Forest Activists Crash Timber Baron Conference

Author: Independent Media Center

Topic: Articles

Forest Activists Crash Timber Baron Conference

Friday, November 8, was the opening day of the 110th annual conference of the North American Wholesale Lumber Association (NAWLA) in Dallas, Texas. Member companies of NAWLA log old-growth forests in the United States and around the world, despite popular disapproval of such practices, and have been called "North America's real ecoterrorists" for doing so. The conference was joyfully disrupted by forest activists from Texas and Cascadia, who hung a banner from the seventh story of the hotel's atrium, and then crashed a fancy luncheon with "a twelve-piece revolutionary marching band", where they threw sawdust in the air and leafletted. Outside the hotel, bridges, boxes and billboards were plastered with poster-sized wheatpastes declaring, "NAWLA = Blood Timber". One forest defender said, "There is no reason to believe the action this round is over yet." Stay tuned.

[ Dallas / North Texas IMC | Timber Execs Stunned by Cocktail Disruption | A Message to Timber Barons ]

Inside: Three 300 square foot giant screens rapidly repeat an image of four two-by-fours spit from a revolving circular saw blade while the letters "N A W L A" flash. A couple thousand mostly white guys who create huge profit from genocidal, ancient forest and public lands logging sip drinks underneath.

Outside: A loaded van and car pull up to the Wyndham-Anatole Hotel 150 feet from lobby door to the Chantilly Ballroom. Sixteen from Cascadia, Austin, Dallas and Forth Worth exit sprinting as the waiting guard radios to form quickly the private security and Dallas cop cordon.

Inside: Boise, Roseburg Forest Products (RFP), North-Pacific Group (NORPAC) and Arauco sponsor, buy, sell, and profit with a 650 member $30 billion annual trade association. The first of the two-day trading floor has closed in multi-million dollar deals leaving more indigenous cultures and species extincted.

Outside In: At full speed they hit the line, some entering the shocked cocktails, some dumped and held hard. Like Red Rover for reals the rage and love of the earth and her gentle first people fueling a militant expression of business isn't as usual anymore.

Inside: Boise knows universities like Notre Dame have cancelled office products contracts. RFP knows people treesit, lock down and *censored* shit up in forests it wants to and is cutting. NORPAC admits nearly half their profit is drained from endangered forests. Arauco knows damn well it traffics in blood timber with the continued genocide of some of the Americas' last indigenous cultures.

Outside Out: A puff of sawdust decorates timber barons as two women who made it all the way in shout at the red-faced disruption. One-by-one the forest defenders are jostled to the front door but refuse to leave the premises until all are free to go together. Throughout, both executives and cops are forced to really hear their role in ecocide and genocide. Three corpos whisper to a severely tackled man standing for life, "Nice Job" as he's led out last. A female cop cries hearing about the Mapuche of Chile. The 16 circle, give thanks and leave the hotel lot.

It was a level of militant action rare coast-to-coast, not to mention Texas. Bumps and sprains were small price for the message sent by bodies flying into the security apparatus put in place to protect many of North America's real ecoterrorists. Most importantly the suits were seriously tweeked by the intensity of power arrayed against them. Bottom lines are now under real threat and it shows when clandestine activists ride the elevators or overhear coffee talk.

Earlier a shitstorm of action included banner, band, Buddha and break-in attempt. A robed Sister of the Revolution bowed and offered at the stolen treasures of Asian cultures that serve as decoration at the hotel. The world's most valuable art collection by a hotel.

The Rainforest Action Network led an indoor billboard act of creation with "Boise and NAWLA: Lumbering to Extinction" sporting a silhouetted clearcut. Boise has renamed (Boise Cascade) but remains the largest public lands logger and the money behind horror stories in former forests around the planet.

A revolutionary marching band entered the lobby with drums, whistles and flags singing and dancing. More than 1000 NAWLA members were transfixed while waiting for the RFP-sponsored luncheon. Some even mistake the band as a legitimate part f the festivities. That is, until they saw the "Allyn Ford is an ecocidal maniac" flag. For about $16,000 Umpqua Bank Board Chair and RFP owner Allyn Ford got his expanding corporate logo on the Grand Opening meal. He also got 12 people in line flyering, screaming and deploying two high pitched 120 decibel screamers. Clearly an inadequate response to a man simultaneously logging three public lands ancient forest timber sales Those sales include land near the Warner Creek burn defended since arson in 1991 and de facto wilderness in the Wolf Mountain Roadless Area in the Willamette National Forest.

They also include the Peak timber sale in the Rogue River National Forest where a large resurgence of southern Oregon direct action is in flower. See attached story. This man is now buying mills in Montana and must be stopped!

Outside NAWLA members find bridges, boxes and billboards plastered with poster-sized wheatpastes declaring, "NAWLA = Blood Timber" and "Arauco = Blood Timber." Arauco is attending this year's market to sell genocidal pine. They create the market incentive to steal indigenous land and cut and burn the ancient temperate rainforest in Chile(one-third of what's left in the world). Local mills can't work the big trees so they are destroyed to make way for a California pine species that is planted as plantation.

As if all this wasn�t enough to ruin hundreds of corporate days, a major national lumber retailer, BMC West had a warehouse stickered and shut down after a meeting with management. Witness yet another company learning the hard way that this movement will not back down in the face of such hideous oppression.

There is no reason to believe the action this round is over yet. It is also not clear how many solidarity actions happened around Texas and around the country today. Watch here for details as they develop.