The Last Stand: The War between Wall Street and Main Street over California's Ancient Redwoods

About this book

The Last Stand is a compelling American saga of greed gone wild and a small town divided over a precious natural resource. For three generations the Murphy family ran the Pacific Lumber Company with a tradition of both sustainable forestry and a concern for employee well-being. Their Headwaters Forest in Northern California contained three-quarters of the worlds old-growth redwoods in 1985 the year in which a Texas-based conglomerate engineered a hostile takeover of PLC. The new owners quickly increased the harvest of redwoods by 300 percent gutted the employee pension plan and began clear-cutting acre upon acre of virgin forest. Local environmentalists took up the fight to reverse the takeover and save the redwoods. The conflict between conservation efforts and fears of unemployment came to a head at the end of "Redwood Summer " when protesters from across the country came into town and were greeted by residents shouting insults and slinging eggs and tomatoes. Moving from the paneled boardrooms overlooking Wall Street to the banks of the Eel River this engrossing account chronicles the ongoing battle between environmentalists and business over irreplaceable natural resources.