This is an update regarding the chronology of events for the Old Growth Blockade which strives to protect the last old-growth temperate rainforests on Vancouver island, currently facing near-total eradication by the British Columbia government and logging companies.
The Rainforest Flying Squad launches the Bugaboo Creek blockade to prevent road building into the last ancient forests of the watershed.
Friday, December 11th, a group of Forest Protectors with the Rainforest Flying Squad have moved the Bugaboo Blockade south to block a road adjacent to the world famous Avatar Grove, to prevent road building crews from continued road building into the south side of the Bugaboo’s Ancient Rainforest in Camper Creek on Pacheedaht Territory.
This comes on the heels of the creation of the first Bugaboo Blockade on December 7, when the Rainforest Flying Squad prevented logging in high elevation old growth western red and yellow cedar forests. Shortly after the creation of that blockade the road building contractor moved their equipment from the north side of the Bugaboo’s Ancient Forest to the south side where another road has been approved into a magnificent stand of Ancient Trees. “The message is simple,” said one of the Squad, “we want no more logging, no more road building into the last of our ancient forests.” After following vehicles moved from the north side of the Bugaboo, and discovering the contractor intended to begin road building on the south side of the rainforest the squad decided to move camp, continuing to monitor the north side as they prevent road building into the southern part of the forest.
In the meantime another group of Protectors have now mobilized to protect valley bottom old growth forest south of Eden Grove in the Edinburgh Mountain Ancient forest. They have set up a blockade on the bridge leading to Big Lonely Doug, the iconic Douglas Fir tree that stands in an old growth clear-cut on Edinburgh Mountain. This is in response to an application submitted by Teal Jones that would allow for the construction of a logging road into valley bottom old growth forest south of Eden Grove.
The new Edinburgh Blockade will remain in place as long as it takes to prevent further fragmentation of the Edinburgh Mountain Ancient Forest. The barricades are holding strong at Fairy Creek and meanwhile the Bugaboo Squad will continue to block access and monitor both intrusions into the rainforest until snow pack eliminates the risk of road building into the Bugaboo Ancient Forest. The protesters expect road building crews to remove their equipment in the next few days, they say if the contractors move the equipment back to the north side of the old growth forest, they will be back and blockade there again.
The blockaders on both blockades are demanding;
That logging contractor Stone Pacific give up road building into old growth forests in TFL 46 and move their machinery to work on road networks targeting second growth.
That the Ministry of Forests decline the Teal Jones groups application for new road building on Edinburgh Mountain.
That the provincial government and Premier John Horgan immediately implement the recommendations of the OGSR and end all old growth logging across British Columbia
The government immediately shift all forestry operations to sustainable management of silvicultural land-base as a source of long-term employment in local and First Nations communities.
Until these demands are met, the Rainforest Flying Squad will continue to disrupt the timber industry in its attempts to log the last of our Ancient Temperate Rainforests.
The women of Kendeng set their feet in cement to stop a mine in their lands. This is their story.
This article was written by Febriana Firdaus on 13 November 2020 and published originally on Mongabay.
Across Indonesia, hundreds of communities are in conflict with companies seeking control of their resources. In some cases, the resistance has been led by women.
Journalist Febriana Firdaus traveled across the country to meet grassroots female activists and delve into the stories behind their struggles.
This article is part one of a series about her journey, which has also been made into a film, Our Mothers’ Land.
Serene, prosperous, fertile. These words come to mind as I stand at the top of a hill in Tegaldowo village, on the island of Java, in Indonesia, one Sunday evening in 2019. It is an idiom used to describe this giant island, with its rich soils, verdant rice paddies and teak forests. But the tranquility hides a more turbulent story.
Across Indonesia, the world’s third largest democracy, mass demonstrations have erupted. Some 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) to the east, anger at decades of mistreatment of indigenous Papuans has spilled over into violence. In the capital, Jakarta, students are taking to the streets in their thousands, protesting against a raft of new laws many fear will erode civil liberties.
Among the most contentious features of the new legislation is concern that it will enable the government to criminalize farmers and activists fighting against extractive companies taking their land. Already, hundreds of communities are locked in simmering conflicts with firms that have logged their forests, mined their mountains, and transformed their farmland into plantations. Many of these people once hoped that the president, Joko Widodo, would tip the scales in the favor of the powerless.
