{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"KZYX News","title":"Tribal Chair threatened in JDSF","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":390,"description":"October 5, 2021 — Protesters in the Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF), which is managed by CalFire, are facing increased hostility as the end of logging season approaches. Threats of legal action and at least one instance of what sounds very much like a casual death threat have emerged in the past few days. And a fight about activists’ First Amendment rights to document political activity is already underway. \r\nMichael Hunter is the chairman of the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians, one of several entities calling for a moratorium on logging in the state forest. On Monday morning, he was in Soda Gulch with about ten other activists, filming an interaction with loggers and another man, also filming, who identified himself as a safety officer. Hunter described the exchange a few hours later on a phone call from the forest. \r\n“They started up the chainsaws,” he recalled, “revved them up, revved them up. A couple hours later, they came back to the same spot, and we were still here, waiting. And they walked down there and did the same thing, again, acted like they were going to cut those redwoods, and I said, hey, ah, please don’t kill me by accident today. And the old man says, oh, it won’t be by accident.”\r\nHunter shared the video with kzyx shortly after our interview. The logger’s response is off-mic, but clearly audible. \r\n“What these folks are doing when they go out into the forest is very brave,” says Tom Wheeler, the Executive Director of EPIC, the Environmental Protection Information Center, “because they are going out peacefully, they are asking the loggers to stop and they are being met with hostility and threats.” \r\nIn addition to threats from loggers, Wheeler says protesters are facing CalFire’s mis-use of the law to quash their First Amendment rights. Last week, he sent a stern letter to CalFire Director Thomas Porter, detailing some examples. That was in response to a letter from Jackson State Forest program manager Kevin Conway, to the...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/xZpAumwbhFUpJUYcwaQ1-q6snzOyqAm13l7cW6AWPCM/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mMzkz/NjAwNjc2OWMyZmFk/YWY2YTdmYjI5M2Mz/YWMxNy5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}