By Sabrina Ellis – Country Activist, August 1990
Cool heads prevailed July 21 on a mild, humid, overcast Saturday in Ft. Bragg as hundreds of environmentalists demonstrated their outrage over logging practices throughout the industry, including those of Georgia Pacific.
At a rally held on G-P owned property, speakers railed against corporate greed that demands aggressive logging and encouraged the adoption of sustained yield practices to preserve jobs.
The activists then marched along with a truck carrying singers, speakers and photographers from the GP-owned dirt field, down the middle of California State Highway 1 to G-P Headquarters. The route was lined by yellow-shirted timber workers and supporters who looked on with interested smiles and frowns as the demonstrators chanted, sang, and dance down Main Street.
Timber industry workers and supporters rallied at the other end of town and staged a counter-demonstration a block away from GP headquarters, occasionally chanting “Go Home!” at the environmentalists. A handful gathered on the second story of a corner eatery, talking, a few drinking beer. Some of these young men shouted epithets at the crowd and speakers.
Most timber supporters’ signs appeared to be commercially produced and identical, although one logger’s original creation read, “The only good tree is a stump.” Environmentalists carried homemade, colorful signs and banners and some wore yellow and green ribbons intertwined. A speaker implored timber workers to put aside their anger and engage in dialogue on the issues.
Police from Ft. Bragg and Alameda County exercised restraint and were non-confrontational. At one point a speaker congratulated them on their behavior, generating enthusiastic applause from the crowd.
After the march, organizers encouraged those assembled to forego any planned civil disobedience and speakers later told of other actions in which protesters may wish to be arrested. No environmentalists were known to have been arrested that day.