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In the fall of 1996, a ten-second TV news clip changed my life. Environmental protesters dug underground caves in the path of a planned road development in England — the protesters barricaded themselves beneath the earth to prevent the construction of a road through previously unspoiled, forested land. As soon as I saw the report, I knew I had to go see these extraordinary events first hand and photograph them for myself. I quit my staff photographer job at a local newspaper in order to take the trip, even though I originally planned on staying in England for only two weeks. In the end, I stayed four months, hitch-hiking between several environmental protest points in England and Scotland. By far, the biggest protest occurred at the construction site of the Newbury Bypass — a broad highway built to relieve traffic congestion in the city of Newbury. The construction plans called for cutting an eight-mile swath through a forest of thousand-year-old trees, some of the last unspoiled woods left in England. Thousands of people turned out to fight The Third Battle of Newbury, called so because of two previous medieval battles at the same location. Lawyers, bakers, retirees, white collar professionals, young and old alike took to the heights of the trees and to tunnels underground to prevent heavy construction machinery from razing the forest. The protesters met with fierce resistance from police and from Costain — the company contracted to build the road. At a cost of millions of dollars, Costain erected an eighteen-mile fence illuminated by high-powered lights and manned by hundreds of security guards to keep the sea of protesters at bay. But Costain met resistance on all fronts, and shares in the company dropped to pennies as stockholders lost faith in the firm. (The company was not helped by the fact that protesters bought stock and proceeded to attend board meetings to drill the company on environmental issues.) Despite the fact that 89 percent of the English population did not believe that the road was the best solution to the Newbury transport problem, construction proceeded to replace another ancient forest with concrete. In the end, the bypass was called a "mistake" by the English traffic minister — the government's Highways Agency estimated that the bypass saved "approximately two minutes" in drive time.
In the summer of 1998, my friend Heather and I climbed into a rusty old Honda held together with bumper stickers and bondo, and traveled across the U.S., visiting environmental protest campsites that were the ripple effect of the campsites in England. We ended up in Humbolt County, California, at a campaign hell-bent on stopping the destruction of the last remaining 3 percent of redwood forest. Fighting the Reganite "you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all" mentality, the Headwaters Forest Campaign fought to preserve the world's last large remnants of unprotected ancient redwood forests. According to Earth First!, "a century-and-a-half of liquidation logging has destroyed more than 96 percent of that forest. Except for the Headwaters Forest, the remaining groves of ancient redwoods are protected in state and national parks — but these postage-stamp preserves alone aren't enough to protect the fragmented redwood ecosystem." Our plans to visit Julia Butterfly — the woman who lived for two years in Luna, a 250+ foot redwood — were set aside after we lost our way in a massive Headwaters forest owned by Pacific Lumber/Maxxam. After four days with no food and only a small amount of water, we decided it was time to go to Seattle for a beer. On the way back to Chicago, Heather and I stopped off at Cove Mallard, a valiant campaign confronting threats to the last intact wild ecosystem left in the lower 48 states. According to the Cove/Mallard Campaign, "less than 3 to 4 percent of the native growth forests remain within the boundaries of the continental United states. Twenty percent of the remaining forests stand on public land in the Greater Salmon-Selway Ecosystem. It is finally time to stop the Forest Service from clear-cutting on public lands, destroying endangered habitat, and wasting taxpayers money to subsidize the corporate rape and plunder of the last big wild." Click
the gallery links, below, to see more pictures of the Newbury Bypass
protest and U.S. environmental campaigns. If you'd like to get involved
in helping these efforts, follow the links at the bottom of this page.
Outside links to related Web sites:
Photos
and Text Copyright © 1996-2000 Yvette
Marie Dostatni |
