Film: "Shawnee Showdown: Keep the Forest Standing"
- Event Date: Monday, March 28, 2022
- Time: 6:00 pm (CDT)
- Location: Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana, IL
- Cost: Free
During the late 1980s and the 1990s, a small, dedicated group of activists fought on the ground and in the courts to stop clear-cutting, oil and gas drilling, and ATV use in the Shawnee National Forest located in Southern Illinois. They won the support of their community and the struggle in a landmark court case. Seventeen years later, the court lifted the injunction, and the Forest Service resumed logging.
Shawnee Showdown: Keep the Forest Standing portrays the struggle to protect the forest through interviews, photographs, and news footage. The film examines the ways the past struggle can serve to inform the public and activists today in responding to current Forest Service management projects.
These activists are once again asking hard questions about public land use. Should our public land be degraded to generate commercial profit for a few? With the effects of climate change intensifying and the knowledge that mature forests sequester more carbon, why not keep the Shawnee National Forest standing as a regional carbon sink? How can the forest remain a healthy habitat for struggling forest species like forest interior and migratory songbirds?
Will our Illinois treasure be despoiled? How do we keep the forest standing?
The Illinois Community Media Project hosts this documentary screening and discussion about an environmental justice movement in Southern Illinois. Join filmmaker Cade Bursell for the post-screening discussion, along with local environmental activists who participated in the protests in the late 1980s and early 1990s and who remain active today.
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