GLENDALE — In what may portend a summer of peaceful protests, three Greenpeace activists were arrested Tuesday morning after blockading a road leading to a U.S. Bureau of Land Management timber sale.

Two activists locked themselves inside a three-ton yellow metal shipping container while another activist was locked to the outside. They hoped to stop the BLM’s 236-acre Soukow timber sale about five miles west of Glendale.

The three activists — Jennifer Kirby, 26, of Washington, D.C., Kingman Lim, 23, of Berkeley, Calif., and Anthony Villagomez, 22, of Northern Oregon — were all charged with disorderly conduct after their locks were cut by personnel from the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department.

The shipping container was about 16 feet long, 8 feet wide and 8 feet high, according to the BLM.

The protest came the day after BLM officials signed an agreement with Greenpeace aimed at avoiding conflict and illegal activity, said Joan Resnick, acting manager of the Glendale Resource Area.

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She described it as a "good faith effort to let Greenpeace keep its presence on public land and exercise free speech."

Greenpeace has applied for a special use permit for its first "forest rescue station" in the nation, which it established early this month on the edge of the Kelsey Whiskey timber sales some 20 miles west of Galice.

"But the agreement was also a real commitment to safety and to full disclosure," Resnick said. "We felt comfortable that we had a meeting of the mind."

Tuesday’s illegal activity by the group may have jeopardized that agreement, she said.

"They clearly breached it," she said. "I’m personally very disappointed. We’ve worked with them to get them into compliance, respect their freedom of speech and their right to be on the land as long as they obey the law.

"This (protest) calls into question as to where it leaves us," she added.

But Greenpeace campaign director Bill Richardson said the agreement pertained only to the forest rescue station.

"Everything we discussed was about the forest rescue station," he said. "The two issues are completely separate. Any protests and the educational activity at the station are two different types of activity."

Although she declined to talk about what future protests may be planned for the region, Greenpeace spokeswoman Celia Alario, noting that major environmental groups met in Washington, D.C., late last month to announce a nationwide campaign, didn’t discount more civil disobedience in the region to protect old-growth timber.

"We had the national kickoff of the summer of action," she said. "I would anticipate that across the country, where ancient forest on public lands is under siege, there will be a lot of action this summer, ranging from legislation, legal action to peaceful protests."

Greenpeace has about a quarter-million members nationwide. The two protesters inside the solar-powered steel container had laptop computers they were using to post an Internet journal on the Greenpeace Web site.

Richardson, a 16-year veteran of the group, said Greenpeace has called for a moratorium on commercial logging on public lands and for increased protection and restoration efforts, he said.

"These beautiful, old trees are our national treasures and the lungs of the planet," he said. "But instead of protecting the last remaining forests, the Bush administration is attempting to destroy them."

The Soukow sale, which includes some 2 million board feet of timber, is on the BLM’s Glendale Resource Area. It was purchased by the Swanson Group in the fall of 2001 for its appraised price of $232,377.