The range of issues people work on through the MEC is broad. It includes logging, water and air quality, toxins, police conduct, court monitoring, human rights, animal rights, corporate control, development and land use, war resistance, environmental cleanup and restoration, ocean protection, race relations, immigrant rights and Native American rights.
The campaign to save Headwaters Forest has been a major project since shortly after the MEC opened in 1987. Currently, representatives of the Federal and State governments have struck a "deal" with Charles Hurwitz of Maxxam Corporation. Hurwitz acquired Pacific Lumber's 227,000 acres, including groves of ancient redwoods, through a hostile stock take-over financed by the sale of junk bonds from a savings and loan bank which subsequently failed, costing taxpayers $1.6 billion. He paid $850 million ten years ago for the company. He has taken $1.5 billion out of the forest in lumber and is currently looking to collect $480 million for less than 10,000 acres, thanks to this "deal." The rest of the 200,000+ acres is subject to logging and even clear-cutting, including habitat for endangered species. Despite the intent of the Endangered Species Act, it allows for a "habitat conservation plan" which permits destruction of critical nesting and habitat areas.
For more information about ongoing efforts to save Headwaters Forest or about other MEC activities and membership, call (707) 468-1660.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1998
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