But in the coming months those hopes will be dashed. By November 2020, the government will sign into effect sweeping new legislation that appears to entrench the power of oligarchs, and of the private firms responsible for damaging the nation’s environment, including its vast rainforests.
For many communities engaged in the fight to protect land rights and the environment, the hills in which I stand hold huge resonance.
It is not just a hill, but a karst: a limestone formation that undergirds the North Kendeng Mountains and stretches 180 kilometers (112 miles) east to west. The rock has been eroded over time to form a giant warren of underground caves and rivers, providing clean water to the people of the region throughout the year.
The Indigenous people of Kendeng consider the karst to be their Ibu Bumi — their Mother Earth. She nurtures and even breastfeeds the land, in their lore, allowing them to grow rice and other crops.
“Mother Earth has given, Mother Earth has been hurt, Mother Earth will seek justice,” sings Sukinah, a farmer who accompanies me as she patiently checks the corn in the field that surrounds us. She moves nimbly, dressed in slippers and a traditional Javanese blouse called a kebaya.
Fairy Creek Blockade: defending old growth forests on unceded Pacheedaht territory
by Reuben Garbanzo, on Lekwungen territory
Joshua Wright, is a seventeen year old film-maker from Olympia, Washington with an irrepressible passion for protecting the last remaining old-growth temperate rainforests; and has handy access to a state-of-the-art digital mapping program that allows him to track and monitor industrial logging activities in near-real time. In early August, this year, he gave heads up to Vancouver island grassroots forest activists to a road-building crew subcontracted to Surrey-based tenure-holder of TFL 46, Teal Jones, cresting the ridge into the old-growth Yellow Cedar headwaters of Ada’itsx/ Fairy Creek watershed, the last unlogged tributary of the San Juan River system, unceded Pacheedaht territory, near Port Renfrew.
Forest firefighter Will O’Connell surveyed the road-building operation with spell-binding drone footage that captured earth-moving machinery operating on dangerously steep terrain pushing into a watershed never before logged, with no current cutblocks approved, but nonetheless heightening the risk of logging plan approvals, once the investment of road infrastructure had been established. This bold expose of a logging road incursion into one of the last roadless places on southern Vancouver island rapidly spread on social media and in the midst of a pandemic, galvanized forest defenders into non-violent direct action.
On Sunday, August 9th, twenty ancient forest activists from all over the south island, including the nearby communities of Port Renfrew and Cowichan valley, gathered at Lizard Lake and decided to set up a road blockade above the clouds 1000 metres up a treacherous logging road on a steep ridge overlooking the Gordon river valley, on the western flank of Fairy creek, where road-building into the Fairy, was slated the next work day. Tents were set up under the giant bucket of a gargantuan excavator and a 10′ diameter cedar log round from an ancient tree felled in the Klanawa Valley, propped vertically on a plywood frame, was installed as a barricade centrepiece across the road. When the Stone Pacific road crew arrived in darkness at 5 am the next morning they were politely confronted by a dozen people putting on the morning coffee around a small fire on the road end, with the intention of protecting Fairy Creek from road incursion.
Two weeks later another blockade was set up to protect the watershed on its eastern flank and to stop clearcut logging in an area of contiguous ancient forest that is part of the 5100 acre Fairy Creek rainforest, much of which is already under Old-Growth Management and Wildlife Habitat Area designation.
Pop-up blockades disrupting business as usual in other remnant old-growth forest locales have also sent a message to government and industry that in a down-spiraling climate and biodiversity crisis, disruption to the status quo is to be expected until the government takes decisive action to protect what is left of these globally significant and irreplaceable forests. The objectives/demands of all these blockade actions is to protect the last 1-3% of low-elevation old-growth rainforests left standing on so-called Vancouver island.
The Ada’itsx/Fairy Creek blockades are now entering their fourth month with no logging or road-building behind the barricades and no injunctions or arrests. This blockade, now the longest land-based direct action campaign on this island in over two decades has evolved quickly into a decentralized grassroots direct action movement under the banner of oldgrowthblockade, aimed to stem the tide of the colossal destruction of the shocking equivalent of 32 soccer fields of old-growth forests per day on the island alone.
