Save the Redwoods/Boycott the Gap
The Old Growth Redwood Stump is in New York!
Posted by Mary Pjerrou (pirohuck@mcn.org)
Friday, February 1, 2002
THEY’RE IN NEW YORK!
THE OLD GROWTH REDWOOD STUMP ARRIVES IN THE BIG APPLE! 5TH AVE. GAP PROTEST TODAY AT NOON!
New Yorkers today can see with their own eyes what the Fisher family of Gap, Inc. are doing to the nation's redwood forests. Forest activists Mary Bull, Mark Hilovsky and Rio Russell have driven a 5 1/2 foot wide, 200 year old growth redwood stump--logged by the Fishers of the Gap—3,000 miles all across the nation from California to New York City for protest actions beginning today, Feb. 1, at the Gap store at 680 5th Avenue at 54th, at 12 noon (and tomorrow, Sat., Feb. 2, in the anti-globalization march from Central Park SE to the Waldorf Astoria, at 12 noon.) The old growth redwood stump will be rolled on a dolly—it’s on wheels. Join the stump for songs, laughter and tears! Also tonight: Haitian sweatshop protest, 5 pm, 6th & 55th, and WEF Vigil, 6 pm, Washington Square Park!
"From the redwood fo-o-o-rest...to the New York island..."
These intrepid activists traveled America’s heartland through some of this winter’s worst weather, taking Interstate 80 from California to Reno to Utah—snow piled high and blowing—then on through Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, to reach the middle of Pennsylvania by Wednesday evening. The pickup truck carrying the old growth stump has four-wheeled drive and made it beautifully through the weather, non-stop to New York.
The activists gave numerous radio and newspaper interviews all along the way, bringing the news of the Fishers’ destruction of 235,000 acres of redwood forest in northern California to the entire country. It is a sorry tale of corporate callousness and greed. Regarding this particular old growth redwood stump: Local activists in the Albion River forest begged the Fishers’ logging company to leave this rare old tree for wildlife habitat. They refused! They cut it down anyway. Then they saw that the inside of the tree was too twisted and knotted to make good lumber, and left it to rot. They didn’t even want it!
Old rotting wood is not a bad thing in a forest—but living wildlife trees are very rare. The twisted, knobby kind of tree are the best for birds—and are critically needed by extremely endangered marbled murrelets and northern spotted owls. This last bit of habitat was lost forever. It will never be replaced. Corporate logging such as the Fishers are doing does not permit trees to grow to 5 1/2 feet in diameter. They whack them down at 16 INCHES diameter. And 5 1/2 feet is not that big for a redwood.
The coast redwood can grow to 20 FEET in diameter, 300 feet tall and 2,000 years of age! Our endangered species need those kinds of trees in a deep, dark forest. Corporate logging is why they are not surviving. There are not enough big trees.
The redwoods are a symbol of strength and resilience—and incomparable natural engineering! Just like most American immigrants, their roots are shallow but the roots are all linked together underground, creating a mighty network that supports an entire forest of 300 foot tall trees that have no taproot!
This old growth redwood stump symbolizes all of our losses to corporate greed. We are a nation cut down—not by terrorists (they don’t have that power!)--but by our own, home-grown corporate robber barons: Enron, Gap and the lot of them.
The Fishers could do the right thing: stop logging, and create a wildlife refuge where forest workers are employed in restoration, not further destruction. They have the power and wherewithal to do this. We think Gap customers can convince them! So far, no appeal to law or ethics has worked. As for the Gap’s use of sweatshop labor, Gap has refused to change their policy. They will not ensure a living wage for these workers; will not permit independent labor monitoring; and will not even disclose the locations of their sweatshops (in 55 countries around the globe).
As with Enron, we pay the price—in millions of lost jobs, loss of benefits, looted pension funds, destruction of small stockholders, looted and polluted natural resources, looting of our state and federal budgets, and a discredited democracy.
Here is the statement of the forest activists who have taken this symbol of our national life, this old growth redwood stump, to the streets of Manhattan:
"We are here to join our voices with those of thousands of people of conscience demanding global justice, democracy and a sustainable planet, and an end of ‘corporate rule.’ We ask all Americans to become consumers of conscience. Shop small and local—fair trade and green. Consume less oil and wood. Don’t patronize exploitative corporations like the Gap."
Highway/bi-way notes: Our travelers were impressed with the windmills and solar power facilities in Wyoming, and with the beautiful farmland and friendliness of the entire midwest. In Lexington, Nebraska, the hungry travelers wished for AND FOUND the best Japanese restaurant they’ve ever eaten at—and that’s saying something with two of them being San Franciscans! Didn’t catch the name of it—it was just newly opened—but if you’re ever in Lexington, Nebraska....
Mary Pjerrou
Elk, California
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