, in an unwise move, the group met on a road to plan a mass action. Before any planning could begin, we heard a pickup hit one of our barricades. The pickup stopped and the driver started firing shots into the air, into the woods…no one knew where. With over fifty people assembled and no flashlights, our normal hiding procedures broke down into panic, as everyone rushed for what little cover could be found. Fortunately, the driver decided not to risk more blockades and didn’t come closer, but had he done so, his panic and ours could have proved fatal. Soon our herd came out of the woods and dispersed into saner, small groups to sleep in areas with more cover.
The next morning we decided that about two-thirds of the group would occupy Murrelet itself to stop the cutting, while the rest would do support—more road blockades to stop police and logging trucks alike. No one wanted to get arrested; but as they surrounded a giant tree being cut, most of the occupiers were surrounded by loggers and then cops. Thirty-seven got popped, and only one got away. The blockaders, facing increased police presence, didn’t succeed in blocking much, though most escaped custody.
Murrelet Grove is gone, another ephemeral name in another ecosystem that is already just a point of reference in the sordid history of the end of life on Earth. But dozens of activists witnessed this routine apocalypse. More importantly, they slowed it down, costing Maxxam thousands of dollars in stoppages and security costs. They evaded intense pursuit in the woods, and faced their own feelings and reactions in doing so. Since the battle of Murrelet Grove, road blockades have cropped up on other Maxxam land, including a 131 acre clearcut on Freshwater Creek a few miles to the north. Perhaps the greatest tombstone inscription to Murrelet was voiced by a new and young EF!er. Thinking of his own bioregion, still largely intact, he spoke of more effective road closures and work on machinery: “There ain’t gonna be no stinking press release.”