Winterized infrastructure has been built at the main Fairy Creek base Camp, 7 kilometres off the the Pacific Marine Rd. including wood-heated Elder and Indigenous Warriors’ tents, bear-proof kitchen arbour, tool shed and hot water shower and change room. Dozens of volunteers communicating via several online platforms have provided coordination and mobilized material support to the frontlines which have been steadily maintained by a gritty, dedicated crew of core forest defenders, young and not so young, mostly women, who provide daily logistical coordination, elder care, leadership, hosting and reconnaissance on the ground.
This settler-Indigenous blockade has been blessed with the support and wise leadership of Pacheedaht elder Bill Jones who has asked that the entire valley, part of his childhood stomping ground, be dedicated as an Indigenous Protected Area in honour of the victims of the smallpox epidemic. Pacheedaht Chief and council have not responded for or against the blockade. The area is in the electoral riding of Premier John Horgan who has himself yet to respond to the demands of the blockade to protect Fairy Creek rainforest and all remaining old-growth temperate rainforests on the island.
On September 29th, the blockade received a strong statement of support from the Union of British Columbia Chiefs (UBCIC) who issued a breakthrough resolution calling on the Province to implement all 14 recommendations of their Old-Growth Strategy Review report and for the immediate protection of key old-growth forest hotpsots including Fairy Creek. Most significantly, their resolution called for government to assume responsibility in invesment in supporting First Nations to break free from the economic dependency on the old-growth forest destruction of their land-base, a major policy piece in the transition away from the destructive legacy of old-growth logging, once and for all.
August 1st : Discovery of Stone Pacific ( subcontracting to Teal Jones) road construction cresting the Ridge into the unlogged Fairy Creek headwaters
August 9: Grassroots activists from across Vancouver island meet at Lizard Lake and decide to erect an emergency logging road blockade at the end of Reid mainline, on a high ridge on the western side of Fairy Creek headwater, to prevent cutting, bulldozing and blasting activity into Fairy Creek the very next day. Notice is sent to Pacheedhat Chief and Council and Elder Bill Jones of setter-activist intentions to block road-building operations on their unceded territory.
August 10:Ridge camp blockade turns away Stone Pacific road and falling crews. Call out to request people to attend camp to defend against logging road construction into the last unlogged watershed in the San Juan River system.
August 17th: 2nd blockade at River Camp is established at another road access point into Fairy Creek along Granite mainline in the Renfrew Creek watershed, on the east side of Fairy Creek.
August 24th: a temporary, pop-up blockade is set up on Braden Mainline aimed at halting road-building and logging of old-growth forests on Edinburgh mountain, across from Fairy Creek in the San Juan river basin.
August 31st: Ridge camp blockade is moved 7kms down the road to a new blockade location aimed at halting road-construction into Fairy Creek and logging of contiguous old-growth forest adjacent to the Fairy Creek watershed.
September 4: Pacheedaht elder Bill Jones releases an official letter of invitation to Indigenous and non-Indigenous forest defenders to unite on the territory to defend the old-growth rainforests on his ancestral lands. An Elder’s tent is built at River Camp, where the elder has been staying overnight.
September 6: A caravan of Indigenous youth and elders, from many territories visit the blockades to further advise on appropriate respect protocols for forest defenders taking action on the land. 📷
September 22: The blockade camp on Reid main is moved back to its original position at the top of the Ridge at the end of Reid main. More Pacheedaht community members visit the blockades.
October 3: Northview Timber pulls road-building machinery off the mountain, abandoning plans to push roads through into Fairy Creek, past Ridge Camp, until after winter. Ridge camp remains for monitoring. Winterization of River camp continues, including bear-proof communal kitchen shelter, wood-heated communal tents, tool shed and a hot water shower.
October 22: An exploratory trail is cut from the Ridge camp along the Ridge to a lookout point above Ada’itsx/Fairy Creek with a group of Indigenous youth.
October 25: A sacred fire is lit at River Camp by Indigenous elders, youth and matriarchs, for prayer and ceremony, supporting the blockade, the forest and forest protectors.
November 9: Pop-up blockade is established at Grierson main to protect rare valley bottom ancient rainforest from road-building into Camper Creek headwaters.
On 11th October, 2020, Indigenous peoples called a Day of Rage Against Colonialism. Main actions organized were against the forced assimilation of Indigenous peoples and for an alternative to Columbus Day. Colonial statues were felled across the United States.
