Eugene Community Blockades Sierra Pacific Mill in Protest of Public Lands Logging

Report on recent logging blockade in protest of the logging of public lands in so-called Eugene, Oregon.

Dozens of community members and forest defenders rallied at the Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI) mill in West Eugene as four activists locked themselves together, risking arrest and effectively blocking the entrance to the mill and disrupting operations to protest the corporation’s public lands logging. The protest was organized in opposition to SPI’s purchase of contracts to log the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) “N126” mature and old growth timber sale. Logging is moving forward even as the Biden administration is considering rulemaking to create further protections for mature and old growth forests on federal lands.

“We are here to shut down operations,” said Deb McGee, one of the protestors who risked arrest. “We want to make sure that the owners of Sierra Pacific hear loud and clear that we will not stand for a big out of state corporation to come into our community and start clearcutting our carbon-rich forest lands.”

The BLM project is set to commercially log over 25,000 acres in 30-130 year old Late-Successional Reserve (LSR) forests, which are specifically set aside for spotted owl habitat and old growth characteristics under the Northwest Forest Plan. The BLM claims that the forest within this sale is made up of mostly homogeneous stands in need of commercial thinning, but onsite visits by local community members and activists have found significant portions of the sale are dynamic old growth and mature forest ecosystems.

“Even as the Biden Administration is working to reform industrial logging practices on federal lands, the Bureau of Land Management and Sierra Pacific Industries are moving forward with massive clearcut logging projects on public forests,” said Malcolm Rand, an organizer with local forest defense organization WRENCH. “If we are to have any hope of mitigating the climate crisis, protecting the water that we drink and the air that we breathe, we must stop these reckless projects immediately.”

Protestors are disrupting operations at the SPI mill, highlighting the corporation’s lead role in ecological destruction across the country. The SPI founder Archie Aldis “Red” Emmerson is the single largest private landowner in the United States. The corporation also recently announced plans to almost double the capacity of the Eugene facility, which would make it one of the largest mills in the country.

“The N126 logging project goes too far and risks heavy impacts on our local drinking water and wildlife” said Jason Gonzales, who lives in Walton with his wife and children. “Our land, like all of our neighbors, is directly connected to the forests threatened by this project. When the BLM came to Walton and asked for our input in 2018, we made it clear as a community that we did not want to see mature and old growth forests being cut, and that we strongly opposed any clearcutting. Now we see both of these things and the BLM is auctioning off thriving forests to a multi-million dollar out-of-state corporation.”

This protest comes just days after dozens of community members and forest defenders gathered in the N126 project to demonstrate their opposition towards the N126 logging projects. Community members blocked access to roads leading into the Walker Point sale, a parcel of the larger N126 project which was auctioned last Thursday, June 29.