Those who have a certain CD will have heard the Judi Bari Memorial Broadcast where it is reported that she declared that EF! would stop tree spiking in California. Spiked trees going through a sawmill could be very dagerous for workers, breaking bandsaw blades which then fly about.

It would not be so if the trees are being fed into a chipper, though it should wreck the chipper. Hitting staples or nails with a chinsaw might wreck a chain but I have not had one break yet, perhaps because I only use low powered saws.

An earlier report said there were plane trees, It is unlikely that trunks of lacewood would go into a chipper, they might be good enough for veneer, or certainly for turnery. A ceramic spike in a veneering log would spoil the edge on the vereer knife and at least shorten the number of times it could be resharpened, Anyone have direct experience of such happening?

One suggestion is that plane trunks would be sawn up to get quarter sawn veneer faces - a dagerous blade snapping operation if spiked. If there was bombing in Oxford in the war, the trees might already be shrapnel spiked. Maybe God beat you to it Demolish Westgate.

how idioteque! Spikes cause slow death to trees. How out-of-step with nature, incredible for someone purporting to be stopping environmental damage as a self-proclaimed friend of the earth!

Hey Oak,
No person has claimed to be a Friend of the Earth though a deceased Earth First!er has been mentioned.

Tree spiking might get rid of Sycamore and Beech, but do not complain, that just makes more room for more good durable trees like us.

Hey, if you read the info on their website, they do specifically say that these spikes don't harm the tree.

Plus, they'd otherwise be coming down anyway :(

the spike may not harm the tree, but breaking the integrity of the bark by putting it in might introduce disease into vulnerable trees. The shrapnel God used to spike trees would have been sterilized by the heat of the explosion, and perhaps have retained enough heat to cauterize the wound,

> the spike may not harm the tree, but breaking the integrity of the bark by putting it
> in might introduce disease into vulnerable trees.

True, but no more than pruning a tree would. As has already been mentioned, the trees would otherwise be completely felled! A minor risk of disease is insignificant in comparison to that.

Earth First! denounced tree spiking about 2 decades ago because it can seriously injure the workers. remember Judi Bari, who got blown up by the FBI? well, she and a number of other IWW members in EF! who got that passed. and quite right too. they argued (quite rightly) that workers and environmentalists shoudl unite against the real enemies - the bosses. they built up a good coalition up in northwest USA back in the early 90s, with workers leaking information to EF! and EF! activists vowing to support the workers for better pay and working conditions.

now THAT'S how you win a struggle, not by putting people's wellbeing in danger.

whatever you think about the companies or councils giving the orders, most of the workers are just ordinary folks who need to earn a living. they need education and organisation, not mutilation.