World Photo by Alex Powers Douglas County sheriff's Deputy Travis Terry examines anchor lines running to a sit-in shelter on Monday at the entrance to the Umpcoos Ridge No. 2 timber sale in Elliott State Forest near Reedsport.

REEDSPORT — Roseburg Forest Products foresters expected to hear chain saws this week in the Umpcoos Ridge No. 2 timber sale on the Elliott State Forest.

Instead, activists with Earth First! and Cascadia Rising Tide barricaded a logging road about 16 miles southeast of Reedsport on Monday. They said they were protesting ecosystem destruction and calling for abolition of a tax system the group says encourages widespread clearcuts.

As many as 60 protesters, mostly young and masked by bandanas, carried logs, ropes or food and water to a wooden rampart at the entrance to the 79 acres of 107-year-old second-growth Douglas fir trees.

“It’s not the giant trees you think of when you think forest defense, but 50 years from now this will be the old growth,” said protest volunteer Jasmine Zimmer-Stucky.

Behind the crude log-and-rope structure, volunteers flipped a large pickup on its side and were reinforcing anchor lines from two platforms — one suspended between trees and the other a contraption designed to crash down if disturbed.

Protesters seated in the platforms could fall if the anchor lines are ripped from the ground by trucks or other equipment.

“We’ll be here until the timber sale is dropped,” Zimmer-Stucky said.

Loggers from Roseburg-based Scott Timber Co. already had clearcut about 10 percent of the Roseburg purchase, said Dan Postrel, a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Forestry.

ODF doesn’t yet know whether the agency will negotiate with activists.

“We’re still working with law enforcement, who’s taking the lead on trying to assess how many folks are there and what the situation is,” Postrel said.

The Douglas County Sheriff’s office and Oregon State Police went there Monday afternoon, meeting with an attorney, a legal observer and police liaison before stepping into the activist camp.

Shouts of “law enforcement” rang out across the blockade, and volunteers re-affixed their masks to hide their identities, moving behind the overturned truck and looking away from police officers.

Activists were silent as deputy sheriff Travis Terry asked aloud about the anchor lines.

“Are those carabiner clips?” he asked, with no response. “Anybody?”

The activists refused to talk, said Cascadia attorney Ben Rosenfeld, on behalf of the group.

Police didn’t arrest anyone, but possible charges could include interfering with agricultural operations, criminal trespassing and possible federal environmental offenses, Terry said.

“With this many people up here, you’re just setting yourself up for the possibility of a fire or other hazard,” the deputy said.

The Umpcoos Ridge sale is on common school fund land owned by the State Land Board, Postrel said, and ODF doesn’t have plans to cancel the contract. Timber sales on Umpcoos Ridge would generate $1.4 million for Oregon’s public schools.

“We want to see this resolved peacefully and promptly and for the purposes ... of generating revenue for schools,” he said.

But Earth First! would rather see increased taxation on private forest land, which the group contends would slow clearcut operations and reduce the need for state timber sales.

“This area is being treated as a piggy bank,” Zimmer-Stucky said. “It’s public forest land, so it should be used by the public.”