“I’m Not Going Anywhere”: Forest Defenders Risk Their Lives to Save Endangered Trees

Field Dispatch: The Last Stand at Elwha

“I’m not going anywhere.”

The voice crackles over the wind, fierce and unwavering. A lone figure dangles from a “dunk-tank” platform strung high in a Douglas fir—100 feet above the forest floor, suspended over the blockade. Below, a tangled barricade of debris cuts off the logging road, defying the machines that would carve through this ancient forest. But this is more than a blockade—it’s a lifeline. If the debris is cleared, the platform will drop, sending the climber plunging to the ground.

This is Elwha—the last of the low-elevation mature forests in the Elwha Watershed, ancestral land of the S'Klallam people. A place rich with ancient Douglas fir, grand fir, and western red cedar—trees with trunks thick enough to remember the world before machines, canopies that shelter endangered owls, and soil that cradles fragile, imperiled blooms.

Today, a few defiant souls have become the forest’s last defenders.

An old-growth stump, revealing what has been lost in the past after a dam was removed in Elwha.

The Hypocrisy of Conservation for Profit

This forest was sold by the Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) last year. Sold—not preserved. Auctioned off to the Murphy Company, an Oregon-based timber firm, under a timber sale cynically titled "Parched."

The same state that invested $338 million in restoring the Elwha River—tearing down dams to save fragile salmon runs—now seeks to gut the forest that protects that very watershed. A system too myopic to see that you can’t heal a river while slaughtering the forest that cradles it.

Tribal members of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe—those who have lived on this land long before “Washington State” had a name—petitioned to protect the watershed. Their voices were joined by local citizens and conservationists, but the sale went forward. It always goes forward when the gears of profit are grinding.

But today, those gears have caught on debris—a barricade, a climber’s courage, and a simple, clear truth: This forest is not theirs to destroy.

A Forest of Life, Reduced to Board Feet

This is more than a patch of trees. It’s an ecosystem—one of the last in a world where clearcuts scar mountainsides like open wounds. Douglas fir, grand fir, and western red cedar reach for the sky here, shaded by a canopy developing the thick, chaotic beauty of old growth.

It’s a haven for endangered species: the northern spotted owl, the marbled murrelet, and a delicate, imperiled flower—whipplea modesta. It’s a natural reservoir, slowing runoff in a landscape riddled with landslides. It’s a carbon vault in a world on fire.

But to the DNR and Murphy Company, it’s nothing more than “Parched.” A timber sale name—a euphemism that masks destruction behind bland, bureaucratic language.

The Cost of Silence

For months, Port Angeles City Council tried to negotiate, raising concerns about the clearcut’s impact on their only source of drinking water. They were met with stonewalling. The state won’t listen. The timber industry doesn’t listen. Because in a system where trees are board feet and rivers are water rights, listening is a liability.

But the defenders on this blockade are not asking for permission. They are making a promise. They are drawing a line.

“We shouldn’t have to choose between losing essential services and logging these mature forests,” says one of the forest defenders. “These forests are essential—and irreplaceable in the face of the climate crisis.”

Demands of the Forest Defenders

• Immediate cancellation of the "Parched" Timber Sale.

• A pause on all logging in the Elwha watershed.

• A permanent ban on logging the remaining mature forests in western Washington.

These are not demands—they are survival instructions for a world on the brink.

Images from the field from Instagram

If You Are Reading This: You Are Not Helpless

The defenders in the trees aren’t just holding a blockade—they’re holding the line for all of us. For the forests we’ve lost. For the rivers running dry. For a future where trees are not just timber and ecosystems are not sacrificed for shareholder returns.

And if you feel a fire rising in your chest as you read this—if you want to do more than scroll and sigh—this is your signal.

Take Action:

• Support the blockade: Gofundme for Olympic Forest Defenders

• Show up: contact the organizers and get involved.

• Share this post. Share their voices. Make sure they are not silenced in the shadow of falling trees.

Final Thought: This is What Resistance Looks Like

You don’t need a perfect plan to defend the wild. You just need courage, a cause, and the willingness to say, “I’m not going anywhere.”