Category Archives: Forestry

Protesters at the Fairy Creek logging blockade are taking logging company Teal-Jones to court alleging their vehicles are being illegally impounded, while fees of more than $2,500 are levied for their return. The lawsuit, filed on June 21, says Teal-Jones was towing vehicles that were not obstructing the forest service roads, and they had no lawful authority to demand the payments. Though Surrey-based Teal-Jones was granted an injunction by the B.C. Supreme Court on April 1that forbade protesters from blocking access to roads and company activity, the protesters’ lawsuit says the injunction did not give the company authorization to impound vehicles. Protesters also claim their personal possessions went missing or were damaged after their vehicles were impounded, in what they charge are escalating tactics by Teal-Jones and the RCMP at the long-running blockade.

Steve Law

The Clinton and District Community Forest escaped the season’s wildfires but the recent drought and extreme conditions are expected to have a significant effect on 2.5 million seedlings planted this spring. CFF manager Steve Law said the trees, mostly fir and pines, are facing an increased morbidity rate due to the extreme temperatures in the region this year. A post-mortem on the forest and the seedlings’ survival rate is expected to take place next year. “They are at risk. We had the so-called heat dome period and a couple of months of drought,” Law said, adding random samples of seedlings planted last year have shown that even those trees have suffered some mortality from the drought.

The B.C. government’s pledge to ensure “free, prior and informed consent” for land use changes has been targeted by a group of Indigenous communities who want to grow their local forest economies.  The B.C. First Nations Forestry Council has rejected the province’s effort to work with them to redistribute Crown forest resources, citing a maze of complicated technical questions sent to First Nations with insufficient time for remote communities to answer them.  “The process is being expedited during a time of crisis due to wildfires,” Chief Bill Williams, president of the council, said in a letter to Premier John Horgan and Forests Minister Katrine Conroy and made public Sept. 9. “The timeline for consultation is disrespectful, compressed and expedited, and doe not allow for meaningful and informed consultation.”

Garry Merkel and Al Gorley

B.C’s Forests Ministry says more deferrals for old growth logging will soon be announced as officials work toward meeting 14 changes the province committed to a year ago over how large, old trees in ecologically rich landscapes are logged.  “Our government will continue to work with all our partners to do this — we owe it to our kids and grandkids,” the province said in a statement.  On Sept.11, 2020, the Ministry of Forests made public the government-mandated old growth strategic review, entitled A New Future for Old Forests.  It was written by two retired foresters, Garry Merkel and Al Gorley, who spent months touring the province talking to stakeholders about how the trees, some more than 1,000 years old, should be logged and protected. …It’s unclear if new deferrals will be enough to quell ongoing protests.

John Horgan

VICTORIA — Three months after Premier John Horgan promised to “turn the page on our colonial past” when making forest policy, the First Nations Forestry Council says the New Democrats are disrespecting Indigenous rights in consultations on modernization.  Council president Bill Williams set out this week concerns about the government’s rushed engagement process with First Nations on forest policy modernization.  “The timeline for consultation is disrespectful, compressed and expedited, and does not allow for meaningful and informed consultation,” wrote Williams.  …Williams, who is chief of the Squamish Nation, was joined in his complaint by some 20 First Nations.  …As for the premier’s “no shortcuts” vow, the first round of consultation was confined to July and August — wildfire season. …Horgan’s timetable for once-in-a-generation change appears to be at-odds with those First Nations resisting yet another process that pays lip service to their interests without actually accommodating them.

RCMP enforcement of a B.C. Supreme Court injunction against blockades set up to prevent old-growth logging on Vancouver Island continued this weekend. The Mounties say they arrested 20 people on Friday, who were released in the town of Lake Cowichan, while seven people arrested Saturday were released in Port Renfrew. They say officers have made 989 arrests since enforcement began around the Fairy Creek watershed, including 110 people who have been arrested more than once. …Over the weekend police say officers took one of the protesters to a waiting ambulance after the person fell down a ravine and injured their head around 1:15 a.m. on Saturday. Protesters said that the person who fell was not seriously injured and did not require treatment from paramedics.