In Arizona, O’odham Anti-Border Collective protested the construction of a border wall. Customs and Border Protection Agencies assaulted the Indigenous protestors with tear gas, rubber bullets, and arrests.
Joyce Echaquan, a 37 year old Indigenous woman, died in a hospital in Quebec. From her deathbed, she had live-streamed the racist and misogynist comments of her nurses. Vigils, rallies, and demonstrations were organized after the video went viral.
Disputes over fishing rights between Indigenous peoples and commercial fishers in Nova Scotia led to mob violence. The commercial fishers have threatened, abused, sabotaged against the Sipekne’katik First Nation group. Indigenous peoples across the nation are organizing solidarity actions.
Secwepemc people in Canada have demanded a halt in the construction of the Trans Mountain Pipeline. The pipeline threatens salmon population, on which both neighboring human and nonhuman communities depend upon. The protestors were assaulted by arrests.
Wet’suwet’en people have been protesting the Coastal Gas Link pipeline for over a decade. On February, the Wet’suwet’en launched a series of rail, port and highway blockades. More recently, calls for solidarity actions have begun to circulate as the Coastal GasLink pipeline is preparing to drill under the Morris river.
Check out the Facebook page of the Wet’suwet’en Access Point on Gidimt’en Territory.
In July, members of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy occupied a proposed development site in Ontario. Community mobilization and highway blockades were organized as a response to the militarized raid on August 5th by the Ontario Provincial Police. The Ontario government has tried to isolate the encampment by criminalizing and arresting supporters. Resistance has been going strong since then.
This article describes how the problems the oil industry are facing could be capitalized on by activists, particularly in light of reduced takeaway capacity from DAPL shutting down and the new Washington state law taking effect in 2020.
Acknowledgement and thanks from DGR to strategic thinkers and activists everywhere.
Bakken drillers may struggle to develop growth in oil production if they run into transportation bottlenecks.
Due to the volatility of this substance, especially in transport, there is a new law (in Washington state) taking effect in 2020: oil being transported via rail car must have vapor pressure under a specific threshold. The aim is to reduce the risk of explosion, derailments and harm to human life.
With Bakken shale drillers already struggling with poor profit they could be particularly, negatively impacted by this law. To minimize the harm to profit the oil industry may consider using spare capacity on other pipelines out of the Bakken. They may increase the amount of oil transported by rail and/or halt/pause plans to open production in oil wells currently closed. If the situation becomes more unprofitable there may be consideration of further production cuts.
Anti-fracking activists could focus on disrupting other pipelines and crude-by-rail, to leave the oil industry with a single choice: to halt production.
The key points are that if it is impossible to move oil from well to the market and/or if there is nowhere to store it then there will need (at least) to be a reduction in extraction or (at most) have production fully shut down. We are currently in a unique situation as some oil wells have been closed due to a significant reduction in demand, due to the corona virus. With the court ordering DAPL to shut down, it may now be an nonviable option to reopening the wells in the Bakken.
Parts of the production process and the ‘delivery’ in the oil industry have created dependency and bottlenecks. We believe that sharing knowledge of the infrastructure and increasing understanding of why this information is critical will allow activists to consider how effective their actions are.
The oil industry prefers pipeline exports as this is ‘cost effective’, Rail and road more expensive options. Additional pipelines could close the gap (financially) between extraction and national export. Due to the small profit margins any pipeline activism could have significant impact. Furthermore, disruption to new or existing pipelines may reduce confidence for potential investors, meaning oil in the ground.
Electricity: Oil production depends on electricity for pumps, compressors, transmission lines, substations, and processing plants. Increasing demand on the grid load. Activist opposition to new electric projects might drive up fracking costs. A continued increase in demand or indeed damage to the feed of electricity into oil and/or fracking production may result in a failure to keep up with demand.
Sand supply: Thousands of tons of sand (at significant cost) are needed to initiate flow in new wells. No sand supply would halt drilling, potentially drive up production costs.
Water supply and disposal: Millions of gallons of water is used in the fracking process. It goes in clean and comes out as polluted wastewater. Direct disruptions to the supply or an increase, however small, in the cost of water either in sourcing or disposal could potentially drive up production costs.
