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Forest Defenders Blockade Logging Roads In Mattole Headwaters

Early Thursday morning, 20 forest defenders barricaded logging roads in the headwaters of the upper North Fork Mattole River in anticipation of Humboldt Redwood Company (HRC) logging operations. “Road building on steep, unstable slopes and logging of old-growth forest is unacceptable,” said a local resident participating in the blockade. “This logging plan will release a large amount of long term greenhouse gas, and along with industrial logging across the Pacific Northwest, constitutes a major driver of climate catastrophe.” HRC plans to log over 300 acres just outside of Humboldt Redwoods State Park. The activists say that while the company has policies against logging old growth forest, much of the unspoiled habitat here is excluded from protections.

RCMP At Fairy Creek Blockade Ignore The Real Emergency

On Aug. 9, the one-year anniversary of the Fairy Creek protection efforts, the RCMP raided Fairy Creek's headquarter camp. Twenty-five police vehicles, a helicopter and an emergency tactical unit were deployed against peaceful ancient forest protectors that day, and almost every day since. What is the emergency that the police are responding to with such a massively expensive show of force? Since the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a code red warning on Aug. 9, is it the climate emergency that is so clear to us this summer with deadly heat waves and extreme forest fires? No, the science tells us that RCMP are actually making this climate emergency worse by enforcing the clear cutting of some of the last remaining old-growth forests on the West Coast.

Fairy Creek Protesters Rally Outside Justin Trudeau’s Hotel

When Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau touched down in the Vancouver area on Tuesday as part of his election campaign, a group of protesters against old-growth logging in the Fairy Creek watershed were waiting to greet him at his downtown hotel. A mix of Liberal supporters and protesters, numbering about 150 people in total, stood outside the Marriott Pinnacle Hotel where the leader was expected to spend the night. Many of the protesters carried drums and chanted "Justin Trudeau commits genocide; the Liberal Party commits genocide," as Vancouver Centre Liberal incumbent Dr. Hedy Fry watched in silence. The Liberal Party later told reporters that Trudeau had gone out for dinner rather than heading straight to the hotel as planned because of security concerns from the RCMP.

Fairy Creek Got An Old-Growth Deferral

Splatsin First Nation Kukpi7 Wayne Christian knows the migration patterns of the last remaining southern mountain caribou in his territory in southeast B.C. — they spend their winters up in the mountains. He knows the way that water travels from glaciers to the region’s streams and back again. He knows what the region’s forests look like when they’re healthy. Last month, he saw something he’d never seen before. The shiny green leaves of the cottonwood trees that make up part of the forest’s understory had turned a dull, parched grey — almost dead. “I was thinking, what’s going on here? There is a signal here. Pay attention to this.” Christian was on his way to lead a ceremony beneath a cluster of ancient cedar trees, marking the Splatsin Nation’s support for the blockades led by a group called Old Growth Revylution that opposes old-growth logging in the region.

Police Raid The Hub For Fairy Creek Blockaders

In a major advancement of police activity in the old growth blockades around Fairy Creek on Southern Vancouver Island, RCMP raided the gate to the blockaders’ headquarters on Monday. It was the first time police had carried out arrests at the site identified as a communal hub for the movement. It also signals the likelihood of more confrontation ahead in the biggest direct action fight to protect B.C.’s old growth forests in decades. “The frontline has been brought to us,” Willow, a forest defender who is stationed at blockade headquarters, told The Tyee. The escalation occurred as blockaders were preparing to mark their one-year anniversary occupying the forests in Pacheedaht Territories surrounding Port Renfrew.

Threats And Fear As Loggers Clash With Blockaders At Fairy Creek

Over 320 arrests have been made at the Fairy Creek blockades since police began removing forest defenders in mid-May. As enforcement of an injunction obtained by logging company Teal-Jones enters its seventh week, aggression from police and logging industry workers has been ramping up. Each day the RCMP try to clear logging roads, encountering blockaders in what are known as “dragons” — a device that secures a person’s arm in a tube buried in the ground — or surreal-looking wooden tripods dangling up to 30 feet in the air. Land defenders have adopted these tactics in an effort to halt the logging of old-growth forests in Pacheedaht and Ditidaht territories. Evidently frustrated with the slow pace of removals, the RCMP have begun using heavy machinery like chainsaws, excavators and jackhammers in close proximity to the bodies of blockaders.

Stopping The Logging Of Redwoods In Jackson State Forest

Logging has begun in Jackson State Demonstration Forest, 48,000 acres of state owned redwood forestland in Mendocino County in Northern California. The forest consists mostly of heavily cut over land – probably logged several times since logging in the County began in the 1860s. This continued when the state acquired the land in 1947 – the hypothesis then was to acquire forestland to apply science to commerce with goal of demonstrating best practices. Today, seventy five years later, it’s not easy to find much that’s “best” in this highly disturbed forest land. Still there are numerous groves of second-growth redwood to be found – remnants of what was once one of the wonders of the natural world.

