An ongoing blockade to protect old-growth forests in western Canada has now lasted more than a month, but blockaders hopes that a government report would help protect the Fairy Creek Valley have been dashed.
Forest Defenders Hold the Barricades as the BC Government Fails to Defer Road Building and Logging into the Fairy Creek Rainforest
September 14, 2020
Featured image: Road building in the old growth forests of the Renfrew Creek Watershed, part of the greater Fairy Creek Rainforest. (Photo Credit: Ken Dawson)
The forest defenders blocking road and logging access to Fairy Creek are devastated that it was not included in the government’s announcement of deferrals of forest areas of the province. The Old Growth Strategic Review recommended: “immediate response to ecosystems at very high risk,” through deferrals. That would emphatically include Fairy Creek, which lies within unceded Pacheedaht Territory. Instead the government included Clayoquot Sound that the review did not recommend deferring.
Roads accessing Fairy Creek were going forward and poised to enter the watershed when stopped. This constitutes imminent threat. Other old growth forests in southern Vancouver Island, either under immediate threat or where active logging is taking place are: the Caycuse where there is active logging and roading; Edinburgh Mountain and the Central Walbran, both with multiple new approved cut blocks and road proposals; and the Nahmint Valley, where BC Timber Sales was censured by an internal review for violating its own legal requirements.
All of these areas deserve, and must receive, permanent protection from logging.
Among other areas of concern on Vancouver Island are the West Kauwinch River, and the Zeballos Lake watersheds, both similarly intact watersheds at imminent risk from new logging and road building. Fairy Creek has spectacular yellow cedar stands, a highly endangered and underrepresented species in BC’s forest inventory. The review calls for further protection of these species, yet the headwaters of Fairy Creek, and several adjacent old growth forests remain slated to be logged. Surely, the last intact watershed in the immense San Juan River drainage deserves a permanently protected designation.
We demand that the government immediately defer Fairy Creek and the other contiguous old growth forests from further incursions and permanently protect them from logging.
Until that happens, the blockades of the accesses into Fairy Creek will remain in place as support grows for protection following the OGSR report that highlights gross mismanagement, misinformation and collusion between government and the forest industry, where the public interest and that of the standing forests seldom enters their calculations.
A third blockade has started to stop the logging of near the headwaters of Fairy Creek. To learn more about the blockade in Fairy Creek, read the media release by the organizers of the blockade, and listen to interviews with Joshua Wright here and here. Access the official Facebook page here.
Two weeks into a campaign to halt logging of ancient rainforests in the last intact watershed of the San Juan River system, activists have set up a third blockade on unceded Pacheedaht territory!
Grassroots forest defenders from across Vancouver Island have successfully prevented Teal Jones Group from blasting logging roads into the unlogged headwaters of the Fairy Creek watershed for the past two weeks.
The first blockade was established on Monday, August 10th, where the new roads were about to crest a ridge into the west side of the watershed. The blockaders successfully turned away the road builders early that morning. Teal Jones removed their road building equipment on Tuesday, August 11th, and the blockade has remained in place continuously since then.
On August 17th, in light of government inaction to meet the blockaders demands, a second blockade was established just to the east of the Fairy Creek watershed, preventing Teal Jones from building roads which have been approved for construction into that side of the rainforest, located on unceded Pacheedaht Territory.
And on the evening of August 23rd, a third blockade was established. The third blockade is located on a logging road on Edinburgh mountain (also unceded Pacheedaht Territory). With the exception of Eden Grove on Edinburgh mountain, contiguous old-growth corridors have been severed between the rich valley bottom and the protected upper reaches. The infamous Big Lonely Doug stands in stark contrast to clear cut in a cutblock on Edinburgh, the sole remaining giant fir in the cut. Lonely Doug has become an internationally recognized symbol for BC’s devastating logging practices. Just up the mountain, logging is ongoing. This is what the newest blockade will stop.
Photo shows Teal Jones old-growth logging operations adjacent to Fairy Creek. Photo by Ancient Forest Alliance.
