THANKS TO THE `HIPPIES'

REGARDING the recent Headwaters Forest deal, it is ironic that a small
group of environmental activists (disdainfully referred to as scruffy
hippies on welfare) were able to do what all the political and legal
big guns could not do.

The activists were able to slow down the Hurwitz-Maxxam financial
juggernaut from their destructive logging practices in Humboldt County
and force them into compliance with California and federal law in a
way that eventually led to federal and state purchase of the
Headwaters Forest as a public preserve.

They did it by staging innumerable demonstrations over the last decade
or more, focusing attention on the unique features of the old-growth
redwoods, and by successfully challenging in court the stepped-up
cutting plans initiated by Hurwitz's Pacific Lumber Co.

Unpopular as these activists may be with some, I think we owe them a
debt of gratitude for accomplishing something admirable, something
that none of the rest of us was able to do.

Don Hildenbrand
Mountain View