Treesitter Injured

It is to bad so many people are upset by this topic, it seems as if it alright if we don't talk about it attitude. I am proud when I rappel look up and see the tree swaying in the wind after cutting out all the dead and diseased branches. You'll know that feeling.
 
I think that I've probably asked this before, but this is a place to ask...

How many have read "The Monkey Wrench Gang", "Hayduke Lives" or "Desert Solitaire" by Edward Abbey? Great adventures and wonderful reading. Abbey has been called a modern-day Thoreau. Not a bad comparison but not quite accurate. Thoreau was probably one of the first American environmental writers. Wrote about humans part in nature. Abbey has continued that idea but wrote about humans effect on nature. Most times, Abbey observed bad effects.

Abbey pointed out to me that there is no such thing as comprimise when it comes to dealing with nature. Comprimise is a give and take. A good example is for road building. If there were comprimise, then for every mile of road built or improved in wild areas, there would be one abandoned. That is never the case. The "comprimise" is to request twenty miles of road and "settle" for fifteen. That's not comprimise, that's capitulation. We, Americans, have comprimised the greatest amount of old-growth timber lands. Why can't we leave the last tiny bit? What, do we have maybe 10% of the original old-growth left? In the East it was gone long ago. Now we fight to preserve second growth or some definition of natural areas from the encroachment of urban sprawl.

This discussion has been long and well written. I'm pretty pleased with how people have taken the time to write well-thought replies. Sure, a little off the track for hardcore arborist related discusssions. As long as things don't start to become garbage-mouthed, keep going. If something can't be said face to face without a fear of getting a knuckle sandwich, then it shouldn't be written here. Unless I missed something, it seems like no one is risking a punch in the nose.

Tom
 
Hi Tom,

I've read all three Abbey books you mention, and you (and Abbey) are right. According to the Native Forest Council, there is less than 5% of original forest in the US that was here when Columbus arrived. California has 3% or less of it's old-growth trees. It is long past time to compromise. We are already compromised.

Attached is a picture of three maps of the US depicting forested areas. The first is from 1620, and the final is (roughly) present.

I think it's been a wonderful discussion so far;)

Remedy

"Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky,
We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness."
- Kahlil Gibran
 

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Re: Ed Abbey

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How many have read "The Monkey Wrench Gang", "Hayduke Lives" or "Desert Solitaire" by Edward Abbey?

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Tom, I've read all three, too. Abbey is an inspiration to those who love the natural world and wish to protect it.

- Robert
 
Mark,
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It would seem to me, be it right or wrong, that through these types of measures (fighting for their cause) sitters may also be endangering others as well.

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This is classic "blaming the victim"! If a protestor is acting non-violently and someone gets hurt trying to violently remove them - we should blame the protestor?

That's like saying those who sat-in at southern lunch counters to protest segregation should be responsible for the hurt knuckles of the southern crackers who pummelled them!

I think you need to clean the fog off your glasses!

- Robert
 
jon,
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I just don't think that sitting in trees is getting us where we need to be... Nothing is going to change... I just think that you sitters solution is a foolish one, and is perhaps helping feed the fire of resentment.

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This is exactly what was said about those sitting in at southern lunch counters and riding busses in mixed-race groups protesting segregated public facilities in the 50's. Didn't change anything, did it?

It brought attention to the issue and changed public perceptions and eventually changed the very culture of this nation.

Those who made those courageous and self-sacrificing stands (and I personally know some of them) are considered heros now, just as today's tree-sitters will be when we look back at those last few old trees still standing.

These tree sitters are protecting YOUR job and your way of life. You should be grateful, not critical.

- Robert
 
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I disagree with your analogy, but thanks for the analysis.

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Since the analogy I presented is as nearly perfect as an analogy can be, to say that you disagree - without offering any substantive critique of the analogy - is merely to say that you don't like the truth that the analogy presents and the fact that it undermines your prejudices.

- Robert
 
Rescuenut!

