Headwaters Forest Project

As public awareness of threats to Headwaters Forest grew and rallies attracted thousands in the mid-1990s, Mark Bult started an email list and website to help spread the word. Peter Drekmeier put Mark in touch with other groups, who had formed the Headwaters Forest Coordinating Council (HFCC), a loose coalition of several dozen interested parties that included citizen groups in Humboldt, Earth First! organizers, lawyers, communications specialists, and foundations. The HFCC had an internal list-serv (a 1990s-era type of private email group) for the organizers to debate, communicate, and keep in touch. The list-serv was hosted by BAA member and Peter Goggin.

Seeing Mark’s deepening interest in the issue, Peter Drekmeier asked Mark if he wanted to be the list-serv’s “mom,” the admin role that approved members and kept the peace if discussions got heated.

Meanwhile, Mark’s external email list — members of the public who wanted to be kept informed and perhaps do something — grew in size and importance, and it became the Headwaters campaign’s primary source of disseminating information quickly to thousands all over the world. Mark sent two weekly emails:

1. A digest of forest news — keeping people informed of legal challenges, upcoming events, and on-the-ground (or sometimes up-in-the-trees) activism; in later years written in conjunction with the Oakland-based Headwaters Sanctuary Project.
2. An Action Alert — something people could do even if they couldn’t get to the forest in person.

Events

The Headwaters Forest Project presented or co-sponsored numerous events, such as hosting Doug Thron’s famous Headwaters Slide Show, and co-hosting Julia Butterfly at Stanford University.

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Fundraising

BAA’s Headwaters Forest Project was an early adopter of online fundraising in a time when this was very new. Mark, Geoff Nicholls, Brad Borevitz and several BAA volunteers built a secure credit card form on BAA’s website in order to raise fund online. Entering one’s credit card info on a website was still a very new concept at the time, and while adoption of online transactions was growing among the public, most people were still skeptical of the security. BAA’s system used SSL and PGP and never experienced a single flaw.

Using this secure website and the email list, BAA raised nearly $2,000 to support Julia Butterfly’s treesit, enabling her Earth First! ground support team to purchase a laptop for use in the field.

Spreading the word

Along with electronic communications, BAA’s Headwaters Forest Project spread the word other ways:

• Tabling — Volunteers set up tables at numerous events such as Live 105’s Community Action Zones at various multi-act shows at Shoreline Amphitheater and the Bill Graham Civic Center. They answered questions, engaged the public, passed out postcards, and gathered signatures on petitions to public officials.
• Petitioning the White House — BAA volunteers gathered thousands of signatures applying pressure on President Bill Clinton and Al Gore to buy Headwaters in a debt-for-nature swap. The fax machine in Mark’s office was kept busy faxing petitions almost nightly to the White House.
• Public speaking — Mark was invited to speak at several events and universities, including the Green Party’s Northern Calfornia Convention, San José State University, and Stanford Law School.
• Media — Mark was interviewed about Headwaters Forest on radio stations including KCBS, LIVE 105, and KKUP.

Rallies

BAA members regularly attended large public rallies in San Francisco, Oakland, and Humboldt County.

Hikes

Small groups of BAA members hiked into Headwaters numerous times over ten years. Eight members of the High Schools Group spent Earth Day in 2001 in Postcard Grove.

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