Quebec plans to turn the Mount Kaaikop territory into a reserve after a group of residents spent a decade in relentless pursuit of protecting the territory at the junction of the Laurentians and Lanaudière regions. The government’s announcement on Wednesday is the culmination of years of struggle to protect Mount Kaaikop for Claude Samson, president of the Mount Kaaikop Conservation Coalition. “We’re entering our 12th year of activism to preserve this territory,” Samson told The Canadian Press. In 2014, his citizens’ group won its case in Superior Court when a judge ordered the Ministry of Natural Resources to suspend its logging authorization. Since that ruling, the coalition says it has invested over $85,000, mostly in studies, to document the ecological value of the area, with a view to eventually turning it into a conservation project.