Defending Mendocino’s Sacred Sites

Posted inClimate

The “Mendocino War” was a bloody conflict between the Yuki tribe and white settlers in Northern California. White settlers raided and stole Yuki lands and massacring hundreds of Yuki in the process. The Yuki fled to “The Mountain” in what is now known as the Jackson Demonstration State Forest to escape the violence. Those villages in the forest are now sacred sites to the Coastal Yuki and Northern Pomo tribes.

Listen in: https://apple.co/3elKNcQ

The state of California is allowing logging companies to log the 50,000 acre Jackson Forest for profit to finance CalFire’s operations fighting wildfires. Despite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s direction for California state agencies to co-manage state lands with local Native American tribes and seek opportunities to return State lands to Native American tribes, the Dept. of Natural Resources has only designated 75 acres as “sacred sites.”

Leslie James Pickering on the ELF, the Green Scare and “Burning Books”

Posted inClimate, Peoples' History

From the 1980s through the 2000s, there was a period of growth in militant environmental and animal rights movements. This movement had a radical anti-capitalist politic that went after corporations waging war on the earth, people and animals. It’s escalating tactics included property destruction and arson. In response, industry, government and the FBI worked to crack down on these radical movements.

Listen in: https://apple.co/3BCEs5X

This movement needed voices. Leslie James Pickering (@lesliejamespick) was one of a few that worked with the Earth Liberation Front Press (ELF) Office to communicate the message of the anonymous actors engaged in these strategies and tactics to the larger world.

Cascadia Forest Defense and the Climate Crisis

Posted inClimate, Direct Action, Uncategorized
pic via Cascadia Forest Defenders

“There is new crop of forest defense climate activists feeling a new sense of urgency that the traditional environmental advocacy isn’t doing it…”

— Daniel with Cascadia Forest Defenders

The Pacific Northwest has a long history of organizing and direct action around logging and timber industries. From the Wobblies trying to organize the logging sector in the early twentieth century to Earth First!’s campaigns to stop old growth logging to the new generation of forest defenders linking the struggle for wild places and communities to the climate crisis, direct action has always tried to get the goods.