EUREKA, Calif. (Reuters) – Nine bare-breasted women briefly halted logging work near California’s contested Headwaters Forest on Friday in a protest against what they said was unconscionable logging of redwood trees.

“These gorgeous young women were belly dancing. One logger actually got down on his knees and kissed the ground,” said Dona Nieto, a California activist who has staged several “Strip Tease for the Trees” protests.

Nieto — a poet who goes by the name “La Tigresa” — said the protest interrupted logging work for about two hours at a point known as the “Hole in the Headwaters,” an area of second-growth redwood trees left out of a 1999 deal between Pacific Lumber Inc. and state and federal officials aimed at preserving the Headwaters Forest about 250 miles north of San Francisco.

The protesters, who gathered at around 5 a.m., stripped off their shirts, sang, chanted and handed out chocolates to surprised loggers, tying up traffic for about two hours until police arrived to clear up the scene. There were no arrests.

“The loggers and the cops were absolutely stunned,” said Nieto, who launched her anti-logging protests last year with demonstrations of what she calls “Goddess-based, nude Buddhist guerrilla poetry” to a number of timber and logging sites in and around northern California.

This action marked the largest environmental strip-tease to date.

One of the protesters, a 22-year-old who gave her name as ”Maple,” said she was surprised at how agreeable the loggers were when confronted by topless women.