The loss of timber jobs left this county awash in poverty, violence and tree poaching

The Guardian illustration

Illegal tree harvesting is not ordinary in some parts, but it can become a person's primary source of income in lands where national parks and environmental concerns have ebbed out timbering employment. "Timber poaching exists at a confluence of this rural economic decline and environmental policy," reports Lyndsie Bourgon of The Guardian. "A number of poachers in Orick, California, detailed their motivations as an alchemy of poverty, lack of opportunity, drug misuse and resentment toward national parks, the federal government and environmentalists. . . . It's a snapshot of how rural communities across North America face de-industrialization, the ways they have failed to transition away from those dependent economies, and the people who remain rooted through the change."

Bourgon writes about Danny Garcia, a man who grew up in Orick, a Humbolt County town along California's Redwood Coast. Garcia was born into a beleaguered rural economy and became a tree poacher. Bourgon writes, "Redwoods National Park was instituted in the 1960s, then expanded in the 1970s, and in the late 20th century, the town was not spared from the Pacific north-west's timber wars. Orick's logging industry began to shrink, then all but disappeared as mills and lumber companies closed or moved." 

Alongside life in rural Orick, Garcia lived with the violence and trauma that often accompanies poverty. "By the early 1990s, Garcia's mother had died by suicide. His grandfather and many of his uncles were killed in logging accidents, traffic accidents and by drowning. Some spent time in prison; some used hard drugs. One of his aunts told me about the assaults she and her friends had experienced in the town from husbands, boyfriends, and other family members."

The sociologist Jennifer Sherman, a professor at Washington State University, studies unemployment's effects on rural communities in California and Washington. She told Bourgon, "Domestic violence is a huge part of my work. It seems to accompany poverty wherever poverty goes." Bourgon reports: "Humboldt leads California in violence against women; in particular, Indigenous women (close to 50% of Indigenous women in Humboldt are victims of domestic violence, according to Humboldt county domestic violence services). . . . Humboldt County averages 50% more domestic violence-related police calls per capita than the rest of California, and of those, close to half include a weapon."