Winding my way from Lake Cowichan to Port Renfrew, the ravages of continuous clearcuts on steeply sloped mountains, magnified the sun’s rays bouncing off rocky mirrors of ravaged lands, like water hitting a hot frying pan. Driving up the mountain to (Renfrew) River Blockade, stopping road-building on the east side of Fairy Creek, the ominous logging roads carved into mountains and the large machinery scattered about, I wondered what planet I was on. Once at the blockade, and walking into a replica of a 200 million year old rainforest ecosystem, I took a deep breath and wept. Did you know that 200 million years ago, coniferous forests almost went extinct as a result of the evolutionary advancement of flowering trees that came to dominate the earth? The conifers retreated to the margins of the planet where a small number of species managed to maintain a foothold by adapting to extremely harsh conditions. Along the northwest coast of “Canada” is the only region where the conifers retain their former glory, revolving in and out of 10 thousand year cycles to create globally rare ecosystems. They are able to grow throughout the long winters and since they use water more efficiently than flowering plants they also thrive during the dry summer months. The result is a living organism so rich and so productive that temperate forest biomass is easily four times as great as that of any area in the tropics. Within the crown of a single conifer, is found as many as 1500 animal and plant species.
The ecological and spiritual value of old growth forests can never be reconciled with the resource extraction world view.
The intrinsic value of ancient forests has no place in the calculus of forest planning, which has, since its’ inception, allowed for the eventual total eradication of ancient forests. Forestry as traditionally practiced in the BC is less a science than an ideology; a set of ideas reflecting the aspirations of a closed group of professionals with a vested interest in validating its very short term, industrial practices. Old growth is “harvested” though it was never planted by humans, ancient forests are deemed “decadent” and “over mature.” In 1998, independent scientists concluded that BC logging of old growth had driven 142 salmon stocks to extinction and left 624 others on the brink of extinction. We live at the end of the clearcut; if we do nothing they will be lost within our lifetime.
Attempting to walk through the forest with my two walking poles, I would continuously fall through nurse logs into spongey damp ferns and moss up to my chest. Standing in the presence of a 3,000 year old cedar tree, knowing that she is taking care of countless younger trees, holding up the banks of the creek, pouring out oxygen in all directions, my mind stood still. These last stands reveal the intelligence of evolution and the source of ancient mythologies.
The highlight of the blockade were the frequent visits from Bill Jones, a Pateechadht elder, whose traditional homelands include the Fairy Creek watershed.
Bill described himself as the only wild Indian left in his village. I heard him saying that he wished that the federal government would cancel all band funding so that people would be forced to return to the land. He figured that most people would die but they are already dying anyway, due to poverty, health problems, drug overdoses, suicide, and domestic violence. Bill was always overflowing with patience, joy, warmth and compassion. His support is allowing us to remain confident in our efforts to save this sacred place.
One of the major issues that has arisen is clarifying how to gain consent from the Patcheedadht First Nation in support of us being on their land. We were not surprised that the Band Council did not reply to the letter sent in early August informing them of the blockade plan. I hear that poverty is widespread and with fish and hunting stocks very low, so jobs running a local mill, outfitted by Teal-Jones especially for old-growth timber, is appealing to many. The village is comprised of maybe 60 people, most youth leaving for the city and no hereditary chieftains have survived. Bill Jones was already known to us from the Walbran/Carmanah campaign and he gave us his blessing the moment he heard about the Fairy Creek blockade.
You can support the blockade by reinforcing our demand for legally binding legislation to permanently end the logging of BC’s last remaining 1% old growth forests.
Last week, the NDP came out saying they will defer logging in a few old-growth forests, for 2 years. Fairy Creek was not included in any of the deferments. This is Vicky Husband’s response, quoted in Focus Victoria; “The government’s response to the Gorley-Merkel (Old-Growth Review Panel) is a shoddy piece of spin-doctoring in advance of an election. It is duplicitous in intent, short on facts and intentionally misleading.”
We are seeking donations of thousands of dollars to hire a forest ecologist, archaeologist and biologists to argue that Fairy Creek must be protected from Teal-Jones’ chopping block.
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.
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
The following press release was posted on the Gandlee Guu Jaalang (Daughters of the Rivers) Facebook Page. They are Matriarchs from the archipelago of Haida Gwaii (islands of the Haida people) who are currently upholding Haida law through the occupation of two ancient villages, Kung and Sk’aawats.
Haida Matriarchs Occupy Ancient Villages to protect against Covid-19
As people of Haida Gwaii, we uphold our responsibility as stewards of the air, land and sea. The Haida assert our inherent right to safety and food security in our unceded lands and waters.
As a matrilineal society, the Gaandlee Guu Jaalang, “daughters of the rivers”, are the Haida women who have the responsibility to protect Haida Gwaii.
After several community meetings, as of July 9th, 2020, Gandlee Guu Jaalang are upholding Haida law through the occupation of two ancient villages, Kung and Sk’aawats. The Haida people are asserting our inherent rights, according to our traditional ways, and ensuring food security during this global pandemic.