What the heck are you talking about! The only employment that these fools are "saving" for me, is the opportunity to get paid to yank them out of a tree and stand on their necks. If you had any idea about this industry at all, you might actually place an educated reply to the situation at hand on here.
I completely dissagree with your analysis, and don't care to have my opinions "corrected" by your ideals. If you want to state your thoughts, great! Don't try to tell me that mine are somehow less correct than yours because you are an ultra environmentalist and think that the rest of the world should be.
How does any of this pertain to the civil right movement?!?! Talk about getting off base! I am all for saving old growth, sitting in the dang things will only delay the inevitable! You have to change legislature and law. I can only imagine you and other extreme right wingers seeing these guys as heroes, I see them as bunch of people wasting time and trying to get recognized for it. They are changing/effecting NOTHING. The trees will still come down. Rediculous!
So, that is my opinion on the subject, your "corrections" of it, wont change a damn thing either. Go bark up a different tree.

Jon
 
The old growth treesitters have brought attention to the dwindling amount of original tree cover that is left in the US. Even though there is little original tree cover still standing, some of the wooded areas that have grown up since colonial times approach old growth vitality. Now, with urban expansion, those areas are under threat of removal. Drawing attention to the loss of wooded coverage is good as far as I'm concerned. Does it equate to the Civil Rights movement? Maybe not on a one to one ratio in the whole scheme of things. But saving trees is my passion. Its what I know and what drives me. That makes it important to me. Whenever I read about any preservation project I wonder what the world would be like without the preservation. There was a show about the oldest wooden roller coaster being restored. It was important enough to someone to put up the money to rebuild it. To me, not really that important. Saving a historical baseball stadium...to me...not important.

Learning about how others think about relating saving trees to arborculture is interesting. It's always nice to read a justification for making statements rather than the attacks going back and forth.
 
Jon,

I love how you say, all in the same post, that treesitters give you the employment opportunity to "yank them out of a tree and stand on their necks," and then question how "any of this pertain(s) to the civil right movement." What irony. Whatever your feelings about treesitters (or homosexuals, or people of color, or women), it would be a violation of that person's civil rights for you or anyone else to "stand on their neck."

I disagree that treesitters are changing and affecting nothing. We obviously inspire great emotional reactions in people. Some reactions are positive and some are violent, but regardless, we have inspired much discourse about the issues we are trying to draw attention to, and that is part of the point. If it would be better for no one to pay us any mind, I would suggest stopping the practice of sending teams (gangs?) of men to force the treesitters down and then cutting down the giant trees while the cameras are still there, rolling. Treesitters wouldn't get near as much attention if timber corporations, the forest (dis)service and the cops wouldn't react with such ridiculous amounts of force. Old-growth trees are being cut down every day, and most of them get zero attention from a public too pre-occupied with what's on "reality" tv. The same would have happened to the old-growth redwoods that treesitters were occupying in the spring of 2003, but instead, here we are, still talking about it. Lots of old-growth has been cut since then, but the issue continues to be pushed into the public mind.

There are people working on changing the laws regarding old-growth logging. Senate Bill 754, the Heritage Tree Preservation Act, would save a small number of old-growth trees on non-federal lands in California, including the ones currently occupied by treesitters. This bill has slowly been making it's way through the legislative process since 2000. Should it pass, people can stop sitting in trees (in California) and get to work on other important issues.

Remedy
 
Well, I guess I have little choice here but to offer a more “substantive” reply.

First, I’d like to say that I respect you for the information that you’ve gathered within your industry and share with us here. I have grown to like your replies in that they offer knowledge from a different realm of the vertical world than most of us are used to. You also have walked the earth longer than I have and in doing so, must have seen and learned more than myself.

My short response was meant to merely say that I didn’t agree with your analogy, but I respect your opinion so I won’t say anything else. I was also hoping to avoid a long debate on a topic that has no end point. I never used the words “I” or “my” in my original post either. I wasn’t displaying my personal opinion, just an alternate opinion. That’s all.

It seems like your looking for a debate with me on this topic. I, however, do not feel qualified to do so. And from what you have offered in your posts (reading three books) I question your ability to do so as well. I have an “East Coast” perception of the struggles between the groups. I have limited first hand experience.

That being said, I will tell you that I was pleasantly surprised when I did visit the Redwood areas of CA. Watching the news and hearing mainly environmentalists views, I thought that there were maybe three large Redwoods left. Not so at all. In fact, Save The Redwoods League advertises that they have protected over 165,000 acres of forestlands containing Redwoods. Humboldt Redwoods State Park has 53,000 acres that protects over 17,000 acres of old growth. That’s only the beginning.

