December 19, 2011
Twenty-one years ago, the last decade of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st started with a bang. A loud and profound explosion, in fact, that reverberated throughout the redwood region and the nascent Headwaters Forest campaign. A pipe bomb planted under the seat in Judi Bari's car as we launched our Redwood Summer organizing campaign nearly killed her, injured Darryl Cherney, and suddenly landed us in challenging new territory, as we lunged forward from that pivotal moment into the 1990 chapter of the Headwaters Forest campaign.
As national attention focused on what came to be known as the "Timber Wars," we came together and formed a new coalition like no other. We came together to be larger and to find power; we came together because we had to; we came together without really knowing how we, as many, would put our foot forward as one. It was a grand experiment that helped form the landscape of grassroots earth activism on California's north coast today.
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This model of coalition building reflected a symbolism that was excruciatingly simple yet tangibly illustrative: Organizations that had their own small orbits joining to form the larger tree, rooted in the same cause of standing taller and wider, blocking the maniacal Maxxam machine, barreling through the ancient redwood forest, sharp saws a-blazing.
We were connected in purpose and in passion, but there was another thread connecting us--the biology of the forest itself. In the middle of it all, Dune Lankard came down from Alaska, requesting a meeting with the Headwaters campaign folks. We didn't know Dune at the time. He is E.D. of the Eyak Preservation Council in Cordova, and a commercial salmon fisherman who came to activism by way of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. At that meeting around a big table at the Hog Farm in Mendocino County, Dune presented his vision of a continuous forest stretching from his home in the wet spruce and cedar forests on the southern gulf coast of Alaska, down the Pacific coast, through the primeval Douglas-fir and redwood forests, surviving through ice ages for millions of years. It was a magical and inspirational moment of seeing the forest connection that strengthened our connectivity, like miccorhizal fungal threads.
The Coalition started with EPIC, several Earth First! chapters (Redwood Action Team, Ecotopia, Bay Area), and the Mendocino Environmental Center (MEC), then expanded to include Trees Foundation when it formed in 1991, Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters (BACH) when it formed in 1993, Voice of the Environment (VOTE), Sierra Club, Redwood Chapter, Forests Forever, Rose Foundation, and then later Salmon Forever, the Biodiversity Legal Program, Taxpayers for Headwaters, the Institute for Sustainable Forestry, Ancient Forests International, Environmentally Sound Promotions, the World Stewardship Institute, Communication Works, representatives from Rainforest Action Network and Greenpeace, and even opportunistic groups formed just to get in on the exciting game. We were quintessentially grassroots, low budget groups all, operating on a campaign playing field that now had a national profile and was beginning to attract funders. The larger groups like RAN, Greenpeace, and SC did not sign on as organizations, but sent representatives. It's a long list, but bear in mind many of the groups were comprised of only a handful of people and were mostly volunteer. Grassroots at its best.
The connection we formed in turn helped form the landscape of grassroots earth activism that thrives today on California's north coast. Moreover, the groups north of the redwood curtain were drawing from the tradition of a community built by people whose sense of place came, not from a background of generations on the land, but a fierce determination to do things better, more sustainable and more in sync with natural processes--the so-called back to the land movement of the 1970s.
The Headwaters Forest Coalition (formally the HWF Coordinating Committee) stood as a model of coalition building, despite its warts, because of its diversity of groups, its dizzying diversity of strategies employed, and its boldness. What also set us apart comprises a long list reflective of the unique nature of California coastal NGO's but began with the absence of large non-profits with national constituencies. We were not successful in our lofty (though biologically necessary) goals, but we tried--and we tried in innovative ways that re-invented the art of working together. And who knows? Had we not charted our course, we likely would not even have the 7,500-acre Headwaters Forest Reserve now in public hands, and we might still have Hurwitz wreaking havoc in our precious redwood forests.
Campaign strategies pursued included media campaigns, public education, direct action, litigation, organizing in the religious community, lobbying at the local, state and federal level all the way to the White House, pursuit of a Debt for Nature swap with strong legal foundation, shareholder organizing, a ballot initiative (that would have passed if not for a last-minute big budget Hill & Nolton PR campaign), an old-growth redwood market boycott, an alternative forest management plan (the aforementioned Stewardship Plan), alliances with labor, splashy ad campaigns in print and TV media, public outreach at events from major concerts to craft fairs to raves, video production, corporate campaigns, a pledge of resistance, mass rallies of thousands of people, and negotiation with state and federal leaders, including Bill Clinton. We even agreed on a common statement released as a document entitled This Is Our Stand, signed by nine organizations representing the gamut of strategies from tree-sitting and civil disobedience to cutting edge forestry law litigation. This was the Headwaters Forest Coordinating Committee.
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The grand experiment of coalition formation called the Headwaters Forest Coordinating Committee ultimately imploded. It imploded not because of strong personalities or diverse campaign strategies or the inability of litigants and locked-down tree-huggers to see common ground and work together. It imploded because of money--the root of so much that is wrong with our society and system. At least, this is my humble opinion. Major foundations offering funding to the Headwaters Forest campaign insisted on an infrastructure umbrella creating one recipient for campaign funds. It proved impossible for a scrappy grassroots effort that had been working virtually without major funding, but working well.
Nonetheless, the coalition work cemented many organizational relationships and shone a light on those dedicated to the long haul of preservation of biological integrity in this coastal corner of our blue-green planet. It is the foundation on which we built the house we operate from today. And we are smarter and stronger for it.
OK, fast-forward to November 2011. The Occupy Wall Street movement has spread across the U.S., with global significance. The diversity of people, organizing styles and organizations is breathtaking and unprecedented. I will not be so bold as to suggest we set the gold standard for building coalitions and developing common-ground messaging in the Headwaters Forest campaign, but when I look at the faces marching toward the port at Occupy Oakland's General Strike day, I see many who cut their activist teeth in the forest defense movement, mixing it up with the twenty-somethings teaching us all how to use the "people's mic." But I can only hope and believe that the foundation we built serves us in our march toward ecological sanity and justice.
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TOC for Forest & River News, Winter 2011