Part Two: The Warner Creek Free State: The Camp That Lasted a Year and Won

0:04 Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, your weekly reminder that people have been doing cool stuff for a really long time, and you can do cool stuff too. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and this is part two of a two-parter on Warner Creek, the fight for, well, if you say it this way, it doesn't sound nearly as impressive as it was, The fight for some old growth forests in Oregon, but specifically a more than year long, no, just slightly shy of year long encampment that really changed the way that protest works in America in 1995 and 1996.

0:39 And I am talking to a guest that I don't remember if in part one, I made this explicitly clear, was involved in this. I mean, it obviously came across. I am talking to my friend Hazel Robin, who was a longtime forest defender and was one of the final five people arrested at this?

1:01 It was seven people, actually. I can explain that later.

1:04 Okay, we'll get to it. Yeah, because I noticed some stuff about the way that all the press about this works. Anyway, hi, Hazel. How are you doing?

1:11 Hi.

1:12 I'm really glad to be here. Thanks so much.

1:14 Hell yeah. Okay, in part one, we talked about how all for years and years. People spent time doing, if you listen to the show, you know, I love context. They did the context work. They laid the groundwork. Sometimes they built the foundations and sometimes the foundations apparently involved digging holes in the road, pouring in concrete with some pipes and building sleeping dragons. But people spent a long time building the foundations for both a mass movement and direct action. The two things that go so well together and that I get really annoyed when people argue about one versus the other because it makes no sense. Clearly, we need both. I just don't understand anyone who could look at anything about history and come up with any

1:56 other answer other than that we need both. Anyway, where we last left our heroes, they were under eight feet of snow. There are seven to 60 of them at any given time. They are behind their castle wall. It's really dramatic. There's this documentary about it I haven't seen in 20-some years called Pickaxe, and it has lots of video footage and still photos of all the cool stuff.

2:20 You know, I recommend people watch it. I assume it's on the internet for free somewhere.

2:25 It is.

2:26 It's actually on the Crimethink website. It's crimethink.com slash video slash pickaxe.

2:33 Hell yeah. And other blockades started cropping up everywhere. And in 1996, the state canceled the sale. Because the Secretary of Agriculture was like, all right, fine, salvage logging is only for real emergencies to stop fires and insects, plagues, and that kind of shit. And you can't just use it willy-nilly. And before the paperwork was signed, the state, I assume the– when I say the state, I actually probably mean the feds. I assume I mean the Forest Service, went to go tear down the whole thing. They showed up and they were like, ah, y'all won. Get the fuck out of here. And this is– I don't actually know anything about what they directly said and you do. But– Some people were like, no, I'm good. I'm not leaving

3:16 until I see the signature on the little piece of paper that says this thing is saved. And I had it written down that five activists and one local journalist were arrested on August 16th, 1996. And I believe I can say that you, Hazel, were one of the apparently seven people arrested.

3:34 Yes, that's true.

3:36 Everyone agreed ahead of time that their plan was to not cooperate with their own arrests. No walk, no talk, no sign, no dine. Make them carry you, don't say anything to them, don't sign anything they put in front of you, and don't eat anything. And then, at the jail, where people were being held. There would get called protests by all the articles about this, and then there's some protests at the jail. I would use the word riot to describe what I've seen, but I have positive connotations of the word riot, and most journalists have negative connotations over the word riot. And they even were like, oh, there's protests outside and inside the jail. If you watch Pickaxe, you can see that this is a very lively protest

4:22 in which The protesters were told that only one person could go to the arraignment. They were like, oh, you have to send a representative in to go see the arraignment. And people were like, no, fuck that. So they stormed the jail. They shook the metal detector. They smashed out windows. And 39 more people were arrested. That's kind of where most of this version of the story ends, besides the fact that the area burned again in 2022. But yeah, what am I missing? Set the scene. You're under 18 feet of snow in the middle of summer or August.

4:56 Well, in the middle of summer, it was very hot. But there was a lot that happened in between because on the last episode, we kind of talked about the beginning, right? And there was a lot in the beginning. Oh, yeah.

5:09 There's nothing I can find about the middle.

5:11 The middle is like, you know, 10, 11 months of like, a lot of different things happening. Trying to keep that blockade going was really a challenge.

5:23 Oh, it wasn't just like, they're just going to leave you alone now?

5:27 Yeah. And also just keeping it going, keeping enough people up there through all the weather and all the conditions, getting enough food. And just like we were talking about in the beginning about it being a multi-pronged approach and how direct action usually works better with other tactics. And you were just saying again, this time a mass movement combined with direct action. One of the other really big benefits of using multiple tactics is more people can get involved.

5:58 Like thousands of people were involved in Warner Creek during the course of the campaign. And that's because there were so many roles that needed to be filled. So every Monday, we had Monday night meetings at the Growers Market, which is a space in Eugene. Every Saturday, we tabled at the Saturday Market. Every Sunday, there was a hike up to Warner Creek, unless it wasn't possible due to the weather.

