Photo: Orin Langelle
Shawnee National Forest, IL: Earth First!ers chase away the Forest Service at the Fairview Timber Sale area in the Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois. The area slated to be cut was rich in biodiversity, a haven for songbirds and loved by the many locals who went there to watch the birds, camp or enjoy nature. (1990)
GJEP is part of the core organizing team for “The Resurgence” (working title): a major North American #forest movement convergence planned to take in the #Shawnee Campaign Forest next October.
The aim of the convergence is to bring together forest #activists from across North America with related movements to build power. Cade Bursell, author of the enclosed Op-Ed is helping coordinate logistics and student involvement in the event.
Here is an excerpt from a recent op-ed by Bursell, which was published at TheSouthern.com:
Now that the 17-year injunction against logging has been lifted, the Forest Service has wasted no time in generating a rapid-fire succession of projects that include commercial logging of pines and hardwoods, spraying herbicides such as glyphosate over thousands of acres and scheduling burns for more than 15,000 acres of forest per year. Without close public scrutiny, the next projects could very well involve opening the forest to mineral or oil extraction. If you enjoy the Shawnee National Forest, now is the time to get involved.
Cade Bursell, TheSouthern.com
Development of these new projects occur as we learn of the dire warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC is the United Nations body directed to assess the science related to climate change. Over the next 12 years, we must do everything possible to slow rising temperatures in order to avoid catastrophic consequences. This is a global call for action.
