February 19th 2001

By Naomi Jarvie
Fort Bragg Advocate-News
February 19, 2001

Fort Bragg - "... one hundred years ago silver salmon danced in forest streams ...," began Donna Nieto, alsoknown as "La Tigresa, nude savior of the forest."

Nieto is a poet who has held loggers at bay with her strip tease to save the trees, reciting her poetry bare-breasted.

On an afternoon last week, the setting was a rally in the vacant lot across the street from Ten Mile Courthouse in Fort Bragg, where Nieto and nine other people, calling themselves "The Mendocino10," were gathered for a pre-trial conference for a jury trial in May, with Judge Lehan, and a hearing on a restraining order.

They face charges of trespassing and are challenging a restraining order to stay off Mendocino Redwood Company property. MRC is owned by the Fisher family of San Francisco, which also owns the GAP, Banana Republic and Old Navy clothing stores.

Local residents and activists have accused MRC of unsustainable forest practices despite MRC's recent certification as a provider of sustainably harvested timber by the non-profit Smartwood Institute for Sustainable Forestry.

Two timber harvest plans are being protested and are the reason for the 10 facing a possible six-month jail term. One plan is adjacent to Montgomery Woods near Comptche where Nieto says William DeRidder is logging. State Parks has been negotiating with DeRidder to purchase that property.

On Jan. 29, Nieto and other protesters discovered two downed trees had fallen across a stream bed. After the Department of Forestry was notified, logging was halted for that day.

The second logging plan is in Kaisen Gulch, also near Comptche where the activists accuse MRC of putting in new roads above known debris slide areas that drain into the tributary to the Albion River and the last known coho stream bed, in order to log the timber harvest plan this spring.

Nieto said, "You have to have logging, but we need to eliminate non-sustainable logging, the use of pesticides that damage streams."

She said logging is threatening the last coho salmon spawning grounds in the Albion River, sometimes muddying the water so much the salmon are unable to mate and if they do, the eggs are smothered in mud.

The Mendocino 10 say they are committed to non-violent protest.

With Nieto in the rehearsed protest/performance was Gael Brown, an Isis priestess ordained in Ireland, who hosts the Sunday morning Oak and Thorn show on KZYX.

Brown said she came to bring in the elements and take part in the "show biz and pizazz from LaTigresa." Nieto said the day The 10 were arraigned, MRC went in and began cutting the big trees.

The 10 facing trial and possible imprisonment are: Brian Erickson, Osha Reynolds, Beth Bosk, Sally Eggleston, Bruanne Hoipkemeir, Patricia Gallagher, Howard Seidell, Kay Rudin, Nieto and Carol Maskus.