6:24 There was another day where people tabled at a different health food store. So there were all these things that happened every week. It wasn't like, are we going to do this? It was like, we're going to do this. So, so many rules. People had to call businesses to ask them to give food donations or supply donations. Then people had to bring the supply donations up. There was people that had to staff tables and get petitions signed, do legal work, send out press releases, write articles. So many things that people did. As mentioned last time, there were landlines in the 90s. There was actually the first cell phones in mid-90s, I remember, up at Warner Creek. we had a cell phone. It was like in a suitcase

7:07 and you'd carry the suitcase. And there was like one spot where you had to climb up on a hill where you could get reception. You'd like carry the suitcase and then like keeping it charged was so difficult and having it when you actually needed it anyway. So there was a lot that happened during those 10 months. And sometimes it was so exciting. There was music and campfires and lots of people and like skill shares and teach-ins and things like that. And then sometimes it was you and two other people like totally soggy and disempowered. And is anyone going to come up and replace us? And we're eating moldy bagels and, you know, fermented tofu pate, which, you know, it's just funny because it's Eugene. So that's

7:55 the kind of food donations we got. But, you know, when it's fermented, it's not very good. So that was a lot of the middle part. The middle part was really crucial and it is very hard to find information about it. The other thing about the middle part that you mentioned is that there were these other free states popping up. So there was one in Southern Oregon. There was one in Idaho. So we were also like traveling around to these other free states. And there was also lots of other campaigns that weren't full on free states because of the salvage rider campaign. the salvage rider that we talked about in the first episode, suspended 30 years of environmental laws, took away people's right to sue in

8:36 a court of law on a timber sale. And people were really upset about this. And there were just tons of timber sales coming down the pike. So there were huge protests. There were also more like mass civil disobedience protests, what we called cross the line protests where a hundred people would get arrested at one time. And sometimes they were like Congress people and elderly people and they'd be getting dragged off. And it was very dramatic. So there was so much that was happening. It's hard to even describe how much was happening. Living at Warner Creek was like a scheduling feat, you know, just trying to figure out how to keep everything going. But then what you'd actually asked about was the bust.

9:21 Oh, no, we can talk more about the middle. I think you're right that like it's certainly my script about this, barely mentions it, right? Because like the news version of it is people set up a thing, they stayed there for a year, they won, you know? And then it's sort of, it almost accidentally simplifies it to like, oh, you just got to hang out there, just go camping for a year and then you win, you know?

9:45 Yeah.

9:46 And the work that is like, well, to use the Marxist terminology, the reproductive work the work that is like keeping this thing going, the feeding people, the tabling, all of this stuff that not everyone's doing front lines or people take turns doing front lines, you know, and all of that work is just as essential.

10:06 Yeah, we did do a lot of back and forth. So, you know, not one person was up at the blockade for the whole 11 months. So there was a lot of back and forth and taking turns of different roles. Some people did focus more on like, I'm only a direct action person, you know, like bring me up to the blockade. I don't want to go to a meeting, you know, things like that.

10:28 We need them too.

10:29 Yeah. Yeah.

10:30 We need them too. But a lot of people did both or some people were just like, you know, I've got a job, I've got kids. Like what I can do is activate the phone tree when it needs to be activated, you know, once a month or whatever. And that was, I think, really the benefit of having a multi-pronged campaign was that so many people could be involved.

10:52 So we had a 30th anniversary celebration in Eugene, and it was actually three days of events. You know, we didn't do it just to like celebrate. We did it because in the moment we were in, we just thought it was really important to tie past to present, both around organizing and around fire ecology, which I think we'll talk a little bit more about later. But, you know, that was what we were really trying to synthesize lessons learned.

11:20 And I think that was one of the big lessons is make sure there's enough roles for everybody. And these roles had different time commitment levels. They had different risk levels. And I think that's really important. And when I look back 30 years ago from 30 years, I'm like, And everybody had different roles and it was great, but there was a dichotomy and there was kind of more of like the people up at the blockade, they're like cooler.

11:50 And now 30 years later, I'm trying to break that down and also trying to be like, you know, if I had it to go back, I think that's something that's really important to break down in the moment and to really be able to see that whatever people can contribute is super important and it takes everyone. It takes the people who care but only have one hour. Those people are crucial to a campaign as well.

12:15 No, this makes sense to me because I– OK, it's a weird comparison to make. But as people who have listened to the show hear me talk about it all the time, I was a squatter in Amsterdam for a while. And one time, whenever the squatters took over a new building to turn it into housing– and these are empty buildings that get left empty for more than a year.

12:32 It was even legal at the time in the Netherlands– But it was still a direct action to get this building open. And so they would bring out everyone, the whole squat movement. If you lived in a squat, you pretty much had to show up once a week and be a body standing between the police and the people getting into the building, right? And I remember one time doing that work and this woman, you know, middle-aged woman bikes by and she's like, oh, what's going on? And, you know, my friend is like, oh, well, we're actually squatters and we're doing this thing and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, trying to like do this whole pitch. And she's like, I know. I'm from this city. I lived here in the 80s. I was a squatter. No, how

13:09 is it going? What's actually happening? And when you have a movement that actually brings a larger community together, it puts everyone invested in its success. It almost makes people... patriots for it. The same way that people are like, I want my country to win in a war. We can get people to be like, I want my movement to win because I'm part of it because I did a little thing. Like I was part of this thing.

13:38 I'm still part of this thing. That is an important part of how I see myself and who I am is like, I, you know, was involved in, in this campaign. And so like, like literally making roles for people is a net good. It seems like in movements, And my only worry, and it might be too like the kids that are on my lawn shouldn't be on my lawn and, you know, kids these days or whatever. I worry that like online activism doesn't actually do that. I think that tabling for some tree sitters at a farmer's market makes you part of something. But I'm not convinced that sharing stories on the internet does that. And I don't know whether that's my own, like, I'm not anti people sharing stories on the internet, but I don't know whether it

14:30 creates the same level of buy-in. Yeah, I don't think it does.