The drama unfolding at Fairy Creek is a story of very big things — mammoth trees of great age, a forest that could, according to scientists, date back untouched to the Ice Age. …Yet, according to scientists I spoke to this week, we humans — so prone to the big picture — may be looking at things through the wrong lens. If we want to save the rainforest and get closer to understanding climate change, we also need to look to the tiny, tenacious and incredibly complex organisms that exist within Fairy Creek’s forests. One uncommon species, the Old Growth Specklebelly Lichen, found just lately round Fairy Creek by artist and citizen scientist Natasha Lavdovsky, could maintain keys to stopping the logging — and present us how nature creates moist zones that halt wildfires, safety from the worst ravages of local weather change.

NORTHEAST BC — It’s one of the largest wild landscapes in the world, and two friends — a Dene-Kwagul storyteller and a logger-turned-conservationist — want to ensure it remains that way.  The Muskwa-Kechika is a 16 million-acre wilderness in northeast BC. It was stewarded by Indigenous peoples for thousands of years, and today it is one of the largest remaining tracts of wild land in North America. “It’s six and a half per cent of the province … and it’s still in its pristine state,” said Wayne Sawchuk, a former logger-turned-conservationist and wilderness guide. But that area is increasingly of interest to resource developers looking for metals like lead and zinc, as well as oil and gas. …Sawchuk and Ryan Dickie, a Dene-Kwagul photographer and filmmaker from Fort Nelson, explore the region by horseback together in the new documentary, In the Land of Dreamers.

There is more to it. Besides responding to wildfire emergencies, we need to manage all the hazard cycle factors in order help us avoid and recover from disasters, i.e., hazard mitigation, preparation, response, and recovery. Some British Columbians may now see summer as a threat. …To be resilient in the face of coming events we must adjust our actions across all the factors that contribute to natural disasters including: investing in land management to mitigate the wildfire hazard; encouraging home-owners and communities to install protection systems and take other steps to reduce their flammability; diversifying our wildfire response model; and fully recognizing the social trauma and systems disruption associated with disasters while ensuring the most vulnerable are looked after. If we take this approach …we have a better chance to reduce the severity of the worsening trends. Then summers can be something we look forward to again.

The WFCA Newsletter also includes:

• New Tree Planting Record:23,060 Seedlings in a Day and COVID-19 Endemicity, Labour
• Future Demand Featured at WFCA Virtual Annual Business and Market Summit, September 29, 2021.

NELSON, BC — An ongoing wildfire risk reduction project on 70 hectares of forest just outside of the city is reducing the threat of fire inside the city, according to a regional district official. Joel Hamilton said the Selous Creek Wildfire Risk Reduction project was to offer planning and treatment of the forest immediately adjacent Nelson city limits, the city’s Selous Creek water intake and infrastructure including historic trestles on the Burlington Northern Rail Trail. By creating and employing fuel modification prescriptions, four distinct areas outside of the city were able to be logged by Kalesnikoff Lumber, said Hamilton, the RDCK’s wildfire mitigation supervisor. …The logging is part of a longer-term forest succession plan that builds better conditions for large older trees to live out their lives, as well as offering space for young trees to grow. 

VANCOUVER – Mounties enforcing a B.C. Supreme Court injunction against blockades set up to prevent old-growth logging on Vancouver Island arrested 20 people Friday night and seven more on Saturday. RCMP say they’ve made 989 arrests since enforcement began around the Fairy Creek watershed, and 110 people have been arrested multiple times. Protesters have been camped out in the area for more than a year to defend what they say is the last unprotected old-growth forest on southern Vancouver Island. Since police began enforcing the injunction in May, protesters have repeatedly accused them of violence and lies, while Mounties have accused protesters of endangering the safety of themselves and others, in addition to defying the court’s order. Another example of this tension played out on Friday night and the early hours of Saturday morning.

