Forest Protectors Launch Tree Sit and Lawsuits to Stop Ecocidal Logging in WA

[cbabe]

https://truthout.org/articles/forest-protectors-launch-tree-sit-and-lawsuits-to-stop-ecocidal-logging-in-wa/

Forest Protectors Launch Tree Sit and Lawsuits to Stop Ecocidal Logging in WA

Forest protectors are defending mature forests from logging after dam removal and restoration on the Elwha River.

By Curtis Johnson , TRUTHOUT
Published July 6, 2025

Standing at the edge of the Aldwell Forest clearcut just above the Elwha River in Washington State, the Murphy Company’s devastation of the landscape slaps you in the face. Here on land owned by the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR), a beautiful mature forest has been logged for hardwood, plywood, and other wood products. Hacked-off stumps are visible in all directions, a few trees left to stand. The former forest floor, once rich with organisms and nutrients that fed life, now stands heaped into huge slash piles to be burned. The land doused with herbicide to kill any competitors to Douglas fir seedlings that will become a new tree plantation monoculture.

The contrast with the remaining intact Elwha legacy forests, located nearby in the watershed, couldn’t be starker. There, in naturally regenerated forests more than a century old, large Douglas fir, western red cedar and big-leaf maple trees festooned with moss and licorice ferns surround you. Native sword ferns, trillium, salal, red huckleberry, lichen, and other native vegetation in multiple shades of brilliant green abound.

After DNR put more Elwha legacy forest on the chopping block during a November 2024 auction, environmentalists, citizens, and forest defenders are fighting to stop Murphy’s logging there through lawsuits and direct action.

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[SuzyandPuffpuff]

1. Such bullshit

Don't people get simple math? Without ecosystems ... sea forest rivers etc; there is no life. That means humans. So fucking basic.

[cbabe]

2. They know. They don't care. Capitalism is a death cult.