March 14, 2005

Fisher-Smith arrested as logging protest continues

By Robert Plain
Ashland Daily Tidings

Ashland activists are continuing to protest the logging of old growth forests burned in the Biscuit fire, as a group of women risked arrest this morning by blockading the green bridge that leads to the Fiddler timber sale and the Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area.

As of 10 a.m., the Josephine County Sheriff's Department confirmed that 16 people have been arrested and at least 11 of them were women.

"There are at least 20 women refusing to move off this bridge until they are taken into custody," Dot Fisher-Smith, a 76-year-old forest activist and artist from Ashland, said this morning. She was arrested shortly after speaking by cell phone to the Daily Tidings, according to the sheriff's office.

Many of the protesters, both risking arrest and on the sidelines, are from the Ashland area, said Fisher-Smith, though she could not confirm an exact number.

Fisher-Smith was one of the women willing to go to jail to protect the old growth forests of the Siskiyou National Forest.

"I have rearranged my life so that I can follow my conscience and become part of the tradition that goes back to when colonists launched British tea into Boston Harbor," Fisher-Smith said. "This logging is akin to taxation without representation. This is the government doing things that don't represent what the people want. We are here representing the 23,000 letters the government received opposing logging this old growth reserve area."

Fisher-Smith said loggers were unable to proceed to their work area this morning when they arrived without police escorts at around dawn. She said, included in the 20 women protesting the timber sale on the bridge included several senior citizens, a pregnant woman due to give birth on Friday and a woman who has suspended herself from the bridge by a rope in a way that if authorities tried to cut her down, they would risk dropping her in the Illinois River and subjecting her to serious injury.

She said there were more women "locked down" to the road beyond the bridge and, in the area to be logged, a man has climbed a tree and would refuse to come down until the logging is halted while the court system waits to hear an appeal set for March 22. The man engaged in the tree-sit was identified as "Perusha."

Today marks the eighth consecutive day of peaceful protests and civil disobedience in response to logging projects in fire-affected old growth forests. Fisher-Smith said the group opposing this new era of commercial logging has grown to over 200 activists. Last Monday the group was estimated to include about 100 activists.

"The camp has been growing every day," she said. "The mood is really great and warm here. It's a wonderful thing to be a part of."

At issue here is whether the Forest Service can exempt old growth forests that have experienced forest fires from the 1993 Northwest Forest Plan that set in place protections for ancient trees because the endangered spotted owl utilizes these areas as habitat.

While intermittent logging has taken place over the last seven days, Fisher-Smith says the activists have significantly slowed down the process.

Brian Anderson, an undersheriff in Josephine County, said the abnormally high number of females arrested has caused the sheriff's department to restructure its holding patterns. They have cleared out a 50-man dorm room that usually houses inmate workers. Those inmates have been "re-housed."

He said the Josephine County jail holds 264 inmates and, prior to this morning's arrests, the department was holding 145 people.

Staff writer Robert Plain can be reached at 482-3456 x 3040 or bplain@dailytidings.com.