This Land Is Whose Land?

0 Comments | Insight on the News, July 23, 2001 | by John Elvin

A tip of the hat to reader Janet Johnston of Willow Creek, Calif., for updating us on radical-environmentalist activities in the Northern California timberlands. Among articles she sent along from the local press is one assuring readers that sheriff's deputies are not really chasing Earth First protesters off of cliffs just because they are blocking logging operations on private land and interfering with the work of ranchers and other productive citizens.

The protesters say that the logging operations will harm salmon and other wildlife and that resulting erosion poses a threat to the Mattole River. Despite restraining orders from local courts, protesters have occupied a huge tract of private land in Humboldt County and declared the area a "free state." As things stood at the time of the report Johnston sent in, landowner Pacific Lumber could not get to its own land to do a required environmental survey because protesters had blocked roads with junk cars and debris.

There were reports that the invaders had made threats to logging-company personnel, an accusation they denied. Various acts of serious vandalism have been documented, and at least 17 arrests have been made.

The courts have declared the protesters just a tad misguided in their interpretation of how land is acquired in these United States. Just as the days are long gone when land could just be grabbed up to be held against all comers, so too is it not yet legal blatantly to grab private property in the name of environmental socialism.

Johnston, who says she became an Insight reader after her mother bought a subscription for her, thinks others should know "why it's so expensive to build homes. Maybe when all houses are built out of plastic or straw, the country will wake up to these very extreme people."

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