14:37 And, you know, with this Warner 30th event, I really put a lot of thought into, like, takeaways. And I do think that in-person organizing is super important. And You know, the thing about online organizing, it does offer a level of accessibility for a lot of people that's really important. So it shouldn't be abandoned, but it can't be thought of as the main thing. And I think that oftentimes it's thought of as the main thing or the mostly main thing. And it's just a really different experience. So I think that part of what made Warner Creek so successful was that it was in-person, it was place-based, and everybody had a very high level of commitment. And all of those things are much harder in the year 2026.

15:23 In the year 2026, all of those things are optional. Whereas in 1995, it was just how it was. I mean, not the commitment part.

15:33 Right.

15:34 But everything else, it wasn't a choice.

15:36 You're just going to meet in person because that's the only way to meet.

15:39 Right.

15:40 Yeah.

15:40 But the commitment thing is also harder now because, you know, I think we are more controlled by algorithms than we think we are. Yeah. So it can be harder to stay committed to something for a longer time because there's always the next thing that is super horrendous that is grabbing our attention.

16:01 Yeah.

16:02 So I don't know what we do about that, but just something I noticed. But yeah, what you were saying about like creating different roles and people feeling like they're really part of something, I think that's really important. However, we figure out how to do that. And I think a lot of successful movements have done that. One thing we talked about at Warner Creek was we always wanted to make Warner Creek a household name, something that people would talk about around the dinner table and would care about.

16:32 And I think we were successful in that. And that's why part of what you were getting to in your timeline, I don't remember the exact date, but it was late July, early August. Not only was the Glickman initiative passed that covered a lot of places saying that the salvage logging had to be.

16:52 Actual salvage.

16:52 I don't know how to say it. Actual salvage logging. Because they were cutting, you know, just giant old growth green forests off. saying that it was salvage logging when it clearly wasn't. But then after that was kind of what paved the way. You know, most people think that it was because of the organizing we'd done, but also it was an election year for Clinton. Al Gore actually went on to say, I read an interview by him recently where he said that the salvage rider was the biggest mistake of his administration. Which I thought was interesting because I'm like, there's probably a lot of mistakes, you know?

17:27 Sure, yeah. But he's like kind of specifically eco.

17:31 Yeah, he ran on this environmental platform. So through various channels, a deal was negotiated. And so they announced a deal that it was a tentative agreement to buy back the timber sale from the company and stop the timber sale. But it was just a tentative agreement. Nothing had been finalized. So we were saying, great, we'll leave as soon as possible.

17:56 as soon as this happens. And we even like had some, you know, I don't know if I'd call them arguments, differences of opinion on like, like, is it actually a done deal? Should we just be packing up? Should we be staying here? And in the end we decided, because there was so much else happening, people wanted to go other places, but we decided we'll have some people stay because it's not a done deal. And it would be really terrible if we packed up And then they were like, just kidding, you know. But we thought that we were more or less in the clear. You know, we thought this deal was going to happen and we were going to pack up and leave. And then one morning I was so speaking of the blockade, you know, you painted

18:40 a really cool picture of it. A few things I'd add on is there was a moat. there was a drawbridge, a functioning drawbridge that we kept closed. And when we wanted somebody to come in, you can like creep, creep, creep, let it down, like thud, it would land over the moat and people could walk over the moat. And there was also a catwalk and a watchtower that we called the crow's nest that was a little higher up so you could get a better view. So we had these, you know, protocols and somebody was always in the watchtower early in the morning and you know, we almost weren't even going to do it because we were just like, everything's fine. But I took the watchtower position one morning and I was sitting up there enjoying the beautiful day

19:27 when all of a sudden, you know, there was just Freddies, that's what we called and still call Forest Service law enforcement, Freddies, surrounding us. They were like, in my memory, they were coming up the road. They were like, coming down the hillside. There was a clear cut on one side. They were like coming up the clear cut. We're just like, where are they coming from? You know? So I just, there was only a few people in camp and I just like yelled to everybody like, Freddy's like get locked down.

19:57 And a few of us were able to get locked down. And so when you were asking about the arrests and how many there were, so there were seven So there were three of us that got locked down and stayed locked down for most of the day. And when people talk about the story, they talk about the Warner women and there's four of them.

20:20 Right.

20:20 So you kind of wonder where did the fourth one come from?

20:23 Right. And also, like, I hate to be like, well, someone think of the men, but it is a little like the four Warner women. And like there was at least one man who got arrested during all that, too.

20:31 Well, I'm going to I'll talk about.

20:33 OK. Yeah.

20:33 Yeah. I don't think you're leaving him out. Yeah.

20:35 He's very important. Yeah.

20:36 Yeah.

20:37 So the fourth person that they're talking about, and I'm, you know, not, I'm totally sure if I should say everybody's name, but the fourth person, she was not there in the moment, but she heard about what was happening and came in with an affinity group, a small group of people, and they came in the back way because there were more lockdowns that had been built and you know, by the roadpeckers.

21:01 Oh, to like fall back too.

21:02 Up the road so that people, the idea was that like people could sneak in and go to some of the lockdowns further up the road. So she came in with a group and the group, she tells the story so much better than I do, but somehow she got separated from the group or she went faster from the group or something like that. And she got to where she believed there was a lockdown in this giant, like it was a very big pile of rocks, that there had just been rock on top of rock on top of rock. And so by this point, she was by herself. She, you know, scurries down the embankment onto the road. The Freddys are coming up the road. She can see them in the distance. And she tries to find the lockdown that's supposedly buried in these rocks, and she can't find it.