What I disagree with about your post is how you say that tree-sitters are victims. They are protestors and maybe activists, but how are they victims? They are taking a stance to try to make a change in something they are passionate about.

I also disagree with your analogy because I don’t think that people protesting human rights that were victimized can be put on the same level as protesters trying to save trees. I love trees, and I hope that we never see the day that the mighty Redwoods are no longer around, but I still feel that a human life is much more valuable than that of a tree. Sorry, but the struggles to me are not the same. Nor are the actions of either side- a far cry from a “perfect” analogy.

I think that a better analogy would be the similarity in the tone of your last posts and that of a parent who feels that their superiority to their children allows them to get away with the reasoning of simply “because I said so”.

I am now wondering where you have obtained the perception of me as having “prejudices” about anything?

Now, there’s a long post. Does that mean that I am any less wrong to you? I would think that this topic is better debated amongst those who actually have first hand knowledge of the subject rather than the two of us.
 
Oh my goodness!

Now I am racist, sexist and a homophob because I think that tree sitting is pointless?!?!? You all are nuts! I can't believe it. I already agreed with what you want as an end result, I just find your means rediculous. I too, would love to have no more old growth cut down, and would like to see the US promote old growth in the same way the most of Europe does today.
As to the "yank" and "stand on their necks" part, that was a reference to your original post, which is what you said had happened over there in flower power land during one of your long and in the end, meaningless tree sitting campaigns. This was also pointed as a reply to RescueBoy's "Keeping you employed" statement. Well, by my qualifications as an Arborist and Climber Specialist, that IS the only part of that particular statement that he made which I AM qualified to do for money/gainfull employment.
I still see no similarity to the civil rights movement, where people took the issue out to the masses, and someone chomping on trail mix up in a tree! I guess it get's SOME attention, but as I said before, I think it tends to make you guys look like a bunch of loons rather than actually help the situation. Are you sure that that is really the kind of attention that you are looking for?
I truely do hope that Bill 757 gets passed, I am all for it. That is the way to do it though! NOT SITTING AROUND ON YOUR BUTT OR A ROPE IN A TREE FOR 361 DAYS! Do you really think that you are the reason that this bill might go through? No, it is because people CARE about it. People like me who tend to find tree sitters as a bunch of loons but go out anyway and try to do the right thing. But that's okay, I am out in the public, educating people about their trees in a more profesional way and helping to try to get rid of the rather embarrasing reputation that you are giving the rest of us that have to work, sweat and bleed for a living. Not only that, but I am getting paid for doing it, rather than living off your taxes. Enjoy the granola.
By the way, great reply Mr. Chisolm. I wish I were as eloquent, words have never been my best medium. I really liked your reply.
 
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What I disagree with about your post is how you say that tree-sitters are victims. They are protestors and maybe activists, but how are they victims?

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Mark,

What do you call someone who is involved in a non-violent activity and is assaulted (even killed) by those hired to terminate his/her activity? By any conventional standard, that person is a victim.

However, I didn't use that term because those who take a stand of non-violent resistance to injustice must be willing to absorb the violence of others and, in that sense, they have placed themselves in danger's way - not inviting danger, but being willing to absorb it to make it even more clear who is on the side of justice and who is on the side of injustice.

In the same way, Ghandi organized Indians to sit in front of British guns and be willing to absorb their imperial violence in order to change hearts and minds. And, in the same way, those who participated in the sit-ins and freedom rides down south were also willing to become victims of violence in order to draw attention to the violence inherent in racism.

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I also disagree with your analogy because I don’t think that people protesting human rights that were victimized [your word] can be put on the same level as protesters trying to save trees.

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I understand your perception, but it is based on an unsustainable specie-centrism which places humankind above all other lifeforms. The redwoods were here long before humans and will hopefully survive us as well. But Redwoods (and all other species) can survive without humans - humans cannot survive without the other species, particularly the trees which replenish the oxygen, cycle the water into the sky, form the humus which allows other growth, shelters millions of species, and stores excess carbon to keep the climate in homeostasis.

