STILL PHOTOGRAPH FROM PICKAXE COURTESY OF TIM REAM
			Activist Director Tim Ream to Appear at Oberlin Premiere of New Documentary Film Tomorrow
			APRIL 12, 2001--Forest- and film-activist Tim Ream will give the Oberlin premiere of his new film PickAxe Friday, April 13, in King 106 at 4:30 P.M. PickAxe documents a yearlong citizens' blockade of a forest road to protect from clear-cut logging a 9000-acre old-growth forest at Warner Creek near Oakridge, Oregon. After the film, Ream, who figures prominently in the on-screen action, will answer questions and speak about current forest-defense actions. The story of citizen action to save the forest at Warner Creek gained national attention after becoming the longest road blockade in U.S. history. PickAxe depicts mass arrests, Ream's 75-day hunger strike, and a jail riot that brings the efforts to protect the forest to a powerful conclusion. "Less than 5 percent of the original forests in the continental U.S. remain intact," says Ream, "and unless people stand up against government and corporate abuse on our public lands, little forest ecosystem may soon remain." Ream started his career in environmental defense working for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He became an independent activist when he came to believe that his independence would allow him to make a more committed stand to defend threatened habitat. Besides Warner Creek and the 75-day hunger strike at the Eugene, Oregon, Federal Building, Ream is a veteran of many tree sits, including the campaign at Washington's Watch Mountain. He has also taken actions in the California Redwoods and directed and produced the 20-minute video RIP WTO N30, about activities that disrupted the 1999 World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle. The screening, part of Oberlin's Environmental Film Festival, is part of Ream's Forest Defense Tour 2001, in Oberlin during a 40-city national spring tour.
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