21:49 Oh, no.

21:51 So she pulls some rocks out and sticks her arm just into this pile of rocks. And so she pretends that she's locked down. And also when the Freddies come up, she pretends that she has support.

22:06 Up in the forest that are videotaping.

22:09 So she's like yelling up, make sure you get this on videotape. I'm locked down. Amazing. And so the Freddies all come and they think she's locked down and they like painstakingly rock by rock. remove each rock to get down to her arm that she kind of has buried in the bottom and when they get close she just pulls her arm out and says aha and of course they just they cart her away right so she's the fourth person So we were the people that were arrested in the lockdown scenario.

22:45 Okay, so the four women were the lockdowns?

22:48 Yes.

22:49 Okay. Now, before we learn about the fifth person, I want to leave on a cliffhanger.

22:54 Okay.

22:55 Because I want people to know about products and services that support this show. And we're back. Okay, I know you are desperately waiting to... hear those ads, but the ads are over. So now you have to listen to this filler between us and the next ads. You could skip all this and then listen to only the ads if you want it. Or I guess you could do the opposite and skip the ads. Anyway. All right. So.

23:18 So basically things happened really weird at Warner Creek the day of the bust. It was terrifying. I will say it was terrifying. And it was like we'd planned this for so long and there was going to be tons of people up there. And one thing, side note that no one also talks about, is I and my comrades were up at the main blockade, but I don't know how long before, maybe a month, two months before somebody built a lower blockade. And they were like, this blockade is way more rad. It has, you know, these kinds of lockdown devices that we've learned about from Europe and there's tunnels and there's the dog house and like all the like really badass people are down here at the lower blockade. And, you know, some people are like, should

24:09 we really be splitting forces? Like, you know, this kind of thing. But, you know, it's what happened. So the idea then was that they would be alerted first. And so we would know because we had walkie talkies and things like that. The Freddies are at the lower blockade. We'd have time to get organized. People in town would be able to come up. But the problem, and, you know, this is a lesson learned, is that you can build the most badass blockades. But if everybody is asleep and nobody locks down, it really doesn't matter.

24:47 Which is funny because, like, cops always raid in, like, pre-dawn. That's, like, their thing.

24:52 Yeah.

24:53 So basically no one got locked down. At the bottom blockade. And they got, like, pushed out really quickly. And they got, like, apparently, I assume, they got their walkie-talkies taken, things like that. But we had no idea, even though that lower blockade was, like, a mile. It probably wasn't even a mile down. But, like, we couldn't hear. We didn't get any warning. Yeah. So we were really surprised.

25:17 Right.

25:17 Except you were actually on watch. So you actually, like— We were— You did actually save the day. I'm trying to heroize you a little bit. You were the one who was watching, you know? You were like, I'm not going to sleep. I'm going to watch for Freddy's.

25:29 Well, I did go to sleep for a little while, but I woke up early.

25:32 Okay. I won't tell.

25:34 Okay, so we were pretty terrified, and we were confused, and they were telling us, the papers are signed. Why don't you just unlock? And we were like, if the papers are signed, show us the papers— We have no reason why we actually want to be sitting on this road right now in the middle of August. It's hot.

25:52 It's dry. It's dusty. You know, just show us the paperwork. We'll leave. But there's a funny part in Pickaxe, which has the Forest Service footage where one of the Freddies, she says something like, this is the government. Even we can't get it. you know? But what I do want to say is I've done a lot of research. The papers were not signed. I actually have the document in front of me. They were signed a week later on August 23rd, and there was a press release. But that's kind of getting to the end. So in that moment that was very isolating and terrifying, and it was so sad watching the blockade be ripped apart in front of my eyes.

26:37 Yeah, this thing you built for a year.

26:40 Yeah. And there was like all this really cool stuff. Like a local artist came out and built this giant wrought iron actual dragon, like a sculpture of a dragon.

26:50 Oh, that's funny. Okay.

26:51 And that was just like, it was like ripped apart by its neck and like tail flying. It was so sad. So in the midst of all this chaos and confusion... Somebody jumps from the embankment, somebody I'd never met before, jumps from the embankment into like the ditch that we were near and yells, stop, you're building a road. That's what I remember him saying. He doesn't know what he said, but that's what I heard.

27:18 Fair enough.

27:20 And he was immediately pounced on by like a pile of Freddy's and they broke his elbow, actually.

27:28 Oh, fuck. Yeah.

27:29 Yeah. And he got hauled away. I mean, at that point, I didn't know that his elbow was broken. But we were just like, thank God people know what's happening. Because we didn't know what had happened down below. We're like, does anybody even know that this militarized raid is happening?

27:44 Right, totally.

27:46 And, you know, there was supposed to be someone videotaping and all of that stuff. So that's the fifth person that got arrested. And then the other two people that got arrested were reporters.

27:56 Okay.

27:57 They felt like their constitutional rights were being squashed, is my understanding.

28:03 Yeah, being on public land, videotaping an action that the government is doing.

