“War in the woods”: activists blockade Vancouver Island in bid to save ancient trees – “If we want our planet to be sustainable, we have to protect these ecosystems”

Forest defenders block a logging road to oppose the cutting of old growth trees in the Caycuse watershed on southern Vancouver Island in April 2021. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Guardian — Forest defenders block a logging road to oppose the cutting of old growth trees in the Caycuse watershed on southern Vancouver Island in April 2021. Photo: Jesse Winter / *The Guardian*

By Jesse Winter
9 April 2021

(The Guardian) – Hundreds of activists are digging in at logging road blockades across a swath of southern Vancouver Island, vowing to stay as long as it takes to pressure the provincial government to immediately halt cutting of what they say is the last 3% of giant old growth trees left in the province.

The situation echoes the 1993 “war in the woods” in nearby Clayoquot Sound, which saw nearly 1,000 people arrested at similar logging blockades in the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history.

Tensions are rising. Just this weekend, the activists stopped a team of old growth tree cutters – called fallers – from entering a logging area in the Caycuse watershed.

“You know this is illegal?” said Trevor Simpson, a logger, who told the Guardian he’s been a faller contractor for 29 years and relies on cutting old-growth trees. “This is my livelihood at stake.

Giant old growth trees stand in a small protected area called Avatar Grove, near the Fairy Creek watershed on southern Vancouver Island. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Guardian

A blockader named Owen, one of about two dozen on the scene, told the loggers through the window of their pickup truck: “The fact is, if we want our planet to be sustainable, we have to protect these ecosystems.”

Another logger said: “We have to work. Are they [the blockaders] going to pay our wages today? If we don’t work, we don’t get paid.”

The blockaders refused to let Simpson’s team pass, and eventually, the frustrated crew left. They returned on Tuesday to hand-deliver a court injunction ordering the blockades taken down and setting the stage for arrests. Similar scenes are playing out at strategic blockades across the area. […]

In September, the government released a long-awaited old growth strategic review. Citing the “high risk to loss of biodiversity” and “widespread lack of confidence in the system of managing forests”, the report’s authors made 14 recommendations, including immediately deferring all old-growth logging in at-risk ecosystems, all of which were accepted by government.

A forest defender counts the rings in a recently cut old-growth cedar tree in the mountains above the Caycuse watershed Cowichan Lake west of Duncan, British Columbia. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Guardian — A forest defender counts the rings in a recently cut old-growth cedar tree in the mountains above the Caycuse watershed Cowichan Lake west of Duncan, British Columbia. Photo: Jesse Winter / *The Guardian*

But critics say after more than six months, the government is not moving fast enough while chainsaws continue to snarl and ancient trees continue to fall.

Rachel Holt, an independent ecologist, argues that the government is drastically overstating how much giant old growth still exists. The latest government reports say just over 13m hectares of total primary forest considered very old, or ancient, is still standing. Holt and her colleagues agree.

“But the vast majority of that – about 80% – consists of small or very small trees,” Holt said. [more]

‘War in the woods’: activists blockade Vancouver Island in bid to save ancient trees