The local grass roots movement to End Clearcutting in Josephine County is growing. We have had many people reaching out through the website, in person, and by email. A few people are pursuing threads of their own with the intention of sharing what they learn and adding to the concerted effort of this campaign. We have given the campaign a name and a mantra, calling it the “Save the Trees” or more completely the “Save the Trees cuz Trees Save Me” campaign of Josephine County. I did additional artwork for a campaign sign, leveraging the Pesticide symbol from the previous flyer as the centerpiece, and you’ll start seeing these around the valley soon. The artwork is common property and is held at the Bigfoot Print Shop for anyone to print any size and on any medium. For example, one person is having them printed as 12” x 18” car door magnets, and we will be working on a bumper sticker next. If you have any ideas of your own, Bigfoot can print it for you!

I have had some resistance from local businesses not wanting to display the campaign signs, concerned about taking sides, but I am hopeful that will change to some degree. It brings up a great clarifying point about this campaign. This is not about choosing sides between Republican or Democrat, Treehugger or Logger, Pot Grower or Conscientious Objector: it is about Community against Corporation. As I said in my radio interview with my declaration to John Hancock, this is not even necessarily about going against a corporation, if the corporations can evolve to care for the small communities where they are doing business, instead of just making a killing. Things have to change with the ongoing collapse of society and the climate. Through our struggle to survive and thrive, we will force them too.

Now, to talk about what is being done. One of the biggest parts of the campaign is to create a national media event. I had originally announced that this event would happen April 11th, but we have pushed it back a few weeks. The urgency of the situation can provoke powerful dreams and inspired action, but the key is to harness that energy into a rational, intelligent, and developed plan to be more potent and effective. So, there will first be a fundraiser event on the Sunday of Earth Day weekend (April 24th) to raise funds and awareness for the bigger event in mid-May. Details for the fundraiser will follow at the end of this week. In the meantime, the anxiety is building as trucks continue to roll out of here with our valley’s trees, beeps resonate along the airwaves, jake brakes holler down the hills, and hillsides continue to vanish. Positive steps, even small ones, can help alleviate some of this anxiety as well as lead to faith that we, as a united group, can accomplish what we have set out to do. Here is a list of starter actions EVERYONE CAN DO RIGHT NOW:

• Sign the new petition and get signatures. We will be setting up petition spots at businesses in town, starting this week. Also, you can view and print the petition and accompanying leaflet from our website (if you want to share the petition, the leaflet has great talking points as to the terribleness of clearcutting). Once you fill it up with signatures, you can mail it back to the P.O. Box listed. And, we will have the petition at various local events, including the upcoming Guild Opening (this Sunday, April 10th), and at the first Farmer’s Market (Friday, April 15th). And, you can sign the petition online at change.org – and please share the link with everyone you can!
• Print a sign and put it up if you have a spot with good visibility. I had 33 campaign signs printed by Bridgeviw Press, through Bigfoot Print, and if you have a great spot and can care for the sign, please let me know (reply to this email). If we run out, then we can take orders for more and print another batch. The one sign design can show solidarity, but other homemade signs also could show creativity and independent initiative – which are both hard for corporations to control!
• Stop buying lumber from the building supply or any other retailer. All lumber in the stores is from clearcuts somewhere, even if it’s FSC certified. If anyone has a source of lumber that is not, share with us and anyone you know. Ask the building supply to start working on finding a not just FSC certified but that is guaranteed to come from selective cuts and from local businesses where possible. I can tell you right now, that the lumber industry has already pre-empted the ability of a consumer boycott by having exclusive rights to the stamp of approval/certification for construction to code. So, you’ll have to be willing to build without this guarantee and with alternative materials, or for the time being put your building plans on hold. Remember this is just one small part of the plan, largely for building awareness, but all efforts added together at one time are what will make this campaign successful and will make personal inconveniences worth it.
• Make sure you are not funding John Hancock. If you have a stock portfolio, make sure John Hancock is not in it (nor any of the other names Hancock uses for their forestry operations, including Chinook Silva, HTFF, and TTG), and if they are, then divest! And when you do, make sure to tell your broker why. If you are paying for life insurance, make sure you are not paying John Hancock, and if you are, sell it and pay somebody else for life insurance! Tell your friends and family, too – send them some photos you took, or our website, or this newsletter. And if you do divest, please let us know that you did, so we can compile some results.
• You can help with the organizing of the upcoming fundraiser. We are planning on music, speakers, food, and a raffle. If you could contribute to any of these, or want to volunteer for helping during the event, please reply to this email, or to our New Events Coordinator, Shannon. The goal of the event is to grow the movement and raise big funds for a big event in May.
• Take and share pictures and videos along with your heartfelt thoughts about what is going on here in our valley. Make use of all that social media stuff, and remember to do it with class and warmth. Always uphold a higher moral stance then the enemy!

Other News

We have recently been officially added as a member of the Pacific Northwest Forest Climate Alliance. Please check out their website to get a summary of what the Alliance is all about. We now have access to the PNWFCA listserv which gives us the opportunity to publicize our action events across the state and beyond, and to reach out for support. We can also participate in working groups such as the one researching Hancock and other major REIT/TIMOs that operate in the state. We have access to a shared Google Drive that has documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc. relevant to the work of the alliance. We can and will add to this drive and use it to share our work as well.

There is also an Earth Day event on Saturday April 21st in Williams, hosted by our friends at the Williams Community Forest Project. Visit the Williams Community Forest Website for details on their event.

We have a small start to developing a “personal damages” arm of the campaign. One I.V. resident has reached out to Beyond Toxics in Eugene (see their website for info), and they voiced a willingness to come and see what we have going on here in the Illinois Valley. There is a great deal of work to do on this end, so if you have an interest in this angle (cancer clusters? Other herbicide harms? Lawsuit potential!), please contact us so we can start forming a working group in this realm.

I will be presenting some of my photos of clearcuts, and a short video, at the opening event for the Southern Oregon Guild of Artists and Artisans, Sunday April 10th at the Kerby Belt Building. Please do attend if you’d like to see more about the clearcuts going on around here, or if you’d like a chance to sign the petition.

And, KXCJ interviewed me about the campaign and aired it this past week, if you missed and wanted to find it, it’s here.

On the Solution and Alternative fronts, we are in the brainstorming stage of forming a worker-owned forestry company, called Sasquatch Woods Workers, to focus on purchasing logged over land and cleaning up, restoring, and healing it. We are looking for those interested in this work as well as those interested in buying woodlands themselves, to become founding members of the group. I have been in consultation with experienced professionals in this field (and I worked as a member of such a cooperative when we used to live in Washington). As well, I plan on contacting Land Trust companies as the lands purchased will be done so with a Working Woodland Easement, and timbered portions may earn money through credits in the Carbon Credit market. This is the hopeful, visionary side of the work to stop Hancock and to acquire some of their lands.

Finally, I want invite everyone to jump in and help Sasquatch Woods People grow and make this effort a success. If you have ideas to contribute or want to help with any of the ideas above, let us know! Call me, email me, and flag me down in town if you have something to say, especially if you want to help with a concerted effort with a focus on unity, on being respectful and kind, and with great care for “saving the trees”. Thank you for your time, please give more if you can, and keep hope alive that we can make this place great and continue to call it home.