28:06 Well, they put a giant closure order on, which is common, so nobody could get in and out. But it was an unconstitutionally big closure order. Oftentimes, if they do a closure order, it's like people would be able to come within 10 or 20 feet to watch and make sure that— They weren't being violent, and the media would be able to videotape, but there was none of that. So my understanding is that some people helped them sneak in because they were just trying to cover the story. And they got arrested. They got their notes confiscated. So those were the seven people initially arrested. And then, yeah, the 39 at the jail. And, you know, the 39 at the jail, you mentioned the no walk, no talk, no sign, no

28:53 dine thing. We were all doing that. And the 39 of them, something that gets left out, they were doing that because the paper still hadn't been signed. I mean, it was definitely somewhat in solidarity with us. That's why they were there in the first place. But actually being willing to get arrested and go through that whole process was they were continuing the protest from within the jail and doing the jail solidarity to raise awareness to Warner Creek is not protected yet. And we've been fighting hard and we want it protected. So people were getting arrested.

29:29 They were doing protests. They were talking with representatives. People were working really hard from the moment of the bust till a week later when the papers were signed. to make sure that those papers got signed and that the deal wasn't reneged upon.

29:45 Yeah.

29:46 I mean, it makes sense for a thousand reasons. I remember during the biscuit fire timber sale program, whatever, the forest defense campaign that I was involved in, I remember... Learning about how regularly timber companies would illegally cut because the fine that they would pay for cutting a tree outside of like where they're allowed to cut is less than the value of cutting the tree. So like there's every reason to believe. That even if it's supposed to be protected now and it's just waiting for the final signature or whatever, there's every reason to believe that a company will come in and try and scoop up every last little bit of value they can before they're knocked out of the area because they do it all the time. Well,

30:36 how did it end up going? You got arrested. You clearly are not still in prison.

30:40 Yeah. I got arrested and the seven of us got arrested. The reporters and the person whose elbow was broken, they weren't held for very long, if I understand correctly.

30:51 Okay. So this is part of why it became like the Warner women is that the four of you were like dealing with more.

30:58 And the bust was on a Friday. And so there was no way we were going to get a rain till Monday. So- you know, we were in there for four days because we weren't cooperating at all. Like they were having to carry most of us. I mean, at least they were having to carry me everywhere. Like I wouldn't give my fingerprints. They just had to like force my fingerprints. They were like putting me in a wheelchair.

31:22 I was also, I mean, I was really upset because I didn't know whether Warner Creek was getting logged. And I felt like I was just being hard on myself. Like did I do everything best that I could have? Could we have stayed longer? All these things. And I was really worried that the forest was getting logged, but I also really wanted to stick with the jail solidarity and just do everything I could to amplify my message from within the jail. So I was literally just laying there and they put me in solitary confinement and Every once in a while, a nurse would come in and take my pulse and I was like not talking. And a lot of people were doing similar things like that, including some of the 39 people. But we did get

32:11 released on that Monday. And that was the day where the 39 people came in.

32:17 Oh, okay.

32:18 So as we left, they were all coming in.

32:21 Yeah.

32:21 So, you know, and I think this is a mid-90s thing that would probably be different now. We had a lawyer. And eventually it got down to the point where they dropped our charges down to a violation, I'm pretty sure. But we still like went in and had a trial. And I remember the judge saying, and our lawyer was a bike advocate. He usually did bike law, you know, and he was like doing criminal defense and he was great.

32:53 And I remember the judge, it was a fiasco. One of the people who got arrested was a minor. And they never realized it the whole time. So even when she was in court, they hadn't realized it. And the lawyer was like, well, you're charging a minor as an adult. So her case just got thrown out. And then for the rest of ours, the judge was very sympathetic. Like, the judge was like, you're definitely guilty. You're going to be guilty for this. You're 110% guilty. But you already spent four days in jail, and that's plenty of time.

33:25 Yeah.

33:26 So.

33:27 You know, just like time served, you're good, see you later.

33:29 It's so funny how like, I struggle so much with how activism 25, 30 years ago, you know, I can speak to 25 years ago, I can't speak to 30 years ago. But like, it seems almost quaint in retrospect when I talk about like the ultra-globalization movement I talk about a lot on this show. There's like stuff where it's like, ah, this stuff is like almost like kind of like, ah, you darn kids, get out of here.

33:53 But then you're like, also like, Judy Berry got car bombed. That guy, David Chain, I think was his name, got a tree dropped on him in the Timber Wars, like, and died.

34:04 Oh, I mean, he was killed.

34:05 He was murdered.

34:06 It was terrible.

34:07 Yeah, like, it's like, it's so interesting because, like, the stakes feel higher now to me. And things feel more intense. But it's not like we were, like, just silly kids having fun. You know, it was serious and people were getting hurt and dying as part of this struggle. And it's just so interesting about how, like, you took a thing that I couldn't really imagine how it would ramp up without being like a civil war or something. And it somehow managed to ramp up, you know, because you're just talking about being like, oh, it was the mid 90s.

34:44 We got to, you know, slap on the wrist. And it's like, but also like it's still serious. These are still important. fights that happened, you know?

34:54 Yeah.

34:55 And I will say, I don't really want it to come off so much that way because I've got much heavier charges for less things around the same time period. So I think it was partially that the trial was in Eugene and partially that we had just done so much to make Warner Creek a household name. Yeah.

35:16 Okay. Uh-huh.

35:17 And that You know, a lot of people understood the context and thought it was just ridiculous that they came in and did this militarized bust against a bunch of young women that were nonviolently locking down. And so I think a lot of people just thought the whole thing was silly. I mean, not silly. They thought that the government's actions were unnecessary.

35:44 That makes sense.

