In 1986, I resigned my position as a news reporter in Sonoma County to engage as an activist in a subject I’d been covering: the 1985 junk-bond takeover of the Pacific Lumber Company, in Humboldt County, by Houston-based Maxxam Corporation. At the time, Pacific Lumber owned the very last large groves of ancient redwood forest still standing outside of parks, a precious inventory of primeval life that Maxxam was now very busy liquidating. I would try to save this forest. … Tree-sitting was a last resort. Our Humboldt County Earth First! group staged many such direct actions in the redwoods, yet every grove we occupied and otherwise agitated to preserve got cut down or severely damaged, with the exception of Headwaters Forest. I had discovered and named 3,000-acre Headwaters Forest in March 1987, just five months after quitting my job. That this iconic grove still stands is nothing short of a miracle.
-Written by Greg King, an award-winning journalist and activist credited with spearheading the movement to protect Headwaters Forest in Humboldt County.