Tree-Sitter Jessica Ostroff on Being Arrested by Helicopter and the Fight to Save the Old-Growth Forests

Interview by Spencer Roberts

Photo by TJ Watt

We spoke with Jessica Ostroff, a tree-sitter involved with the movement to save the last 2.7% of old-growth forests in unceded Pacheedaht and Ditidaht territory on Vancouver Island. Jessica spent eight days suspended around 200 feet off the ground in an ancient cedar tree until Canadian police arrested her from a helicopter. A small group of other tree-sitters were extracted from other locations on the same day. She explains how her team strategically selected the trees to obstruct clear-cut logging and the dangerous manner in which their arrests took place.

“When the helicopter was directly above the sit, it was shaking the entire thing… my helmet wasn’t on, they were dropping branches into my sit… and when I tried to go reach for my helmet, their hand went to their weapon… I asked for a female officer and [was] told it was not going to happen. I asked to rappel on my own because I didn’t know the anchor they tied. They didn’t let me see their system and I didn’t know that it was safe,” she recounts. They forced her to tie into their ropes.

Next, Ostroff explains the unique ecology and geography of the old-growth, from the Caycuse Valley where the tree-sitters made their stand to the Fairy Creek watershed where thousands of people have gathered to blockade logging access. “The Fairy Creek watershed is the last intact watershed in Southern Vancouver Island. Every other watershed… has at least one scar or graveyard where there’s been a clear-cut.” At the time of publication, forest protectors have prevented logging in Fairy Creek for over 300 consecutive days of direct action.

She also tells us about the critical role that Indigenous leadership has played in shaping this resistance movement, “For the last two to three months, we’ve been really working as a movement to have those harder conversations surrounding decolonization… and how there’s really no difference between the violence to the land and the violence to the people of the land.” She also criticizes John Horgan and the British Columbian NDP government’s attempts to twist the narrative, saying “To [invoke] the state-sanctioned murder of 215 Indigenous children and insinuate that people trying to stop the state-sanctioned destruction of the land are perpetuating colonialism… was manipulative and inappropriate.”

Finally, Jessica reads us the last poem she wrote from her tree sit before Big Mama—the tree she was protecting—was cut down:

Hands and fingers reach up to the sky,
Feet and toes grounded to the surface,
Spine extended, I look up through your branches,
Imagining how you must feel standing tall, strong, and steadfast.
Sturdy, never moving, you do not budge despite the years of winds and storms.
No matter what has come and tried to blow you down you have not fallen.
Now a storm is rolling in that may be too strong.
But if we can reach down and draw from your ancient strength, perhaps it is one more storm you can weather.
Perhaps despite the roar of saws, we can find safety in your grounded roots one last time.
And perhaps, when my feet finally touch the ground, I will do so knowing that you will be safe to keep growing, reaching up to the sky.

Contact the BC government:
https://www.ancientforestalliance.org/contact-decision-makers/

Donate:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/direct-action-for-ancient-rainforests?utm_campaign

Daily updates from the Fairy Creek frontline:
https://www.instagram.com/fairycreekblockade
https://twitter.com/SaveFairyCreek

Jessica Ostroff’s page and tree-sit video blogs:
https://www.instagram.com/the.active.advocate