Editing Earth First! (section)

=== Free Cascadia ===
During Free Cascadia, a mass occupation organized by Earth First at the Warner Creek timber sale in Oregon, 50-plus activists continuously occupied the burnt forested mountains of Oregon for a year in 1994-1995. They endured bad weather and law enforcement raids. Their barricades which were dug in reinforced trenches, forts with watchtowers, and tree-sits enabled a constant occupation of the land while lawsuits and political actions locally and in Washington D.C., ultimately saved the land.<ref>{{cite web|last=Davis|first=Tony|date=September 2, 1996|title=Last line of defense, civil disobedience and protest slowdown 'lawless logging'|url=http://www.hcn.org/issues/89/2747|url-status=live|website=High Country News|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130926073356/http://www.hcn.org:80/issues/89/2747 |archive-date=2013-09-26 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Elderkin|first=Susan|date=September 2, 1996|title=What a difference a year makes|url=http://www.hcn.org/issues/89/2748|url-status=live|website=High Country News|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101003034817/http://www.hcn.org:80/issues/89/2748 |archive-date=2010-10-03 }}</ref>  Warner Creek is often seen an example of how the Earth First movement was successful, though most Earth First occupations of timber sales failed.

In the summer of 1995, environmental activists attempted to occupy the old-growth timber sale area of Sugarloaf Mountain in Southern Oregon. The Sugarloaf Mountain had been in legal battles for over a decade when the "Rider from Hell" was added in committee to the congressional Crime Bill of 1994, which mandated the logging of thousands of acres of old-growth forest.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=September 1996|title=Logging Without Laws: How the Timber Rider Passed Congress|url=http://www.environmentalreview.org/archives/vol03/kirchner.html|journal=Environmental Review Newsletter|publisher=Environmental Review Educational Services|volume=3|issue=9}}</ref> The United States Forest Service declared an [[exclusionary zone]] of 30 square miles in southern Oregon and arrested anyone in the area, including a local woman walking her dog.<ref>{{cite web|last=Davis|first=Tony|date=September 2, 1996|title=When the crackdown came|url=http://www.hcn.org/issues/89/2749|url-status=live|website=High Country News|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160119150331/http://www.hcn.org/issues/89/2749 |archive-date=2016-01-19 }}</ref> Over 100 federal agents, supported by helicopters and the elite US Army Ranger-trained law enforcement squad known as "Camo-Feddies," arrested hundreds of activists. The environmental activists engaged at all levels of protest with numerous public and illegal demonstrations by Earth First, protests at government offices locally and in Washington D.C., tree-sits in active logging zones, and even an attempted helicopter pad lock-down to immobilize logging helicopters.  One tree from Sugarloaf timber sale, which was a four day long tree-sit by a local father and son Earth First team, required 9 log trucks to carry it out in sections.<ref>TreeHuggers: Victory, Defeat & Renewal in the Northwest Ancient Forest Campaign. by Kathie Durbin. The Mountaineers Press Seattle. p264-276.</ref> This tree was estimated to be over 400 years old and took twenty-seven minutes to cut down using a 7-foot chainsaw.

Earth First responded by immediately occupying the nearby timber sale known as China Left in early October 1995 to defend the old-growth forest and the last wild salmon spawning grounds in Oregon. EF activists used dragon lock-boxes on both ends of the valley's only road to protect the area<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.umpqua-watersheds.org/archive/blm/Medford%20BLM/chinaleft.html|title=UW.Org: China Left Timber Sale, June 4, 1997|work=umpqua-watersheds.org}}</ref>{{clarify|date=June 2015}}.<ref name="issuu.com"/><ref>{{cite web|last=Giller|first=Chip|date=November 13, 1995|title=Clinton says: Stop logging|url=http://www.hcn.org/issues/47/1451|url-status=live|website=High Country News|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091101050300/http://www.hcn.org:80/issues/47/1451 |archive-date=2009-11-01 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://earthfirstjournal.org/newswire/2014/01/31/florida-sheriffs-train-in-defeating-sleeping-dragon-lockboxes-using-jackhammers-chainsaws/|title=Florida Sheriffs Train in Defeating "Sleeping Dragon" Lockboxes Using Jackhammers, Chainsaws - Earth First! Newswire|work=Earth First! Newswire}}</ref> A female Earth First activist known as "Ocean" held the road for a day as police attempted to remove this human-and-cement blockade, allowing Earth First to dig in farther down the valley. This was the start of two-year-long occupation protest, during which a pickup truck was turned into a lock box to block the only bridge to the valley.<ref>{{cite web|last=Chilson|first=Peter|date=July 7, 1997|title=In Oregon, tension over coho and trees|url=http://www.hcn.org/issues/105/3290|url-status=live|website=High Country News|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151029010505/http://www.hcn.org/issues/105/3290 |archive-date=2015-10-29 }}</ref>