The battle at Fairy Creek, a fight over some of the planet’s oldest trees, has raged for two summers and has led to the most arrests ever for a protest in modern Canadian history. At stake is some of the last unprotected old-growth forest on the south end of Vancouver Island. Arrests have been ongoing all summer of opponents attempting to blockade the forest in and around the Fairy Creek watershed. The watershed itself is off-limits to cutting under a two-year pause enacted last June. But some of the biggest old-growth forest just outside those boundaries is being logged by Teal Cedar Products Ltd. Tensions in the woods escalated last week, when a temporary ban on logging because of fire risk was lifted. …Unlike the U.S., which outlawed cutting old growth on federal lands in Washington, Oregon and California, it’s still open season on the unprotected rainforests of B.C.

My grandfather… started logging around… Caycuse Camp in the 1920s… My dad… started logging in Caycuse Camp [in] 1940…  I too started in the division [in] 1974… I have logged [almost] my entire career in the Caycuse-Renfrew area on TFL46… Today I haul logs [on] contract for Teal Jones. I haul second growth loads from the same lands that my father and grandfather logged… The real beauty of our industry is that it is renewable and sustainable. It is extremely disturbing to hear the misinformation that the protestors are spreading about the future logging plans in the Fairy Creek watershed… We can all contribute to educating the public on the facts of what is actually happening in our industry. We must include the actual amount of old growth that there already is in B.C. and how huge an area that is permanently protected in parkland.

[In 2011 Rob Norman wrote a series of articles about the logging industry, the first one was about his father, Al Norman: The life of a Camp 6/Caycuse Logger]

Every day in B.C., irreplaceable groves filled with the oldest trees in the country are cut down and lost forever. …The government’s rationale for its slowness is Indigenous rights. Premier John Horgan said every tree in B.C. grows in the territory of a First Nation and protection of forests must be done with them. This is true, and it’s a great standard. But it’s currently a double standard because that’s not what’s required for logging. Logging tenures have been established without Indigenous consent. While companies must consult nations on their cutting plans, they don’t need to receive a yes. The B.C. NDP’s requirement of consent for conservation but not for logging has been rightly criticized as “ridiculous” by Indigenous leaders.

Many Indigenous communities, municipalities, regional districts, woodlots, and community forests have taken action in the last few years to protect their communities from wildfire. Using funding from the Forest Enhancement Society of BC (FESBC) these project partners first create a Community Wildfire Protection Plan or a Community Resiliency Protection Plan, which identifies the location of buildings, communications infrastructure, water, power, safe places, and emergency escape routes. …“The key goals of the Community Wildfire Resiliency Planning process are varied,” said Gord Pratt, RPF, Operations Manager FESBC. “Goals include increasing communities’ capacity and understanding of wildfire risk, fostering greater collaboration across administrative boundaries, and being more responsive to the needs of different types of communities.”

With 882 arrests so far, the old-growth logging protest at Fairy Creek has now surpassed Clayoquot Sound as the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history, according to B.C. Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau. “The civil disobedience occurring at Fairy Creek is the public taking recourse against a government that refuses to act.”…In 1993, 856 arrests were made during months of logging protests at Clayoquot Sound, which became known as the “war in the woods.” …A spokesman for activist group Rainforest Flying Squad said loggers are preparing to cut old-growth adjacent to an area that was granted a two-year logging deferral in June. …The Clayoquot Sound action ended in 1994 with the promise of a provincial government review, which wound up reducing the annual allowable cut and clearcuts in the area to a maximum of four hectares. 

The Penticton Indian Band Emergency Operations Centre says unauthorized traffic in the Skaha Creek wildfire area has been causing problems for fire crews. In a statement on social media Wednesday, they BC Wildfire Service crews have nearly been involved in collisions with people driving in the area who should not be there. “The Penticton Indian Band Chief and Council and EOC would like to remind everyone that these areas are off limits for the protection of the first responders and community,” they wrote. “Please be reminded that the Penticton Indian Band Reserves are private property. These areas are currently impacted by an off-road use and fire ban.” All off-roading for recreational use by motorized vehicles is prohibited, whether for a band member or a guest.