35:45 And it absolutely didn't. need to happen. So, so I think there was a combination of reasons why it went so well for us at that time. And it wasn't always the case. Like I got some pretty heavy charges for other things that were like less than Warner Creek. And we were worried at the time. We were like, we are going to be found guilty for literally everything that happened at Warner Creek. You know, we could have been totally screwed and we were worried about that, but we weren't. So I feel really lucky about that, actually.

36:19 Well, in some ways, it's the fruit of the organizing that you all did. It's the, you know, thousands and thousands of people were involved, which makes it harder to prove that individuals did anything, but also just means that, like, it was clearly that you all had a lot of support. So that makes sense. What are some of the lessons you all learned at Warner Creek? Actually... Before we talk about the lessons that you learned at Warner Creek, I want to talk about my favorite part of the job, which isn't true. This is not my favorite part of the job, but it is part of the job, which is pivoting to ads. And we're back.

36:57 Okay.

36:57 What did you all learn?

36:59 Well, you know, I actually think over the course of our conversation, we covered a.

37:03 Lot of them.

37:05 I think some of the main things are the Multi-pronged strategy, having lots of roles for different people, the consistent events so you don't have to decide, like, what are we doing this week? And it's really easy for people to find you and get involved.

37:23 Yeah.

37:23 Things like that. So I think we covered a lot of that. But I think a big part of the reason why we wanted to make a big deal about the 30th anniversary, and like I said, we had three days of events. We got lots of media coverage. Oh, I will say that we got lots of media coverage for the event. And at the event, we did an archival exhibit. And one of my aha moments as we were setting up the archival exhibit was I was like, wow, there was a ton of articles and media and stories of every kind about Warner Creek. And it just made me realize how important that was. And I was not a media person, but that was like a lot of work on different people's ends of like soliciting all of those articles and doing interviews and and then all the

38:15 what is it called? You probably know the self-made media. There's a term for it. Our own media.

38:20 Yeah, yeah.

38:21 And all of that. So so that's I'd say that's another big takeaway.

38:25 Yeah.

38:26 But we really wanted to do the anniversary and make a big deal about it and ask people to do podcasts and things like that because we feel like this is a particular moment that is a very difficult moment. It's a very, very difficult moment. And, you know, we thought this can offer people an example of what is possible when people come together to take collective action. And we also really wanted to do it because Warner Creek, just like Biscuit, is a burnt forest, so a post-fire landscape.

38:58 Yeah, which is becoming more and more common.

39:02 Right. It's becoming more and more common because of climate change, and it's how it's going to be. There's not really anything that we can do about it. There's some things we can do to mitigate, but until we deal with climate change, there's going to be more forest fires. And so part of why we wanted to do the event is there's so much rhetoric right now around wildfires, and a lot of people of that rhetoric. And so I'm meaning rhetoric from the industry and from the Forest Service that is mostly along the lines of we need to log to prevent forest fires. But then if we don't prevent forest fires, we need to log afterwards to salvage the forest and replant it.

39:50 Just get no more forest, then you have no more problem.

39:53 Right. So we really wanted to take this moment to draw attention to that because that rhetoric is not based in science. And, you know, you mentioned this earlier, fire ecology, post-fire landscapes, they're crucial. There are many different species that are dependant. on there being fires, and it's a natural part of the ecosystem. It can be a little challenging to talk about it because it's both a natural part of our world and our earth, and it is also something that is being exacerbated by climate change in a problematic way. However, logging is not the answer to solving that problem. The answer to solving that problem is actually addressing in positive ways climate change and getting away from

40:44 fossil fuels and things like that. So, yeah, so that's a big part of what we wanted to share because right now the timber industry is in some ways, I would say, kind of winning the war with their rhetoric because it can be very compelling, especially if you don't understand fire ecology. And if you don't understand that the kinds of commercial thinning that they're proposing to do to stop wildfires, and they call it fuels reduction, it takes way too much of the canopy. And once you take away the canopy, that's what really dries out the soils.

41:30 And that creates the conditions for worse fires. So there's a term now for fast fires, and these are fires... that move very quickly through the landscape. And those are all, almost all of them are due to climate change because climate change is creating these very dry conditions and these very, very gale force winds. So the combination of these dry conditions, both in the air and in the soil, along with these really heavy winds, is what makes these fires really out of control. And, you know, there's nothing that firefighters can do once it gets to a certain point because it's just too much. And that's what we've seen in these urban wildfires, which are actually the minority of the fires, but they cause so much damage.

42:20 When you say urban wildfires, you don't mean like In Chicago, you mean like in like suburban developments or like?

42:26 Well, like there was a huge fire in Spokane that was a wildfire. There's been a lot of fires in California that have like completely devastated entire towns. So yeah, not necessarily urban, but you know, towns and things like that.

42:42 Sorry, I just have my East Coast brain where I'm like, wait, what? But then I'm like, actually, well, actually, yes, L.A. had an urban fire. And so I'm actually, okay.

42:48 L.A.

42:50 And so 96% of these devastating urban wildfires took place during severe fire weather conditions. That's what they call it now, fire weather conditions. And these conditions are created by climate change. So the way to address this is by addressing climate change. It's not through more logging because these commercial kinds of thinning operations just dry out the soil even further. And they exacerbate climate change because worldwide logging is responsible for 10% of emissions. So they're also a source of emissions, making climate change worse, you know?

43:32 Yeah. It makes me so sad. When I first went West, when I was younger, you know, I grew up being told that logging was like, and then a logger puts on a hat and suspenders and goes off into the woods and says, you, this tree, I will take down this tree.