For millions of years, humans understood that we were but a small part of the balance of life on Earth and did our part to maintain that balance. It is only in the last moment of the history of life on Earth that humans have developed the hubris to believe that they were top dog and had the right to exploit the rest of the ecosphere for their own use (and this moment began with the monotheisms that we call religion but are really just a manifestation of our prideful arrogance and ignorance).

In the context of the broader story of Creation, the life of an ancient redwood is more important than the civil rights of a tiny percentage of humans living in one very young and immature country. So if my analogy fails, it is because the civil rights struggle is but a footnote to the larger struggle of Life to exist on this fragile planet.

And, by the way, I've done a lot more than read three books. I've spent my entire adult life committed to defending and protecting the Creator's great work of art, both human and non-human. I am nothing more than a servant of God, and if we all understood that to be our purpose on Earth there would be no need to defend an ancient forest for no one would dare harm it.

- Robert
 
Jon,

I did not call you a racist or a homophobe, just pointing out that we all have rights to be free from assault regardless how others feel about us.

As far as the analogy comparing treesitting to the civil rights movement: the link between the two is non-violent civil disobedience. Civil disobedience has been an agent of celebrated change in US history, bringing attention to ills in society that need to be remedied. Someone earlier mentioned the Boston Tea Party which protested "taxation without representation." People have broken minor or unjust laws in protest for centuries. In the redwoods it's been happening since at least the 1920's.

Thank you for your suggestions on how to be a better activist. I'll add them to the list. But I think your insistent reiteration that treesitters are "munching granola" and are "hippies" (whatever that means) does nothing toward understanding and only prohibits real communication. Once the conversation is full of thoughtless generalizations, it's not even real anymore. You can copy-cat corporate timber propaganda all you want, but its very tired and overdone.

I don't think the argument is "trees vs. people" and who matters more. Resisting liquidation logging by an out of control corporation has everything to do with the rights of the people who live here. If a landslide that started on a logging road and clear-cut wipes out your house, or you have to be rescued by the coast guard in the middle of the night because the river can no longer hold it's banks due to excessive siltation, your rights are being discarded in favor of a corporation's bottom line. This is not humans vs. nature. Humans can't live without a healthy environment, and some humans do not have the right to destroy another human's health and safety by destroying their environment.

Remedy
 
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And, by the way, I've done a lot more than read three books. I've spent my entire adult life committed to defending and protecting the Creator's great work of art, both human and non-human. I am nothing more than a servant of God, and if we all understood that to be our purpose on Earth there would be no need to defend an ancient forest for no one would dare harm it.


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This is easy for me to agree with. You start to branch off a bit when you start to discuss the creationism thing, but I think I get it.

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What do you call someone who is involved in a non-violent activity and is assaulted (even killed) by those hired to terminate his/her activity? By any conventional standard, that person is a victim.

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I don't quite agree here (100%). Non-violent activity? Yes, sitting in a tree is non-violent. Illegal trespass which has a known result of forceful eviction may be (in itself)conceived as being violent. Now I don't think anyone should be assaulted here, but protesting on private property and causing an eviction (leagally) would be more violent than not. On the other hand, what if the eviction resulted in the death of the hired evictor? Who then is non-violent?

Has a tree sitter been killed by an evictor? I have never heard of this happening, but that would be pretty pointless.

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For millions of years, humans understood that we were but a small part of the balance of life on Earth and did our part to maintain that balance. It is only in the last moment of the history of life on Earth that humans have developed the hubris to believe that they were top dog and had the right to exploit the rest of the ecosphere for their own use (and this moment began with the monotheisms that we call religion but are really just a manifestation of our prideful arrogance and ignorance).


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What did the people in history do to help keep homeostasis? I think that technology has more to do with the damaging of mother earth than the lack of respect for it. Sure people get greedy, but what could prehistoric humans have done to negativly impact the ecosystem?

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But Redwoods (and all other species) can survive without humans - humans cannot survive without the other species

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Yes, but if we save one Redwood, where are we in the whole scheme of things. Humans may not be able to survive without trees and such, but trees can't end the human race on their own. If we don't change human perceptions, then trees may not exist. Humans can end the race of any living thing.

I am a christian, and being so I have been taught to value human life more than anything else-even trees which I love. I do not take loss of life(in general) lightly. I value all of God's creatures and also hope that the Redwoods (and especially all of the trees that I prune) survive me, but even still, humans have to come first to me.
 
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