FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 21, 2003



Contact: Raya Green

Campaign Coordinator, Children of Earth

713-858-0074



Houston, TX - A local environmental activist presented a speech on behalf of Darryl Cherney, Earth First organizer and MAXXAM stockholder, before MAXXAM President and CEO, Charles Hurwitz, board members, legal staff, and shareholders attending the annual MAXXAM Shareholder's meeting today, in Houston.

In attendance was Courtney Clarke, Houston Coordinator for Children of Earth, a national organization that focuses on the connection between Houston-based MAXXAM corporation, and its subsidiary Pacific Lumber, a California company that continues to log ancient redwoods while forcibly removing the peaceful protesters and tree sitters protecting them. Ms. Clarke read Mr. Cherney's letter to Mr. Hurwitz during the question/answer portion of the meeting, which made the following key points:

* These ancient trees are like people to this company. They are something to be calculated on a ledger, given a value, and then exploited or eliminated as profit dictates. That is a given in your world of capital. But, the world's capital, is not its money, but its resources. And, though the current economic systems that dominate the world allow us to grab all we can now, it doesn't mean we must do so.

* No matter what side of the issue you are on, this is a moral issue. Can the corporate leaders of the 21st century decide that they want to be leaders of how we can make the world a better place? Can you conceive of making Pacific Lumber into a model timber company practicing truly sustained yield? Can there be a way a company like MAXXAM can live in harmony with the Earth?

* Up here in the redwoods, things are looking a bit grim and I am concerned for the potential liability that my company may face. I trust that the Board is aware that people who are sitting in trees in peaceful protest are being ripped down violently without regard to their personal safety by contractors who work for Pacific Lumber, a wholly-owned MAXXAM subsidiary. It is a miracle the another activist hasn't been killed by Pacific Lumber, like the death of David Chain in 1999. As a shareholder, I want to recommend in the strongest possible terms that you order your wholly-owned subsidiary, Pacific Lumber, to cease taking actions that greatly endanger the lives of protesters.

Ms. Clarke concluded her reading with Mr. Cherney's warning to Mr. Hurwitz and MAXXAM stockholders: "I am not here, at least by proxy, to lecture you about the irresponsible behavior of your wholly-owned subsidiary. I am here, however, to suggest that you all look deeply into your soul and ask yourselves, at what point will you kill another human being to make a dollar. It happened once. It appears something severe is going to happen again."

Mr. Cherney and Ms. Clarke hope to bring world attention to the serious environmental consequences from MAXXAM's unsustainable logging practices as indicated in yesterday's court ruling where a Superior Court judge in California found Pacific Lumber guilty of using illegal permits to log over 600 acres in the Headwaters area. (see http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2003/05/12031.php)

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