43:48 And they.

43:49 take down that one tree and they plant two trees in its place, you know? And like, this is like just genuinely unquestioningly what I thought logging was until I was an adult and like went to where I could see clear cutting, right? Because like most of the East Coast was just clear cut a very long time ago, you know? And obviously that's a slight exaggeration or, you know, hyperbolic way of putting it, but like going out west and seeing like what actually happens and like how they'll do things they'll be clever they're like oh this isn't a clear cut we saved three trees and you look out and you see this like bald hillside with two trees and the third one is already blown over from the wind because trees have an ecology like they have

44:33 a whole thing going on it's not just like the tree that happens to be in someone's lawn only it happens to be in a forest you know like Like trees grow up around other trees and interdependent on those other trees to protect each other from wind.

44:47 Or I.

44:49 Don't know.

44:50 Or like the fact that edge forests are different than inside forests. I don't know what the word for inside forest is. But like the first 10 or so feet of a forest is a fundamentally different ecosystem than when you get past that. So when you cut roads through areas, you're just devastating trees. Because you're fundamentally, even if no one goes on the roads, even if it's like a logging road in the middle of nowhere, you know, you have fundamentally changed that ecosystem. And it just, I think that people just don't see it or understand it. And I actually, again, not to be like, everyone's too online these days. I'm very online these days. I can't, I'm speaking, I'm attacking myself here as much as anyone. But like,

45:33 actually going out and seeing what forests, are like matters like i grew up like playing around in the forests but that meant like the quarter acre behind 7-eleven you know and like god bless that quarter acre behind 7-eleven that is a beautiful ecosystem full of native soda cans but like and animals and shit right like like i'm not actually mad at that quarter acre behind 7-eleven but it's just a different thing and i don't know go out and see forests yeah.

46:06 I think that's really important. And there are lots of ways to do that. And I encourage people to do that. And those early earth firsters that spent, you know, five years campaigning around Warner Creek before the blockade even started, that was a big part of what they did, took people on hikes. Because once you see a place and start caring about it, that's when you might become more invested to actually do something to protect it. So I do think it's really important for people to get out there.

46:41 And also when you were talking about roads, that made me think that I think it's really important for listeners to know, like one of the big reasons we wanted to do something about the Warner 30th was to tie past to present. So we are in a crucial moment right now. There's been so many rollbacks to environmental laws.

47:03 So they're rolling back NEPA, which is the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act. They're doing revisions to the Bureau of Land Management, Resource Management Plan, the Northwest Forest Plan, the Blue Mountains Forest Plan. And it's really horrendous what's happening there. And the other thing I forgot to say is the roadless rule. They're trying to get rid of the roadless rule, which would be a huge, a huge issue because of what you just talked about.

47:36 Roads bring in invasives, they fragment habitat. They're the place where most fires start. They're the most common ignition point for fires. So they're saying they need to build the roads because of fires, but it's more like you really shouldn't be building roads because of fires. You don't need any more roads. So it's just a really crucial time.

48:00 And all of these rollbacks have the aim to increase levels, logging levels, back to levels we haven't seen in decades. And this is really as crucial an issue as oil drilling and pipelines in regards to climate change. logging releases a huge amount of greenhouse gas emissions. And we also, we really need our forests and not just forests, intact ecosystems in general. Other ecosystems are also very important, grasslands, deserts.

48:34 We need intact ecosystems for resilience. And when I say we, you know, although I am referring to plants and trees and animals, I'm also referring to us as As humans and as human communities, we need this climate resilience as well. Theorists have been trying to tell us for decades that the worse environmental degradation gets, the worse social problems we're going to have and the more fascism we're going to have.

49:07 And I think everyone's seeing this center stage right now, but not everyone is putting all the pieces together. And the fewer and fewer resources there are, the more we're going to have really brutal immigration crackdowns like we've been seeing, the more wars we're going to have and all of that stuff. So it really is a time that feels important for me, for people to break down that dichotomy between environmental and social justice issues, because they're so entwined. And, you know, when we talk about losing species, sometimes probably not your listeners, but some people are like, well, who cares about a bug or a bird or something like that?

49:49 Yeah, compared to the fascism that's happening or whatever.

49:52 Right. But the more we lose bugs and birds, not only is it a tragedy because these are important species that have every right to exist just like we do, but it makes our chances for survival even less. All of these species play crucial roles. and, you know, maintaining balance and maintaining healthy air and healthy water, which we all depend on as well.

50:18 Okay, the reason I'm really glad you brought this up is because the note I had just left for myself was not a separate small part of the fascism, was the note that I was going to use to talk about this. Environmentalism, I think, seems to some people like the kind of thing you can fight for when everything else is fine. You know, you're like, ah, everything's fine.

50:39 So now we can worry about the bugs, you know, or now we can worry about the forests that we don't even really go to anyway.

50:45 Right.

50:45 And it's so important that we understand it all is connected. It's so important that we don't see these as separate fights. It's just like, it's not a small and unrelated thing that they seek to to just absolutely control and strip everything of value off of the earth because they know the end's coming too, right? They know that this is not a sustainable situation they're in. And they're just trying to strip the copper or wires out of the fucking building before they leave, you know? And they're trying to get everything of value that they can. They know oil is not going to be the, fuel of the future, but they want to make sure that they ride it as long as they can and get every last drop out.