This new blockade also obstructs old growth logging already in progress east of Fairy Creek.
This stretch of ancient forest is contiguous with the intact old growth forest within the Fairy Creek watershed and contains high value valley bottom old growth forest that would be fully eradicated if the logging was allowed to continue. A massive, ancient cedar recently felled by Teal Jones in one of the old growth cut blocks now being blockaded:
“If anyone has ever felt called in their heart to take a stand for old growth forests, we invite them to join us here in Premier John Horgan’s own electoral riding: at our first blockade, or at this new, more easily accessible second blockade,” stated Cowichan Valley resident Caimen Shapiro.
Teal Jones, the licence holder of TFL 46, over the past month has begun road construction in the old growth hotspot of Fairy Creek that would enable them to clear-cut the upper Fairy Creek watershed, near Port Renfrew. The company has felled and graded several hectares of old growth forest on a road network that, had it not been for our first blockade, would have breached the ridgeline and entered the watershed.
Protection of Old Growth Forests
In view of the forthcoming release of theOld Growth Strategic Review (OGSR) report and recommendations, being held up by the BC government for up to 6 months from early May, with no firm release date to the public, we are again asking the Premier to establish:
1. The immediate and permanent protection of the entire Fairy Creek Valley, thereby nullifying all cut blocks and road construction approvals in the watershed and contiguous old growth forests. We demand this take place without a ‘land swap’ that would remove protections from other old growth forests to compensate Teal Jones.
2. An immediate end to old growth logging on Vancouver Island.
In an article in The Narwhal, Jan. 27, 2020, Gary Merkel, one of the two commissioners of the OGSR states: “I think the thing that surprised me the most is the degree of unanimity and common thinking around ‘we need to get back to the land’ and about moving past political cycles … we’re hearing it from almost everywhere,” Merkel told The Narwhal in a joint phone interview with Gorley: “We’re managing ecosystems — that are in some cases thousands of years old — on a four-year political cycle. The management systems change from government to government,” said Merkel, the former chair of both the Tahltan Nation Development Corporation and the Columbia Basin Trust.
We are now at the stage of final eradication of the ancient coastal temperate rainforest, reduced to less than 3% of its original extent by logging.
Port Renfrew has billed itself as the Big Tree Capital of Canada and this form of tourism has become the backbone of its economy. Once again, this future is threatened by the indiscriminate eradication of the ancient forests in this region. Here is a dramatic drone video of Fairy Creek watershed, recently captured by a young firefighter showing road-building crews cresting the ridge into the very last unlogged watershed in the San Juan River valley rainforest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBnhktwJIo4
If you are in a position to help you can find you way with this information: Blockade Directions: Blockade #1 (established August 10): GPS coordinates: 48°38’32.56″N 124°21’21.25″W
Featured image by Ancient Forest Allianc. Captured earlier this month from the Granite (Renfrew) Creek watershed, just over the ridge to the east of Fairy Creek in Pacheedaht territory. Teal-Jones was – until recently – also constructing roads and starting to clearcut old-growth forest in this area. The second blockade has now been set up by independent activists to prevent the company from continuing its destructive practices here as well.
Last week we ran a story on an anti-logging blockade at Fairy Creek, near Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island in western Canada. Since then, the blockade has held strong and a second blockade has been established nearby, stopping further old-growth logging.
A few days ago, Max Wilbert spoke with Joshua Wright, a spokesperson for the blockade, for The Green Flame podcast. That interview can be found below.
The blockade protects ancient old-growth forest stands, including the 9th largest Alaska Yellow Cedar known to exist and other trees thousands of years old, in the Fairy Creek area near Port Renfrew, on unceded Pacheedaht territory. Support is urgently needed to maintain and expand this blockade. As Joshua explains, this is a critical moment for protecting the last old-growth forests on Vancouver Island. Residents of the region: contact the blockaders, donate, spread the word, and most importantly go to the blockade yourself.
