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18 tree sitters refuse to budge in California
By RON HARRIS, Associated Press
(Published Saturday, March 15, 2003, 8:13 AM)
EUREKA, Calif. (AP) - Eighteen tree sitters continued Friday to defy a court's deadline to come down from their perches, clutching cell phones and two-way radios to warn each other in case a lumber company made good on its vow to take them down.
Pacific Lumber Co., which owns the land the redwoods are on, was trying to figure out the safest way to bring the activists down, spokeswoman Mary Bullwinkel said. The company has in the past hired contractors to climb up and force activists down.
It's a delicate situation, given that the activists are on small platforms more than 100 feet up. Some platforms are connected with horizontal ropes to provide high-altitude escape routes from tree to tree.
Pacific Lumber served the tree sitters with a temporary restraining order Wednesday afternoon, giving them 24 hours to comply. But the sitters didn't budge, insisting that the ecology of the region was at stake.
"The consequences to the whole community are so much greater than any consequences I might suffer," said a young woman from Michigan who goes by the name Remedy.
She is approaching her one-year anniversary in a large redwood on part of more than 200,000 acres of forest the logging company owns.
Tactics used by hired climbers to force tree sitters down include bending back arms or fingers. Such methods have prompted at least one lawsuit, by a sitter who said he couldn't use his thumb for months afterward.
The company says the tree sitters are trespassing on private property, blocking roads and interfering with its ability to log.
By RON HARRIS, Associated Press
(Published Saturday, March 15, 2003, 8:13 AM)
EUREKA, Calif. (AP) - Eighteen tree sitters continued Friday to defy a court's deadline to come down from their perches, clutching cell phones and two-way radios to warn each other in case a lumber company made good on its vow to take them down.
Pacific Lumber Co., which owns the land the redwoods are on, was trying to figure out the safest way to bring the activists down, spokeswoman Mary Bullwinkel said. The company has in the past hired contractors to climb up and force activists down.
It's a delicate situation, given that the activists are on small platforms more than 100 feet up. Some platforms are connected with horizontal ropes to provide high-altitude escape routes from tree to tree.
Pacific Lumber served the tree sitters with a temporary restraining order Wednesday afternoon, giving them 24 hours to comply. But the sitters didn't budge, insisting that the ecology of the region was at stake.
"The consequences to the whole community are so much greater than any consequences I might suffer," said a young woman from Michigan who goes by the name Remedy.
She is approaching her one-year anniversary in a large redwood on part of more than 200,000 acres of forest the logging company owns.
Tactics used by hired climbers to force tree sitters down include bending back arms or fingers. Such methods have prompted at least one lawsuit, by a sitter who said he couldn't use his thumb for months afterward.
The company says the tree sitters are trespassing on private property, blocking roads and interfering with its ability to log.