Vancouver, BC – The National Police Federation today released a survey which shows that 82% of British Columbians agree that the RCMP have a duty to enforce Supreme Court injunctions. In addition, nearly 3-in-4 agree that the Pacheedaht First Nation request for protesters to leave their territory should be respected, even as 77% believe protest is an important part of democracy. The online survey of 800 B.C. adults was conducted by Pollara Strategic Insights between August 30 and September 2, 2021. It found strong support for RCMP Members and their response to protesters’ escalating illegal and aggressive actions. …“The protestors are extremely and globally well-funded, many of whom are highly experienced in media manipulation and propaganda, and they have demonstrated that they are increasingly desperate to intimidate our officers and mislead the public in their ongoing campaign against both the licensed forester and the Pacheedaht and Ditidaht First Nations upon whose traditional territory they are imposing.”

Additional coverage in Canada’s First Nations Radio (CFNR) Network: National Police Federation releases results of survey on old growth logging injunctions

The fight to save old-growth trees in the Fairy Creek area has reached a historic milestone. Police have so far made 882 arrests for breaching a Supreme Court injunction in the disputed logging areas in Tree Farm Licence 46 near Port Renfrew, creating what organizers and the B.C. Green Party are calling “the greatest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history.” The total surpasses the 856 arrests during protests against logging in Clayoquot Sound in 1993. …With Teal-Jones’ injunction set to expire on Sept. 26, the company has asked the Supreme Court to extend it. “The blockaders continue to flout both the stated wishes of the local First Nations and the well-reasoned court injunction, while they spread ­misinformation through sophisticated campaigns, raise funds and recruit, ” Teal-Jones said in a statement. “Without the injunction, anarchy would reign in TFL 46 … This is the antithesis of peaceful protest.”

VICTORIA — The Mounties are investigating after someone allegedly used a helicopter to drop supplies to old-growth logging protesters in the Fairy Creek area of southern Vancouver Island. The RCMP say the helicopter dropped cement and materials to make locking devices in the Fairy Creek watershed over the weekend. Police recovered some of the supplies, according to an RCMP statement. Investigators say someone may have illegally obscured the helicopter’s call sign and markings. They added that anyone who aids or abets those breaching the B.C. court injunction against the logging blockades can be charged. …Meanwhile, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers has weighed in on the issue, calling for the provincial and federal governments to stop clearcut logging in old-growth forests. In a statement, the union denounced the arrests of protesters at Fairy Creek and demanded all charges against them be dropped.

Vancouver, BC – The BC First Nations Forestry Council has submitted an open letter to Premier Horgan expressing serious concerns with the engagement process used by the Ministry of Forests (FLNRORD) to involve First Nations in significant changes to forest policy. 20 BC First Nations and Indigenous Forestry Organizations have signed in support of the letter, calling for a meaningful consultation to ensure that First Nations’ rights, priorities and values are incorporated into the modernization of forest policy in BC. In July 2021, FLNRORD sought input from Nations on proposed policy amendments through a letter sent to some Nations, with a final deadline for input of September 3, 2021. “The timeline for consultation is disrespectful, compressed and expedited, and does not allow for meaningful and informed consultation,” tells Chief Bill Williams, President of the First Nations Forestry Council. …The Forestry Council is calling for an extension until the end of the year…

Police are continuing to enforce the injunction against blockades in the Fairy Creek area, as protesters are claiming that logging has resumed on Tree Farm License 46. During enforcement efforts on Saturday, Sept. 4, police say they had to rescue two people from trenches across roads in the Fairy Creek watershed as rainfall caused the trenches to fill up with water. The water was removed and diverted, and obstruction-removal specialists worked to remove the individuals. Arrests on Monday, Aug. 6 included an individual who was suspended from a cantilever off a bridge, and other protesters who had to be removed from trenches.