Following Haida leadership and the local state of emergency (SOE) the Gandlee Guu Jaalang must protect the health and safety of our people. Most island businesses have adhered to the SOE and have remained closed to non-residents during the Covid-19 pandemic. We have asserted that Haida consent must be provided before opening the island.
Two luxury sport fishing resorts have disrespected Haida law and jurisdiction putting island residents at risk. Queen Charlotte Lodge (QCL) and West Coast Fishing Club have reopened without Haida consent. This means plane loads of non-residents are coming to our islands and potentially exposing island residents to Covid-19. Previously, QCL has catered to predominantly wealthy American clientele. Haida Gwaii is a remote community with limited health care services and only two ventilators on all of Haida Gwaii. One case would devastate our communities.
The daughters of the rivers will peacefully occupy our homelands with children, Elders and island residents. Our people will exercise our right to food sovereignty and continue occupation. Our Haida leadership have been consistent in keeping our communities safe and have processes in place to assess reopening the islands. All businesses must respect these processes. These luxury fishing resorts must respect Haida law and receive consent before reopening.
Eighty to 95 percent of the Haida people were wiped out by the smallpox epidemic purposely introduced to Haida Gwaii to destroy our people. We plan to survive this pandemic at all cost.
Editors note: this piece comes from allies in the Arkipelago (decolonized term for the Philippines) who are engaged in ecological struggles and wish to highlight the detrimental effects of mass culture in outdoor recreation.
By Aidalyn IAmMoutara
This is what happened during the #TalinisUltramarathon this morning, October 6. Protesters blocked the entrance of Apolong trail when two truckloads (dumptruck) of participants started to arrived for the 25k and 17k category since other categories have started the previous night.
The blockade lasted for two hours. The blocking group is not an organization nor any entity. They were individuals who believed that a single race event composing of 333 runners going up in a span of less than 24 hours is too much for Mt. Talinis.
However, the race continued after a peaceful resolution with the blocking protesters.
Meanwhile on the other side, LGU Dauin was also blocking their jurisdiction (trails inside Dauin) since the organizers fail to coordinate with them for the said race event.
I believe this is the first of its kind. A race event met with protest. This sends out a powerful message to everyone, that we are serious in our convictions to protect Mt. Talinis Range and uphold the rights of the locals.
Events like this should benefit the host communities and not the other way around.
GDPR is a European legal framework intended to protect personal data, provide greater data transparency, and give people greater control over their data. It requires any group that stores or processes data to follow strict policies to ensure security. It also entitles individuals to request personal data reports and deletion, both of which must be completed within 30 days by any group holding the data.
Who does GDPR apply to?
At minimum, GDPR applies to any group or company which stores the data of EU citizens or residents, in practice it applies primarily to data processing entities based in the EU. This can include corporations, political parties, activist groups, and even individuals.
What are the consequences of negligence?
Violation reports are investigated, a warning is usually issued, data may be deleted, data processing may be restricted, and continued violations can result in fines up to €20,000,000 or 4% of revenue, whichever is greater. The consequences are significant enough to even warrant serious concern among large corporations.
What is a personal data request?
Anyone can submit a request for a comprehensive report on any data which relates to them, and these reports must include all data and a list of systems which store or process that data. Requests must be fulfilled in under 30 days. This is relatively easy for big businesses who have invested in compliance software, but intermediate businesses have much more difficulty, and small groups or individuals struggle the most. Processing a data request manually can take 30+ minutes per request because all systems must be checked.
What is a deletion request?
Anyone in the EU can request that their data be deleted from some or all systems. The data must be permanently deleted and all systems must be checked for data. This can also take 30+ minutes to complete per request, depending on the systems.
How do you weaponise GDPR?
Opposition groups and companies which perpetuate ecocide can be easily flooded with GDPR requests. Each individual email address warrants a separate request. If someone has 3 email addresses and a request template, they can consume 1-3 hours of a company, group, or individual’s time and resources by investing a few minutes. If the request is not completed in 30 days, or if the report is incomplete, they can report the offense for investigation. Additionally, any company, group, or individual that does not have GDPR compliant opt-in features and privacy statements can also be reported, even without a 30 day waiting period.
Strategic mass reporting can consume significant resources among medium sized targets, and can be devastating for smaller targets. This is a tactic which requires minimal training, is highly asymmetric, and can be very disruptive when targets are selected intelligently. I recommend identifying candidates like: climate science denial groups, fossil fuel lobbyists, regional oil and gas distributors, politicians, logging companies, and opposition movements.
![[Media Release] Blockade To Protect The Unlogged Fairy Creek Headwaters](https://dgrnewsservice.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2020/08/Old-Growth-BC.jpg)
The blockade lasted for two hours. The blocking group is not an organization nor any entity. They were individuals who believed that a single race event composing of 333 runners going up in a span of less than 24 hours is too much for Mt. Talinis.