Tim Hermach

Tim Hermach has established an environmental justice movement against the big timber corporations summoning a simple solution he called "Zero Cut": to pass national legislation outlawing all logging of native and old-growth forests on public land.

Like Big Tobacco, the big timber corporations, that strip-mine the nation's forests, have lied to the people. They have used bribery and extortion to influence politicians, and mounted billion dollar public relations campaigns to mislead the public.

He founded the Native Forest Council, to assure the preservation of the nation's remaining native forests for future generations. The group was the first to advocate a total logging ban on public lands, calling their position "Zero Cut;" and though they were dismissed at the outset as politically unrealistic, several powerful environmental groups such as the Sierra Club have now adopted Zero Cut for public lands. Passionate, outspoken, and uncompromising, Hermach has widened the focus of political debate over logging and forest management practices, and has inspired many, both progressive and conservative citizens and environmental advocates.

Tim Hermach was born in 1945 and grew up in Eugene, Oregon in a family of four boys. He and his brothers spent a lot of time in the woods, often on publicly-owned national forests and BLM land, playing in the clear streams, drinking the water, and chasing enormous salmon.   By the time Hermach graduated from the University of Oregon with a business degree, the forest he had played in as a child had been stripped bare from ridge top to ridge top, and the streambeds had filled with mud.  There was little left besides monocropped fiber farms and tree plantations. Most of the remaining small percentage of the country's native forests existed on public lands, but were subject to heavy logging at taxpayer expense, and with no accounting for the negative impacts to the publicly owned resource.

Hermach learned that the U.S. had already logged over 90 percent of its one billion acres of native forests--public and private. This stood out in stark contrast to the situation in the Amazon rainforest which was receiving much anxious attention at the time--of which only 14 percent had been logged.  Hermach became heavily involved with the Sierra Club. But over the next few years, he grew disillusioned with the large national group, realizing that its main strategy for environmental conflict resolution was to compromise in order to protect their wealthy donors.

In 1988 Hermach founded his own organization, the Native Forest Council, with the purpose of disclosing the truth about national forests and the politics that drive their management. From the start, the group began taking controversial stands and maintained that the U.S. could no longer afford to chip away at the five percent of native forests that remain intact. Arguing that when logging ceases in one location it only increases pressure to log elsewhere, Hermach offered a simple solution he called "Zero Cut": to pass national legislation outlawing all logging of native and old-growth forests on public land.  His persistent condemnation of compromise gained him no allies among mainstream national environmental organizations. Undaunted, he gathered input from more than 200 grassroots organizations, and in 1989 he drafted the Native Forest Protection Act, which called for an immediate halt to old-growth forest logging, and a ban on the export or import of unfinished wood products (logs, chips, and pulp) protecting both jobs and resources.  The Act mandated ecological recovery, and included a provision to ensure government accountability.

        When Hermach took his proposed legislation to Washington, D.C. he recruited the support of 14 Democrats in Congress, though they all withdrew their backing after being approached by several national environmental groups expressing opposition. For the next few years, Hermach persistently stuck with the campaign, attracting media attention, distributing information, and raising public awareness of the issue. Eventually major newspapers, such as The Washington Post, and the New York Times, published editorials questioning and criticizing national forest management policy.

Under Growing concern the U.S. Forest Service to adopt new management philosophies, but changes were only cosmetic. In 1994, Hermach realized that his original plan placed too much trust in the Forest Service, which had essentially become a servant of the timber industry. Hence, he proposed to end public land logging altogether. It met with predictable opposition for all the usual reasons though appealed to many, and reinvigorated the grassroots community which had been fighting the corrupt timber industry.

The issue gained more and more attention as the public became increasingly critical of governmental forest management practices. Hermach never broke his stride; he continued campaigning for Zero Cut for the next few years-- educating the media, and constantly networking by phone and fax.  By 1995 he had scored endorsements from Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, chapters of the Audubon Society, and Washington's Inland Empire Public Lands Council; all officially voting to support Zero Cut.

        Ten years after Hermach had introduced the notion of Zero Cut, Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) and Jim Leach (R-IA) introduced a bipartisan proposal called the National Forest Protection and Restoration Act (NFPRA) that would phase out all "commercial logging" within two years. In doing so it would protect the country's forest heritage, cut corporate welfare, and save taxpayer money; and it also included a provision to assist logging communities with economic recovery and diversification. Though the bill hasn't yet passed, it is dramatically improving the parameters of the political debate, and lining up support of the Zero Cut idea.

        The Native Forest Council continues to build strong coalitions for a non-compromising economic, social, and environmental solutions. It serves as a powerful information clearing-house for the media and the forest movement.  Its Forest Voice newsletter is read by activists all over the country. Hermach continues his work for the total protection of 650 million acres of federally owned public land, rivers, and streams. He lives in Eugene, Oregon.