Best of: Film documents fight over Illinois forest

Shawnee National Forest, the only national forest in Illinois, consists of 260,000 acres of dense hardwood. It spans the width of the state from the Mississippi River to the Ohio River. It’s an ecological sanctuary and a source of natural resources. 

The Shawnee became a flashpoint in the early 1990s when the US Forest Service approved a Missouri company to clear-cut timber across more than 140 acres. Environmental activists organized, holding a 79-day blockade and protest in the summer of 1990. It sparked a forest defense movement that is the subject of a recent documentary film called “Shawnee Showdown: Keep the Forest Standing.”

This conversation originally aired March 29, 2022.

GUESTS: 

Cade Bursell

Filmmaker | Professor, Southern Illinois University Carbondale’s School of Media Arts

John Wallace

Environmental Educator and Activist

Sam Stearns 

Environmental Educator and Activist

Prepared for web by Owen Henderson

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