Refinery or export terminal disruption or closures: There is potential for activists to drive down the value of fracked oil by shutting down refineries or vehicles transporting or loading sites.
Uncertain times lead to uncertain measures:
Small actions, that would usually have very little lasting impact could, in these uncertain times, landslide into victory, especially when taken with other factors. In other words, an accumulation of factors could trigger cascading failure. Direct actions are likely to be most effective when targeting operational infrastructure (little and often), using the element of surprise
Considering strategic, effective, persistent, targeted interventions such as protests alongside direct action could enable activists to stop fossil fuel production.
There is work to be done.
With thanks and credit acknowledgement to the following two pieces of writing. You can read more about this here:
The Valve Turners is a label given to, and claimed by, environmental activists who take direct action against the fossil fuel industry by illegally turning emergency shut-off valves to close oil pipelines. Valve Turners have sought to use the necessity defense in court, arguing that they were obligated to act in the face of the imminent threat of climate change to which oil pipelines contribute. In some cases, they have invoked Indigenous sovereignty and treaty rights.
Incidents
Different groups of activists have acted as Valve Turners. In most events, participants have contacted the pipelines’ owners to notify them that the valves are being closed, so that the companies can take appropriate safety measures. They have then waited to be arrested and used their trials to draw attention to climate change.
December 2015: Enbridge Line 9
Enbridge reversed its Line 9 pipeline on December 3, 2020, to transport western crude oil to eastern refineries. In response, Canadian activists turned the emergency shut-off valve at a site near the Quebec-Ontario border on December 7. After closing the valve and stopping the flow of oil, they locked themselves to the valve with U-locks around their necks. Two weeks later, another set of activists turned an emergency shut-off valve on Line 9 in Sarnia, Ontario.
October 2016: Climate Direct Action
On October 11, five members of Climate Direct Action simultaneously turned emergency shut-off valves in four American states. This was the largest valve-turning action to date, temporarily disabling pipelines providing about 15% of America’s daily oil consumption.
Michael Foster turned a valve in North Dakota near the Canadian border. He was convicted of several felonies and was sentenced to three years in prison, two of which were suspended. Foster was the only valve turner to be imprisoned.
Leonard Higgins turned a valve on the Enbridge Express Pipeline near Coal Banks Landing, Montana. Higgins was convicted of felony criminal mischief and misdemeanor trespassing but had his three-year prison sentence deferred.
Emily Johnston and Annette Klapstein turned the valves on two Enbridge pipelines near Leonard, Minnesota. Their court case was dismissed.
Ken Ward turned a valve near Mount Vernon, Washington, to shut down Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline. After a mistrial, Ward was convicted of burglary, acquitted of sabotage, and served two days in prison.
All five participants planned to use the necessity defense to draw attention to their cause and justify their actions, though three were not permitted to do so. The judge presiding over the Johnston & Klapstein trial, Robert Tiffany, initially ruled that they could mount the necessity defense. However, he then reversed his decision, prohibiting expert testimony that would establish the argument for necessity, before dismissing the case before the defendants could present its necessity defense. Klapstein said she was happy the charges were dismissed, but “at the same time, we were indeed disappointed not to be able to present this to the jury. We were hoping to educate the jury and the classroom of greater public opinion on the dire issues of climate change”. Foster, Higgins, and Ward were prohibited by the judges overseeing their cases from mounting the necessity defense.
This group calls itself Climate Direct Action but became known as the Valve Turners and released a film under that name composed of footage they recorded before and during the process of turning the shut-off valves.
February 2019: Enbridge Line 4
Four members of the Catholic Worker Movement were arrested on February 4, 2019, for attempting to shut down the Enbridge Line 4 pipeline near Grand Rapids, MN. This group called itself “The Four Necessity Valve Turners,” a nod to the necessity defense for their actions. The activists informed Enbridge of their planned action, at which point the company shut down the pipeline remotely.
Response
Several US states, including Louisiana and Oklahoma, have increased the legal penalties for interfering with fossil fuel infrastructure, using a model bill from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) that enacts stiff consequences for protesters who target “critical infrastructure”.
A 2020 intelligence bulletin from the Department of Homeland Security described the 2016 Valve Turners as “suspected environmental rights extremists”.
Text via Wikipedia. Image via Audriusa. Both shared via Creative Commons license.
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