ACTIVISTS RALLY FOR REDWOODS : POLICE ARREST 300-400 AT MILL.

Byline: John Howard Associated Press 

Scores of environmentalists - including singer Bonnie Raitt - were arrested Sunday in a demonstration against logging in the world's last privately owned virgin grove of redwood trees.

The protesters, many of them emerging from soggy camp sites after a nightlong drizzle, converged on a quarter-mile stretch of road in front of Pacific Lumber Co.'s Carlotta mill, about 280 miles north of San Francisco.

Nearly 4,000 people were at the site, and by early evening between 300 and 400 of them had been arrested and handcuffed on charges of intentionally trespassing on Pacific Lumber land.

Among the arrested were families with children, although none of the protesters was being jailed. They were processed at the site and released.

The protesters trickled in throughout the day by bicycle, car and on foot. Raitt was arrested along with her father, Broadway star John Raitt. Bonnie Raitt and Don Henley were among the singers who made appearances to support the cause.

Private security guards and sheriff's deputies in riot gear were deployed in front of the mill.

Demonstrators went prepared to be arrested for civil disobedience on behalf of the giant trees, said Earth First leader Judy Bari.

``We've tried everything,'' Bari said. ``These are some of the most magnificent beings on Earth. There is nothing left for us to do but put our bodies on the line.''

Last year, a similar protest drew 2,500 people and about 120 were arrested.

The demonstration by a coalition of environmental groups was aimed at Pacific Lumber's plans to remove dead, dying and diseased timber from about 3,000 acres of the Headwaters Forest.

The company called it a salvage operation, and had approval from courts and state forestry officials.

Environmentalists said the logging would damage live trees and harm wildlife habitat.

Several men in a pickup truck toting a logging banner drove to the center of the protest site and parked near Pacific Lumber's front gate.

``If we don't log it, somebody else will,'' said Bryan Chipps, a private timber worker.

Pacific Lumber had scheduled the work to begin today, but agreed with the Clinton administration to delay the start-up for two weeks during negotiations on preserving part of the forest.

The talks focused on a swap in which Texas billionaire Charles Hurwitz, whose Maxxam Inc. is the parent company of Pacific Lumber, would relinquish control of part of the Headwaters in return for surplus government property elsewhere. The government also would agree to eliminate at least some of the $250 million in claims against him for the 1988 collapse of a Texas thrift.

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PHOTO Hundreds of environmentalists demonstrate Sunday in f ront of a Pacific Lumber Company mill in Carlotta, Calif.

Associated Press