Tree spiking

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Tree spiking is a form of sabotage which involves hammering a metal rod or other material into a tree trunk in order to discourage logging. A metal saw blade hitting an embedded spike could break or shatter, making it uneconomic to use those trees. However, spikes could possibly injure or kill loggers. This is why advocates of tree spiking say to drive the spike or nail into the tree above your head, where it will be out of range of a chainsaw blade and not endanger the logger (cited from pg. 437 of Recipes for Disaster, an Anarchist Cookbook available through crimethinc.com). It is often referred to by critics as a form of Eco-terrorism.

It is believed that tree spiking originated in timber logging labor disputes in the Pacific Northwest of the United States in the late 1800s. It came to prominence as a contentious tactic within radical environmentalist circles during the 1980s, after it was advocated by Earth First! co-founder Dave Foreman in his book Ecodefense.

Some tree spikers tend to mark the spiked trees, ostensibly to deter the harvesting of the spiked trees. Some sawmill operators check trees with metal detectors prior to milling. In turn, Foreman advocated the use of ceramic spikes which would be impossible for the metal detectors to register.

While Foreman claimed that injury to humans was an unlikely consequence of tree-spiking if the spiking was made known to authorities or logging companies, the tactic was condemned not only by the companies themselves, but by labor interests and, eventually, other members of Earth First!.

In 1987, California mill worker George Alexander was seriously injured when the bandsaw he was operating was shattered by a tree spike. While both the County sheriff and Alexander's employers, Louisiana-Pacific, blamed environmentalists for the spiking, when Earth First! activist Judi Bari obtained the sheriff's files on the incident some years later, she discovered that one of the suspects for the spiking was Bill Ervin, a 50 year old property-owner, unconnected with Earth First. While Ervin freely admitted spiking trees on his own land to prevent Louisiana-Pacific from taking timber on his side of the property line, he was never charged with spiking the tree that injured Alexander.

Tree spiking was declared a federal felony in the United States in 1988. 18 U.S. Code 1864.

In 1990, Earth First leader Judi Bari led activists in Northern California and Southern Oregon to renounce tree-spiking as a tactic on the eve of Redwood Summer, a 1990 campaign of nonviolent protests against logging of the redwood forest [1].