Breakthrough: Fire Up the Chainsaws

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. Back in the mid-nineties, Michael and I met on the campaign to save Northern California's Headwaters Forest. Headwaters was the last significant privately owned stand of ancient redwoods on the West Coast and was threatened with liquidation by the corporate raider Charles Hurwitz.

In the end, the old growth was saved but activists were unable to save much of the surrounding landscape. Along the way, a young woman named Julia "Butterfly" Hill climbed up an ancient tree on Pacific Lumber's property and refused to come down for almost two years. While we have our issues with Julia, and criticize her biophilia in our book, at least one could say that there were serious ecological issues at stake. These were ancient, old growth trees and they were part of a much larger ecosystem that was still largely intact.

Fast forward to 2007 and farce. Since last December, a motley crew of activists have held a tree sit in a "grove" of oak trees in front of the University of California's football stadium. The university plans to cut down about twenty oak trees so that it can rebuild the stadium. A rag tag coalition of Earth Firsters, NIMBY homeowners, and the City of Berkeley, which considers opposition to university development projects part of the city's charter, have held up the project.

Problem is, there are neither significant ecological issues at stake nor meaningful public trust values. The "natural" landscape under threat was in fact planted by the university in 1923, when it built the stadium. The tiny "grove" itself is surrounded to the east by the stadium, to the north and south by paved parking lots, and to the west by a major thoroughfare. The stadium has been in use since 1923, long before any of the homeowners opposed to the project had purchased their homes, and well before many of the homes were even built. It is not functional public space. Indeed, but for the few weekends a year when scalpers man their stations hawking tickets and football fans mill about under the trees waiting to rendezvous with friends, this "ecological wonder" sits unused and largely unnoticed.

There may well be other, legitimate reasons to oppose the project. The new stadium would, for instance, sit on an active fault line (so does the current, unimproved stadium and no one, not the neighbors or the city or the activists raised a peep about it until the university proposed rebuilding it). Or, one might argue that university resources could be better spent educating its students or solving global warming. Or that football is a violent, patriarchal sport that should be abolished.

But there are simply not significant ecological grounds upon which to oppose this project. So somebody, please, fire up the chainsaws and put an end to this travesty of a protest.

On almost any other issue, the ability to regularly bring together 60,000 plus students, families and neighbors from all walks of life for a day of fun and interaction would result in a plaque, monument or at least a City Council resolution.

Instead current and former council members patronize the tress for photo ops. Fortunately for the rest of us, the UC has not found a way to outsource or otherwise relocate out-of-state.

schmax

Posted by: Schmax at August 28, 2007 9:30 PM

I submit that these so-called "tree lovers" are engaging in arboreal discrimination in which certain trees are more privileged while other trees are deemed less worthy of protection. How else can you explain the fact that they chopped down the tops of adjoining cedars and redwoods to build sleeping platforms in order to better protect their beloved oaks?

http://www.insidebayarea.com/search/ci_6365818

In the end, I think the real answer is that these folks just hate football...

Posted by: John Whaley at August 28, 2007 10:01 PM

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