90 MFN newsletter: Tree-sit on the Border
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Hello friends of 90 Miles from Needles!
Our most recent episode has inspired me more than most! I sat down with Kate Scott, who is putting her body on the line — along with a cadre of fellow desert protection activists — to keep contractors building the border wall from destroying the last of a grove of ancient cottonwood trees that have stood on the banks of the Santa Cruz River for well over two centuries.
Here's friend of the podcast Russ McSpadden, of the Center for Biological Diversity, with the 101 class on the action:
I've long been wondering, as a product of the 1980s and 1990s when I first started in this line of work, why direct action has come so slowly to the desert protection movement. Being in the Bay Area during the fight to preserve old-growth redwood trees definitely had me used to thinking that direct action was something you just did when something you love is threatened.
So I've been counterintuitively thrilled, despite the looming and unnecesary threat to these trees and the San Rafael Valley that nurtured them, to see people turning to this kind of response. Don't get me wrong: direct action is dangerous at the best of times, and this administration has shown that it doesn't care much for the rights or safety of people who oppose the White House's agenda.
Nonetheless, the bravery of Kate and her fellow activists gives me hope, in much the same way that the pitched resistance to the border wall in the Big Bend area does.
I think you'll like this episode.
We have some big news coming up for the podcast and the Desert Advocacy Media Network, which I hope to be able to share with you in a week or two. So stay tuned!
And please feel free to share this newsletter with anyone you think might be interested.
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