Mattole Elders Exonerated
Humboldt Court Dismisses All Charges
Lost Coast League's Jane Lapiner, David Simpson, Ellen Taylor and Michael Evenson were cleared of all wrong-doing from when they appeared at the logging gates to dissuade loggers from cutting down Northern Spotted Owl habitat in June of 2019. The arrests were some of the first in a long time for defenders of Rainbow Ridge. However, Mattole residents have been defending these forests since the mid 1980s when it became apparent that they contained some of the last remaining intact landscape in the watershed.
The Humboldt County judge dismissed the Lost Coast League Elders at the request of the District Attorney. In fact, the DA had no case because the Four were defending public trust resources that were being harmed on HRC's private lands by their logging.
Also today, the USFWS has determined that the owl is not merely Threatened, but the population has dwindled due to the logging of their special, mature forest habitat, to become Endangered under the ESA. As the Lost Coast League has maintained over the years, the forests of Rainbow Ridge are clearly High Conservation Value Forests, deserving of special protective measures under the FSC rules that HRC operates within.
The dismissal against the Mattole Four was the subject of Pacifica Radio's Flash Points interview December 16, 2020.
