As the highway descends from Oregon’s coastal mountains, patches of sprouting trees and signs that read “planted in 1986” are meant to appease travelers passing by the immense logging scars. But planting new trees only solves the aesthetic problem. Groups such as Red Cloud Thunder, the treesitters now occupying a forest outside of Eugene, Oregon, feel that the problem of cutting old growth goes much deeper.

Its members don't sit in second growth.

Doug Heiken, western field representative for the Oregon Native Resources Council, says that replanting does not replace the forest. “We’re basically mining the old growth, we're not re-creating the old growth. We’re liquidating it and it’s not going to come back for generations,” Heiken says.

With the cutting of old growth trees comes the destruction of habitat. Rare species such as the northern spotted owl and the marbled murrelet that are integral parts of a diverse ecosystem are lost along with the mammoth trees. The ancient forests are also sources of clean drinking water. And the majority of the remaining old-growth forests are on federally owned land, paid for and managed by taxpayer dollars.

In 1891 Forest Reserves were set aside to protect the nation’s forests from logging. In 1897, however, the Organic Act reversed the protection and opened those forests back up to logging.

More than 100 years later, conservationists estimate only 5 percent of original old growth is left in the United States. Heiken says there’s too little to be compromising over anymore, “Now we’re just fighting over the scraps,” he says. In an era when people are beginning to re-evaluate the forests’ mortality, old-growth trees are still cut down because the economic incentives abound. The massive trunks of old-growth trees provide high-quality timber with a minimal amount of effort because of their immense size. This results in greater profits for timber companies. “Old growth has a higher percentage of clear lumber,” says Robert Bernhardt, a spokesman for the Western Wood Products Association. “With the tall old-growth trees, the branches are higher up, so you have a larger girth as well as knot-free logs.”

Timothy Hermach, executive director of Native Forest Council, puts a higher value on old-growth trees. “If you put $1.85 in the bank and let it sit there for over a thousand years, you're well over a billion dollars in appreciated value. That tree, to replace it is going to cost us a billion dollars. It’s priceless, it’s irreplaceable,” he says.

Other conservationists say they are fearful that their grandchildren will never see the majestic trees in their natural environment, nor will they witness the thousands of species that could soon cease to exist. This story is not unique to Highway 26 or Fall Creek. It’s not unique to Oregon. It is the story of old growth across the entire continent.

The end result of the discussion was the Northwest Forest Plan for federal forestlands in western Washington, Oregon, and northern California. This multi-agency policy developed a program for managing forests to simultaneously sustain timber production while protecting biological diversity. The plan claimed to protect 20 million out of the 24.4 million acres of public forests in designated areas. The Forest Service says that the amount of logging on affected lands dropped about 80 percent when the plan went into effect. But 476 million board feet of timber continue to be harvested annually (compared to 8.4 billion board feet harvested in Oregon alone in 1989—one board foot is equal to 144 cubic inches of raw lumber). This means that old growth has been and continues to be cut down. And it was always the plan to do so.

Yet the summit and the Northwest Forest Plan were successful in quieting much of the public outcry about the issue.

The same is holding true for a road-building moratorium issued in February 1999 by the head of the Forest Service, Chief Mike Dombeck. For 18 months new roads could not be built in roadless sections of most national forests. The areas without roads and those with intact forests are the most valuable sources of high-quality water. Heiken says the moratorium is an excellent recognition that these places are important. Yet the ban is not effective west of the Cascades because of the Northwest Forest Plan. Environmentalists question the coincidence of exempting the region where the largest old-growth trees—the ones with the most economic value—are located.

“I hate it when the Clinton Administration succeeds in giving everyone the impression that they're doing really great things when a lot of it is mostly appearance,” Heiken says.

It’s not just the treesitters who are spotlighting this topic. The roster includes many fed-up whistle-blowers. Aside from displaced tree-lovers and eco-radicals, some of the very people who plan the timber sales are also bringing attention to the issue. Rich Fairbanks, a forest service employee for 26 years, is a timber sales planner for Willamette National Forest. His job is to help decide which trees to cut down to appease timber companies. As someone who plans timber sales, he has witnessed the rapid deforestation of old growth. “I don’t think it takes a lot of brains to see that continuing to cut old growth is a mistake,” Fairbanks says.

“If you really see that something’s going haywire, you’ve got to say something,” Fairbanks says. “You’re tempted to say something. And some of us finally did.”

Fairbanks joined Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics at its inception in 1989. FSEEE is a national organization based in Eugene that has acquired more than 10,000 members, 500 of which are agency employees. The group claims to act as vigilant watchdogs over the Forest Service by encouraging agency employees to raise concerns and blow the whistle on destructive forest policies.

Fairbanks encourages the logging of second growth in lieu of old growth. “Just about all the products made out of old growth can also be made out of second growth without destroying the natural habitat of species such as the spotted owl,” he says.

In 1908 President Theodore Roosevelt said, “The only trouble with the movement for the preservation of our forests is that it has not gone nearly far enough.” Ninety-one years later, travelers on Highway 26 can veer off the road to see the largest Sitka Spruce tree in the world. The lone tree flanked by a parking lot pales in comparison to some of the thriving ecosystems that groups such as Red Cloud Thunder are trying desperately to save. Anyone traveling down Highway 26 can see the patchwork quilt. But the treesitters of Red Cloud Thunder will tell them that it goes deeper than just aesthetics.