Two demonstrators were arrested Monday while protesting logging in the Cripps Bend area of the Shawnee National Forest, and a third sat in the area where trees were being cut, protesters say.

Kristen Kordecki, an SIUC student affiliated with Shawnee Earth First, an environmental movement, was arrested Monday for obstruction of justice after she attempted to block a government truck. Following her release, she returned back to Cripps Bend and continued her protest.

Protester Jan Wilder-Thomas said Kordecki was standing in a restricted logging area with a megaphone, verbally protesting the cutting of Cripps Bend trees.

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Another protester, Steve Christianson, also was arrested. Protesters said Christianson was arrested after he ran through a restricted logging area.

Three other protesters were arrested last week while demonstrating against logging in the Cripps Bend area.

Protesters said an unidentified person sat in the forest yesterday while loggers cut the trees around him.

Kordecki said the Forest Service knew the tree-sitter was in the logging area but had done nothing about him.

The Forest Service is aware(the person was there). They refuse to look for him, she said. They continue to cut while a person’s life is in danger. This is a serious, serious, serious problem for the Forest Service if they don’t look into the problem.

Becky Banker, of the Murphysboro Ranger Station said Monday she was not aware of the tree-sitter, but she said the Forest Service was looking into the matter.

Things are real quiet, Banker said. Things are going as smoothly as we could expect it to. Banker said Carbondale Veneer company brought in heavy machinery and started moving already cut trees out of Cripps Bend Monday. She said if the weather cooperates, the cut will take a couple of weeks, but no target-date for completion of the logging has been set.

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Wilder-Thomas said she attempted to report a murder (of trees) to the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department to no avail yesterday morning.

It hasn’t stopped the cutting. At five o’ clock (Monday) they’ll pull out and leave us the waste, Wilder-Thomas said. It’s a bunch of thieves and murderers.

Bill Cronin, a local environmentalist, said he plans to refile an appeal which states the Forest Service is in violation of the Endangered Species Act by logging Cripps Bend. The appeal could halt logging of the area until a federal judge has reveiwed the case.

Cronin filed the original lawsuit in July which led to two temporary restraining orders. On Sept.12 Judge Phil Gilbert ruled against Cronin’s appeal stating that Cronin did not offer siginificant evidence that the Forest Service was in violation of the act.

Protesters believe that in the long-run, the Forest Service will regret what they have done to Cripps Bend.

One day they’ll (Forest Service) have to look the Creator in the face and explain what they did here today, Al Puckett, of Kentucky, affiliated with the Native Americans for a Clean Environment, said. We should have respect for Mother Earth because we’re all connected.