51:35 And it's not to say that we should all drop everything to work on environmental things, although people should work on the issues that speak to them the most directly, rather than feeling like they have to do this one thing because it's the important one and this other one's not important. Because as long as we see it as an interwoven struggle, then just by pulling on the part of the net that you care about, you're helping pull the entire net, you know? And that's actually something that, like, the ultra-globalization, the anti-globalization movement was specifically good at, was it was people saying, like, oh, unions and, you know, like the Teamsters and Turtles of Seattle, 1999. And I guess, like,

52:15 the final, to kind of almost bring it back to the beginning, at least the mythology and narrative that I always heard when I got involved in Earth First is that Judy Berry... who, you know, died before I became involved in the movement. The reason that they bombed her, whoever bombed her, right? Like my money's on the feds, but I don't know. One of the reasons that she was such a target is that she was someone who came out and joined Earth First from a labor background.

52:42 And this idea of not seeing these struggles as separate is what fucking scared the extractive industries in the state, you know?

52:52 Absolutely. Yeah, she was a labor organizer and an environmentalist. And she was intersectional before the term got coined.

53:03 Yeah.

53:04 And I recently read her essay called Revolutionary Ecology. And I highly recommend that people look it up. There's like a few things that you'll find in it that are like a little dated, like, oh, we wouldn't say it that way now. But most of it is like it could be today. And it's so visionary.

53:22 Yeah.

53:23 And, you know, I think really the direction we still need to be going in.

53:27 Yeah.

53:28 Well, I think that's where we got to leave it for today.

53:33 Okay. Did we make it clear to the listeners that eventually the paperwork was signed after a week of More protest and action. The paperwork was signed and Werner Creek was protected.

53:46 Yay.

53:47 Yay.

53:47 And one of the things that's so interesting about doing forest defense in particular is that we don't win most of the time, but we don't lose all of the time.

53:56 Right? Yeah.

53:57 And like. when you study social movements throughout history, we lose a lot, but by fighting, we win in a bunch of different ways. There's like the metaphorical fight we win because by fighting, we live our best lives and we show to ourselves that we're not pushovers. And that does matter. And that is important to me personally. But we also, when we fight, we win because even when we lose, when we go down fighting, we make it so much harder for the next time that the state wants to do something terrible. I think about this all the time about like, I don't know, when people say horrible words to me on the street, when I was like a street kid wearing a dress, right? And I would try to scare them. I'm going to go with that.

54:36 I'll just leave it at that. I would respond strongly when people would harass me on the street. And I knew that that could end badly for me, right? But I wanted the person who harassed me to fucking think twice before the time the next time they harass somebody. And like, So even when we lose these fights by saying, it's like not going along with them when they arrest you, making them carry you. It's like they're not going to not arrest you because they have to carry you. But you can fucking make it such a pain in the ass that they know that they're not going to be able to come in and arrest people until they fucking work at it and they have like all of their shit together, you know? Which is funny because I don't

55:21 even know why I'm talking about this because y'all did warn Water Creek. You protected a chunk of forest that would have been destroyed. Anyway.

55:29 But I think it's important to note because you don't a lot, like, you know, I've been doing activism for 30 years and I'm lucky that I've been involved in some campaigns where we won, but I've also been involved in a lot of campaigns where we didn't win. And you just, in my mind, you just have to keep going.

55:49 Things do build on each other and we learn a lot from each other.

55:53 Yeah. Yeah.

55:54 Well, if people want to, I don't know, what should we, what should we, what do you want to plug?

55:59 So, yeah, a couple things that I'd like to plug is when I'm talking about all of these really horrendous things that are coming down the pike right now, a good way to get educated about them and to also like find out how you can get involved and take action is the Force Over Fascists dot org website. That's fascist with an S, the word that's hard for me to say. You can watch Pickaxe, which is the documentary about Warner Creek on the Crimethink website. The Earth First Journal.

56:30 I don't have the website in front of me, but I'm sure you can find it. There's online articles and you can also subscribe and get an actual paper.

56:40 What is it called?

56:40 Magazine.

56:41 Yeah, yeah.

56:41 Yeah. I do want to remind people to check out what's happening on the border with the low-keel tree set and the ongoing campaign to stop the border wall, rally.forthevalley and tiaralibre underscore no borders on Instagram. And then also I mentioned earlier on, one of those early Earth Firsters that was on the participatory committee now has an organization called Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology. Their website is FUSE, F-U-S-E-E dot org. And you can find them at FUSE Fire. And then the organization that I work for that is a super grassroots, small organization, but that is an alliance of over 100 groups is the Forest Climate Alliance dot org. And you can follow us at P-N-W-F-A Alliance. And yeah, I think there's so much stuff

57:44 for people to check out. But I think that'll get people started.

57:47 Hell yeah. I want to plug organizing in person. I'm an introvert. I don't like people. I don't like leaving my house. Organizing in person is still better. Whenever people are like, oh, I'm an introvert, that's why I don't do it. I'm like, nope, it's not going to fucking work on me. I like to spend a lot of my life living fucking alone in the woods. And it's still important. And My latest zine is called The Folk Tales of the Lowlands of Sakan, which I always name my thing so memorably. And it is a super fancy zine.

58:19 It is from Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, which is an anarchist collective that puts out stuff all the time, including a bunch of podcasts, not this one. And you can check it out at tangledwilderness.org and you can pre-order that zine. It should be up by the time this comes out, I hope. And take care of each other.

58:37 Fuck ICE, pre-Palestine. None of us are free until everyone's free. All of those maxims that are both cliche and true. Bye, everyone.

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