A stand for a stand.

• Author: Wilson, Kelpie
• Position: Danger of Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP - Column

One July morning in 1987, I found myself with five new friends at a logging site in Oregon's Siskiyou National Forest. Valerie Wade, a college student, fifth generation Oregonian, and daughter of a logger, had climbed to the top of a ninety-foot yarder spar pole to hang a banner. Chained to the bottom of the yarder, which drags felled trees up steep slopes to waiting log trucks, were Karen Wood, a Eugene computer scientist; Michele Miller, an elementary school teacher from Chico, California; Kamala Redd, a college student from New York City; James Jackson, a surveyor from Texas, and myself, a new graduate with a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Chico State, about to head off to a career in alternative energy.

I was there to defend the trees because of my engineering education. For four years I was taught that production is a one-way process - from the mine or forest to the landfill with a brief moment of consumption in between. Before entering the engineering profession, I wanted to make a statement that endless consumption of resources will lead to a trashed planet. When I heard about the clear-cutting of 200-year-old trees, I knew I had to take a stand.

Out in the woods that morning, we "arrested" the yarder for crimes against trees, sang songs, and gave interviews to reporters. While we waited for the police to come and cut our locks and arrest us, we saw a toy poodle prance across the landing, followed by its owner, a logger in suspenders. He was astounded to see that the person on top of the pole was a young woman.

He asked us why we didn't do our demonstration in front of the Forest Service office instead of interrupting his work. We explained to him that we had to protest in the forest so that reporters would come out to the remote site and broadcast the clear-cut destruction to the public. He conceded that without media coverage only loggers saw the great trees crashing down.

Sure enough, video footage of our action made the local and national news. Photographs appeared in Smithsonian and even in the German newsmagazine, Der Spiegel. But not everyone was as understanding as the logger with the little dog. The county judge called us communists, sentenced us to two weeks in jail, and ordered us to pay fines and restitution totaling $4,800. We would also pay for our logger friend's lost wages for the day.

Then, on our way out of the courtroom, we were SLAPPeD. A SLAPP is a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation; such suits...