BONNIE PHILLIPS
DECEMBER 21, 1998
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At first her battles were simply about preserving the forest,
often from the Forest Service itself. It took 10 years of
campaigning by Pilchuk, for instance, to get the big agency to
back off plans to replace a modest gravel road in an old-growth
forest with a broad, paved highway. Although there is no
"Endangered Habitat Act," Phillips and other environmentalists
were able, sometimes, to wrap the Endangered Species Act around
old-growth forests. Two endangered birds, the spotted owl and
the marbled murrelet, nest in the moss-grown upper limbs of the
ancient trees. Phillips is awed by the murrelet, a seabird that
flies to Washington's forests--farther away every year because
of logging--to feed its young.
From a plane flown by Lighthawk, the activist flying outfit,
Phillips scans the scarred forest between Seattle and the
Cascades. On land where 500-year-old trees recently grew, she
sees bald slopes and cookie-cutter second homes. She is small,
white-haired, 56 years old. And full of fire. Her plans? She's
starting a nationwide group, Women for Protection of Public
Lands. "There aren't enough women environmentalists," she says.
"Women can fight without making it personal. Work with the
opposition when we can..."--she pauses, smiling--"and sue them
when we have to."
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