In Remembrance of Robert “woods” Sutherland

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Robert “man who walks in the woods” —or often simply “woods”— Sutherland. 

woods was born to Earl Wilbur Sutherland Jr. and Mildred Rice and spent his early years outside of Cleveland, often in the hardwood forests near his home. 

woods’ early years after leaving home were never still, with a stint at Western Reserve University to study art before dropping out to move to New York City and a job monitoring birds for the New York City Museum of Natural History. There, woods also served as the conservation chair for the Linnaean Society of New York. While in New York, something important was happening across the country. After a visit to San Francisco, woods moved to San Francisco in 1966, immersing himself in the counter-cultural movement centered on Haight-Ashbury. Woods approached the scene with his characteristic drive, organizing a commune and planning concerts in Golden Gate Park. But soon, he was burned out. And like so many back-to-the-landers, woods migrated north, first arriving in Humboldt in 1968 before becoming a full-time resident in 1973. 

Those early years were not easy. At first, woods lived in a tent on property near the Lost Coast. That first year was eventful, with a wildfire destroying his tent. The rough shack he built to replace it was destroyed by a neighbor with a sledgehammer. But woods felt a connection to this place, particularly to the Coast Range, which he treated with spiritual reverence, and he persisted. His adopted name—man who walks in the woods—described his favorite activity: walks through the woods and along the rivers of the wild Lost Coast. 

In 1977, woods, Ruthanne Cecil, and Marylee Bytheriver issued a call to action on the issue of aerial herbicide application. Timber companies were spraying 2,4,5-T, one of the base components of Agent Orange, on recent clearcuts, and aerial spraying was drifting onto adjacent properties and into local waters. Together they formed an ad hoc group called EPIC, a reference to Upton Sinclair’s gubernatorial campaign that promised to “End Poverty in California.” With the acronym chosen, the group then had to figure out what each letter stood for: the Environmental Protection Information Center. Together, the group, with a vast community,  was successful in ending the aerial application of 2,4,5-T. 

The next struggle emerged. In 1977, Georgia-Pacific was in the midst of clear-cutting near Sinkyone Wilderness State Park. They intended to liquidate all old-growth and merchantable timber between Bear Harbor and Usal. Efforts to protect the area through legislation were not adequate, and other strategies were needed. In 1981, EPIC was incorporated as a not-for-profit organization and bore down on what needed to be done. Woods hit the books and began studying California law. Georgia-Pacific came back in 1983 to finish the clear-cutting they began in Little Jackass Creek. Environmentalists dubbed the threatened coastal Old Growth Redwood and Douglas fir stand the “Sally Bell Grove,” in honor of a Sinkyone woman who, at ten, with her brother, survived a massacre that killed the rest of their family near Needle Rock. 

The strategy to save Sally Bell Grove was the precursor for the emerging struggle over Headwaters Forest. Forest defenders swarmed the area, using direct action to stop the felling while EPIC’s legal team, often headed by Sharon Duggan, stormed with solid facts and legal arguments to the court to seek an injunction. Woods was a key part of putting that and subsequent cases together. For Sally Bell Grove, EPIC and the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) won a stay at the California Court of Appeals before, in 1985, affirmed that Cal Fire abused its discretion by failing to require the Timber Harvest Plan to consider the cumulative effects of the proposed logging, failing to adequately consult with Tribes and California Indians in general, and failing to assure that California’s Native American Heritage was being protected.

Woods, Richard Gienger, and Cecilia Lanman

Following the victory, in 1986, California, together with the Trust for Public Lands and Save the Redwoods League, purchased 7,800 acres from Georgia-Pacific along the Sinkyone Wilderness Coast. The Coastal Conservancy negotiated the details of the outcome for a number of years. Some lands went to expand Sinkyone Wilderness State Park and to create Sinkyone State Wilderness, and over half went to the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council in August 1997 as a Tribal Protected Area.

woods continued as EPIC’s litigation coordinator for many years, through the early battles of the Redwood Wars. These fights—Timber Harvest Plan after Timber Harvest Plan—were exhausting, and the effort felt Sisyphean. woods began drafting a new strategy, a ballot initiative, where voters could approve logging rules that the Board of Forestry would never agree to. That effort morphed into the Forests Forever initiative of 1990, which proposed banning clearcuts, would require other changes to the Forest Practice Act that would better protect the wildlife habitat, and included a bond measure for the purchase of some of the last remnant old-growth. The initiative would fail, barely, registering only 48% of the vote in a generally hostile election when Republicans swept statewide elections. 

woods became fascinated and involved in the ecology of Lake Baikal in southern Siberia. In 1990, woods traveled as part of a Soviet and American delegation to study and develop recommendations for the preservation of the oldest, largest, and deepest lake on the planet. woods was joined by prominent conservationist David Brower. Friends remember his slideshow presentations of his research, and woods still told stories of his exploits many decades later. 

woods was also passionate about defending the North Coast’s mom-and-pop cannabis community. woods saw cannabis—both growing it and selling it—as an extension of his countercultural ethos: “[M]arijuana is a way of saying that the values that society has tried to force down people’s throats, are not the values that people find coming from their hearts. So marijuana is kind of an adamant way of saying ‘No, those traditional values are not my values!’”

But woods recognized a dark side, too. The small farming operations were being replaced by a new generation of growers, larger and more impactful. woods was deeply concerned with the generators, water diversions, and forest clearings from this “Green Rush.” So Woods did what he liked to do: take action. woods became the animating force behind the Humboldt Mendocino Marijuana Advocacy Project (HuMMAP). Under woods’ direction, HuMMAP also successfully used the courts, challenging the first Medical Marijuana Land Use Ordinance (1.0) in 2016, arguing the county bypassed its obligation to do a full environmental review. 

To experience woods was to experience his genius. In addition to being a self-taught lawyer, woods was also a respected botanist, with a recognized specialty in the plant species ceonothus. woods also had a keen eye for birds and contributed to a survey of birds of the Lost Coast.

woods was an indefatigable champion of the environment. He will be missed.