Feller bunchers carve through the largest remaining roadless area left in the lower 48 states while taxpayers foot the bill to the tune of $6 million. Wilderness defenders who sit in the road to block equipment are sentenced to 30 days in jail and $1000 fines. US Forest Service special agent Merkeley convenes his third Grand Jury Investigation to "get" Earth First!. Highland Enterprises, the logging road contractor files a SLAPP suit against Earth First!; Wild Rockies EF!; the EF! Direct Action Fund; the EF! Journal; the Ancient Forest Bus Brigade; the Ecology Center (of Missoula, Mt); 33 activists, 1-100 Jane Does; and 1-100 John Does for upwards of half a million dollars. The judge rules all the "associations" in default for not appearing and orders them to pay up even though they were never even served with any papers. WELCOME TO IDAHO.
As a veteran organizer of Redwood Summer I thought I was prepared for what wilderness defenders would face in the campaign to protect the Cove/Mallard areas. The scope of the logistics alone would daunt most. Don't stop in any town within 175 miles of base camp, they won't sell you food or gas and you are likely to be beat up and/or your vehicle destroyed with rocks. Watch out for ambushes going in to base camp. Be prepared for a face full of pepper mace and some mighty rough law enforcement if you do CD. Everybody leave the camp before hunting season because the word is out that is when they are going to kill the Earth First!ers. If you are stopped for a broken taillight you will get a ticket calling for a mandatory court appearance in Boise, 250 miles away.
The winter snowfall starts in early September, and since a Forest Service raid on the private land used for the camp took every shovel, saw, nail, hatchet and homesteading tool there isn't enough time to prepare for the weather. But enough of my whining, despite these and many more problems activists are prepared to be there in '94, once again slowing down the destruction of the biggest piece left folks, and they need our support.
Lewis and Clark called this place too wild for humans and detoured around it, it is a land where the wolf, the wolverine, and numerous threatened species of plants and animals are making their last stand. The Cove/Mallard project involves over 200 clearcuts and 145 miles of roads which would damage every major drainage in this, the heart of the Salmon-Selway.
The Salmon-Selway roadless areas cover much of central Idaho. From the Gospel Hump Wilderness in the west, the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness in the southeast, and the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness in the northeast, it is a chunk of wild nature we cannot give up. The Cove/Mallard project carves through an unprotected corridor of the Salmon-Selway, cutting off Gospel Hump from the whole.
This destruction is another welfare scam for the timber beast. They profit on the trees and the taxpayer pays all their costs. The gravely, granite particle soil (balolith) is difficult for trees to grow on, it takes eons to produce a forest, and consequently regrowth will be very slow, if at all. Balolith soil is extremely unstable when the vegetation cover is removed. The damage to the Wild and Scenic Salmon River will be a disaster.
Why, you may ask, was this important corridor up for grabs? Seems that the Sierra Club compromised it away when making a deal for protection of other areas! Guess they didn't bother to consult with the local fauna.
No compromise in defense of Mother Earth, EARTH FIRST!
Send money, (live) bodies, or friendly lawyers to:
Cove/Mallard Campaign
PO Box 8968
Moscow, ID 83843
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 2004
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited