Tree Spiking in Idaho's Clearwater National Forest, 1989
In 1989, a group sought to sabotage a lumber sale by spiking trees in Idaho’s Clearwater National Forest. The incident led to decades of controversy for the environmentalist movement.
In March 1989, the U.S. Forest Service received a letter warning that trees in the Clearwater National Forest in Idaho had been spiked, claiming that nine people spent 11 days spiking trees with 500 pounds of nails. It mentioned that the land was important to the earth, and home to wildlife and the trees. The group signed the letter under the pseudonym “George Hayduke” in reference to a protagonist in Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang, followed by a threat that disregarding the message could result in a lot of people getting hurt. Investigations by the Forest Service revealed that 284 trees had been spiked with 384 nails. As a result, the Plum Creek Sawmill in Montana suffered damages when a saw exploded after hitting a spike.
The perpetrators were a group associated with Earth First! who had first met in Missoula, Montana in 1988. They were protesting the Post Office Creek Timber sale, which opened a northeast parcel of Clearwater National Forest to logging operations. By spiking trees in the area, they hoped to preserve old growth in the forest. Earth First! founder Dave Foreman’s environmentalist guidebook Ecodefense, published in 1985, cites tree spiking as a viable tactic to disrupt logging and deforestation. The book includes a how-to section for tree spikers, as well as instructional diagrams. Spiking trees in a visible way was seen as an immediate deterrent for loggers, while concealing spikes could be effective in destroying equipment. By the 1990s, Earth First! literature no longer supported spiking due to both danger for humans and legal repercussions.
The mailing of the letter led to FBI and Forest Service investigations into the Environmental Studies Department at the University of Montana. Agents raided student housing, collecting notebooks and calendars for evidence. The FBI subpoenaed seven Missoula residents to provide handwriting and hair samples for physical evidence before an Idaho grand jury. Investigators discovered that Tracy Stone-Manning, a University of Montana graduate student associated with the group, had rented a typewriter from the library to retype the letter then mailed the letter to the Forest Service. Stone-Manning, facing charges of conspiracy, received immunity in exchange for her testimony against other members of the group. In February 1993, a grand jury indicted Jeffrey Fairchild and John Blount in connection to the tree-spiking. A federal jury in Spokane, Washington convicted the men of conspiracy and depredation against property of the United States following a June 1993 trial. Blount was sentenced to 17 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution, while Fairchild received probation.
The incident at Clearwater National Forest returned to the national spotlight in 2021 when President Joe Biden nominated Tracy Stone-Manning as director of the Bureau of Land Management. Her confirmation by the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources was marked by discussions on ecoterrorism and participation in radical environmentalist groups. Despite the controversy around her involvement in the 1989 tree-spiking, the Senate Committee confirmed Stone-Manning as director of the BLM.
Images
