By Jillian Daley
Oregon Daily Emerald
July 18, 2002

U.S. Forest Service officials from the Willamette National Forest are using what protesters call starvation tactics to bring down a young woman who climbed 80 feet into an old-growth tree to protest the logging of the Berry Patch timber area.

On Sunday, officials closed the area to the public to make sure the tree-sitter receives no new supplies of food or water. Basil, the tree-sitter, who would not reveal her real name, has some food supplies, including a 10-liter gallon of water, and is sleeping on a platform in the tree, officials said.

Basil will be subject to arrest when she comes down from the tree for interfering with an agricultural operation, which is a Class A misdemeanor under state law, Forest Service spokeswoman Patti Rodgers said.

"The only other way (besides starvation tactics) to get her out would be to send eviction climbers up there," Cascadia Forest Defenders spokesman Kelly Townsend said.

The D.R. Johnston logging company bought the Berry Patch timber rights in 1996 when the Salvage Rider Act gave logging companies the right to cut down old growth. The act was overturned a few years later. The area is located in the Willamette National Forest at the Winberry Creek Drainage, southeast of Lowell and 20 miles southeast of Eugene.

The company logged the area until 1998, when the market for old growth sunk too low to be profitable. The logging started up again in the past three weeks, when the market picked up. The company still has the legal right to log as long as it owns the timber rights. When logging began again, Basil took her perch in the Douglas Fir, Townsend said.

"She saw the beautiful forest out there being cut, and she saw that that was her only way of stopping it," Townsend said. "Even if she couldn't stop it, she was very eager to call attention to old growth being cut."

However, Townsend and others are concerned for her safety because of other incidents when officials used similar tactics. A man protesting the Acey Line timber sale in the Tillamook State Forest fell 60 feet to the ground and broke many bones after his food and water were cut off, Townsend said.

There is concern for Basil's health for other reasons as well. Townsend believes loggers are endangering Basil by cutting down trees within 30 feet of her, which he said is a violation of Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards.

However, officials say that Basil is not endangered and that OSHA regulations don't apply.

"The first thing -- for either federal or state OSHA to have any jurisdiction -- (is) there must be an employer/employee relationship," federal OSHA spokeswoman Ria Russell said. "We don't have any authority to protect her."

Forest Service officials also said there is no need for concern about Basil because she is breaking the law and has forfeited her rights to any protection.

"It is her responsibility," Forest Service spokeswoman Sue Olson said. "She is breaking the law, so the Forest Service does not have a liability if she gets hurt; however, the Forest Service is concerned about her safety."
 

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Contact the reporter at jilliandaley@dailyemerald.com.