Forest Defenders are Occupying an Old Growth Forest to Prevent Imminent Logging in the Last Intact Watershed of the San Juan River System
Victoria, B.C. 8/10/2020 An informal, grassroots collective of people from across Vancouver Island alerted to Teal Jones’s road building incursion into the headwaters of the unlogged Fairy Creek watershed are prepared to block road crews from further work.
Forest defenders are prepared to remain occupying the roadway until the Provincial Government releases the recommendations from its Old Growth Forest Review Panel which Minister Donaldson said they will not release for at least another six months.
“It is unconscionable for the Government to approve continued industrial destruction of the last old growth temperate rainforest and new road developments into unlogged watersheds within the Premier’s own electoral riding while it sits on the recommendations made by the Old Growth Review Panel,” stated Bobby Arbess.
Forest defenders establishing this peaceful road blockade will escalate our tactics to stop the logging of adjacent cut blocks if the Government will not heed this demand to stop road development and release its own panel’s recommendations.
Teal Jones, the licence holder of TFL 46, over the past month has begun road construction in the old growth hotspot of Fairy Creek that would enable them to clear-cut the upper Fairy Creek watershed, near Port Renfrew. The company has felled and graded several hectares of old growth forest on a road network that will soon breach the ridgeline and enter the watershed.
Forest defenders have set up a blockade and tree-sits on a critical road under construction on the north-western ridge of the Fairy Creek watershed to prevent Teal Jones from continuing to build roads into the old growth rainforest. Protesters will continue their forest defence until the Teal Jones Group abandon their plans to log Fairy Creek and the BC Premier implements our demands.
Here is a dramatic drone video of Ferry Creek watershed by a young firefighter recently captured of road-building crews cresting the ridge into the very last unlogged watershed in the San Juan River valley rainforest.
In view of the forthcoming release of the Old Growth Strategic Review (OGSR) report and recommendations, being held up by the BC government for up to 6 months from early May, with no firm release date to the public, we are asking the Premier to establish:
1. The immediate and permanent protection of the entire Fairy Creek Valley, thereby nullifying all cut blocks and road construction approvals in the watershed and contiguous old growth forests.
2. An immediate end to old growth logging on Vancouver Island.
In an article in The Narwhal, Jan.27, 2020, Gary Merkel, one of the two commissioners of the OGSR states: “I think the thing that surprised me the most is the degree of unanimity and common thinking around ‘we need to get back to the land’ and about moving past political cycles … we’re hearing it from almost everywhere,” Merkel told The Narwhal in a joint phone interview with Gorley: “We’re managing ecosystems — that are in some cases thousands of years old — on a four-year political cycle. The management systems change from government to government,” said Merkel, the former chair of both the Tahltan Nation Development Corporation and the Columbia Basin Trust.
After completing their 14-day hunger strike for the old growth forests, James Darling and Robert Fuller met with two NDP MLAs last Saturday, and were rebuffed by them, giving questionable justifications for continuing the destruction of the OG.
We are now at the stage of final eradication of the ancient coastal temperate rainforest, reduced to less than 3% of its original extent by logging. Port Renfrew has billed itself as the Big Tree Capital of Canada and this form of tourism has become the backbone of its economy. Once again, this future is threatened by the indiscriminate eradication of the ancient forests in this region.
Blockade Directions: GPS coordinates: 48.6422452 N – 124.3608828 W
10 km on the Gordon River Main Line at Braden Creek Main Line (on your way to Fairy Lake after leaving Port Renfrew, turn left just past Deering Bridge and take the road up the hill to the right just before the bridge). Map
This episode of The Green Flame features an interview with James Darling who is currently on the 8th day of a hunger strike against logging of old-growth forests in British Columbia, Canada (occupied First Nations territory). You can contact James at: (250) 816-4321, or at james0darling@gmail.com.
In this interview, James talks about why he started the hunger strike, the old-growth logging in British Columbia, the path forward for the movement, and revolutions that have used hunger strikes.
![[Media Release] Blockade To Protect The Unlogged Fairy Creek Headwaters](https://dgrnewsservice.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2020/08/Old-Growth-BC.jpg)
