Fairy Creek, Caycuse Valley, Vancouver Island BC

| Ancient forests are worth more standing

Last week, I was part of a media team that went to the Fairy Creek blockade. Hundreds of protestors are putting their bodies on the line to prevent logging of massive, ancient cedars in the Caycuse watershed.

I watched as an elaborate cat and mouse game unfolded between cops and protestors. Hundreds of concerned citizens are trying to buy time before chainsaws cut into old-growth yellow cedars that are 1,000 or close to 2000-years-old.

Only 2.7% of BC’s ancient rainforest is left standing. Now this precious ecosystem is under threat of logging. It’s ludicrous! If you drive around Vancouver Island, you’ll see plenty of second and third-growth forests to re-harvest and replant. There’s no need to touch this precious Fairy Creek Valley.

The very brave stand tall and risk everything to save the forest. They are known as “the arrestables” and they find clever ways to stall the industry from accessing the designated cut blocks.

It took two hours and six special-unit RCMP officers to remove one young man from the blockade after he had carefully trapped his arm in the road. In another case, it took 26 officers to remove an incredibly brave man who was dangling over a waterfall using a boat mast suspended from a bridge (See photos 3 and 4). Some of these protestors remain in these dangerous, precarious, and uncomfortable positions for days!

A recent poll found that 85% of British Columbians feel it is important that the BC NDP keeps promises made to protect old growth. Even several of the RCMP officers gave me the impression they rather not be there at Fairy Creek.

I was there when Pacheedat Elder Bill Jones came to challenge the injunction line. As he cut the police tape blocking access to his land he exclaimed, “That is a shame who you are serving. A crown that has crushed so many millions and millions of people as is being witnessed up in Kamloops right now.”