‘War In The woods’: Hundreds Of Anti-Logging Protesters Arrested

Police in western Canada have arrested more than 270 people as a conflict over old growth logging in British Columbia’s ancient rainforests continues to grow. At the protest blockades in the remote woodland, hundreds of activists have been chaining themselves to giant tripods made from the trunks of felled trees, suspending themselves in trees for days or more at a time, and even securing their arms inside devices called “sleeping dragons” cemented into the roadway. The movement is an attempt to pressure the British Columbia government to halt the cutting of what activists and experts say is the last 3% of ancient trees left standing in the province.

Old-Growth Logging Protesters On Day Seven Of Hunger Strike

Old-growth logging protesters on day seven of a hunger strike are calling for an urgent meeting with B.C. Premier John Horgan and Forests Minister Katrine Conroy. Brent Eichler, president of Unifor local 950, Zain Haq, a 20-year-old student at SFU, and Evie Mandel, 65, haven’t eaten food in a week but are continuing their strike at 401 Burrard Street in Vancouver. Reached by phone Saturday, Eichler said they were doing OK but very tired from only consuming water, lemon juice, and salt. He said he wasn’t sure how much longer they could continue without suffering adverse health effects. Eichler said they have received a lot of support from young people and those who want a moratorium on logging old-growth forests.

At Fairy Creek, Indigenous-settler Allyships Are Complicated

Roots of collaboration grown at battle for old growth could strengthen fight against colonization. As the sun rises over the mountains where the soaring trees grow in the ancient Fairy Creek forest, Sage Jackson, 23, quietly tends to a sacred fire lit two weeks earlier. She travelled from her home in Chilliwack, B.C., in late May with the aim of staying for three days. But that changed when she saw the beauty and depth of the last-of-their-kind forests near the shores of Port Renfrew on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island. “I want true reconciliation. Money and reparations don’t mean much to us when we’ve lost so much of our languages, our culture, our Elders, our healers and our children.” The threat of logging and damage to irreplaceable ecosystems has been a call to action for thousands, who have set up camps to stop forestry company Teal-Jones from building a logging road and harvesting old-growth trees.

The Battle For Old-Growth Forests In British Columbia

Over the last two weeks around 120 people have been arrested and charged, most with violating an injunction obtained by a logging company. But with more people streaming in by the day and the RCMP trying to secure an area the size of a small country, there’s no end in sight. This is the latest from southwest Vancouver Island, which has become an international hotspot in the fight to save old-growth forests. Last August, a group of environmental activists set up a series of blockades of logging roads deep in the bush surrounding Port Renfrew, B.C. Their goal was to preserve stands of old-growth in the Fairy Creek watershed, one of the largest and most significant ancient forests remaining in North America.

Police arrest seven protesters at logging blockade

Police have arrested seven people at a logging blockade on southern Vancouver Island as they enforced an injunction Tuesday. The RCMP promised "police action'' earlier this week after announcing it is temporarily controlling access to an area around the Caycuse River south of Cowichan Lake, enforcing the April 1 injunction that allows Teal-Cedar Products to start logging activities.

The New Faces Of BC’s Old-Growth Activism

Torrance Coste’s dusty Nissan XTerra disappears in a cloud of grey dirt. He’s checking out recent logging activity around Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park on southern Vancouver Island for the Wilderness Committee. I’m trailing behind, trying not to blow a tire, lose his taillights, or get run off the road. Another logging truck smokes past — the eighth so far this morning. It’s stacked with old-growth hemlock and a red cedar at least a metre thick. A few minutes later, we’re stopped by a pile of tree carcasses blocking the road. Active logging. No entry.

Clear-Cuts: Cause Hot Catastrophic Wildfires

Pack billions of the same-age trees close together, wait for dry-lightning or another ignition source, and you have an unnatural firebomb. The cause of thousands of annual catastrophic hot fires around the world are tree farms created by timber industry clear-cutting and fire suppression to prevent timber inventory loss. I have seen it happen. About five years ago, driving home on Interstate 5 North of Lake Shasta, a dry-lightning storm began. It looked like the finger of God came down as lightning struck a conifer and it burst into smoke.

BC: Preserving Biodiversity Now Guides Logging Policies

British Columbia - B.C. Forests Minister Doug Donaldson today announced the deferral of old-growth logging within more than 350,000 hectares as well as the protection of up to 1,500 giant trees. The move came in response to a highly anticipated report also released today on the management of old-growth forests in the province. Environmentalists, workers and First Nations representatives applauded the steps but say they leave out some of the most at-risk ancient forests as well as funding for implementation.
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