California Redwood Forest Returned To Native Tribal Group

Los Angeles – The descendants of Native American tribes on the Northern California coast are reclaiming a bit of their heritage that includes ancient redwoods that have stood since their ancestors walked the land.

Save the Redwoods League planned to announce Tuesday that it is transferring more than 500 acres (202 hectares) on the Lost Coast to the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council.

The group of 10 tribes that have inhabited the area for thousands of years will be responsible for protecting the land dubbed Tc’ih-Léh-Dûñ, or “Fish Run Place,” in the Sinkyone language.

Priscilla Hunter, chairwoman of the Sinkyone Council, said it’s fitting they will be caretakers of the land where her people were removed or forced to flee before the forest was largely stripped for timber.

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Shell Is Tricking Drivers With Its Carbon Neutral Campaign

The advertisements are for Shell Canada’s Drive Carbon Neutral program, which launched in November 2020. A company press release said from Dec. 31, 2020 onwards, customers at its pumps can contribute two cents per litre to various carbon offset projects. That program and its claims of carbon neutrality will be challenged Wednesday when environmental group Greenpeace is set to file a complaint to the Competition Bureau of Canada. The group argues the Drive Carbon Neutral program is greenwashing and is therefore tricking customers into participating in an initiative with false claims, which it says goes against the Competition Act: a federal law governing the majority of business conduct in the country.

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Forest Defenders Continue To Block Destruction Of Rare Forest Habitat

This week, forest defenders are succeeding in slowing tree clearing using their bodies to protect sensitive and rare forest habitats from aggressive tree clearing from PG&E contractors in constant cold rain and wind.

On Wednesday, October 19, supervisors from PG&E and arborists from Wright Tree Service Company put concerned park visitors at risk of serious injury by continuing cutting and dropping of tree sections in close proximity to where the visitors stood in civil disobedience to impede the cutting. The forest being cut lies within Humboldt Redwoods State Park. This area is under the jurisdiction of the Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria according to a 2020 MOU with the State of California.

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What Is Ecocide, And Why Does It Matter?

Jamie Hunter has just returned from defying a court injunction to protect old-growth forest in Fairy Creek and is going to Glasgow next month to push for a major change to international law that would provide another tool against environmental degradation.

The 21-year-old from Nelson, B.C., sees the actions as two fronts of the same battle to confront forces otherwise damaging the planet and imperiling its inhabitants.

“To me, Stop Ecocide is a really tangible solution,” said the co-founder of its Canadian chapter. “Obviously, it’s not the only solution, but it’s a big piece of the puzzle because it really says that causing this damage to the environment is not OK.”

Stop Ecocide is a global movement involving international criminal lawyers, Indigenous advisers, researchers, and diplomats working to add ecocide as a crime considered by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

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Horgan’s Fairy Creek Excuses Betray Citizens

The NDP government can’t keep dodging responsibility for the debacle at Fairy Creek — or the much bigger questions about the RCMP’s role in the province.

Especially as increasing RCMP resources — with provincial government approval — are devoted to shutting down protests, frequently by Indigenous people.

Last week, the BC Supreme Court refused to extend an injunction against protesters blocking logging, citing RCMP civil rights’ abuses — facilitated by the provincial government — in enforcing the court order.

The dispute is about old-growth forests on southern Vancouver Island. Protesters blocked licence-holder Teal-Jones from logging in late 2020.

On April 1, BC Supreme Justice Frits Verhoeven granted the company an injunction preventing the protesters from blocking roads or interfering with company operations.

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Judge Refuses To Extend Court Injunction At Fairy Creek

A B.C. Supreme Court judge has refused to extend an injunction that was granted to prevent protesters from impeding logging operations at Fairy Creek on Vancouver Island.

Justice Douglas Thompson ruled the reputation of the court outweighed the economic interests of the logging company, Teal Jones. Thompson pointed to the RCMP’s enforcement of the court injunction as the main reason for the court’s tarnished reputation.

“The methods of enforcement of the court’s order have led to serious and substantial infringement of civil liberties, including impairment of the freedom of the press to a marked degree,” wrote the judge.

One of the lawyers who argued against extending the injunction, Patrick Canning, said the ruling puts pressure on the province to resolve the ongoing dispute at Fairy Creek.

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RCMP At Fairy Creek Blockade Ignore The Real Emergency

On Aug. 9, the one-year anniversary of the Fairy Creek protection efforts, the RCMP raided Fairy Creek’s headquarter camp. Twenty-five police vehicles, a helicopter and an emergency tactical unit were deployed against peaceful ancient forest protectors that day, and almost every day since.

What is the emergency that the police are responding to with such a massively expensive show of force?

Since the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a code red warning on Aug. 9, is it the climate emergency that is so clear to us this summer with deadly heat waves and extreme forest fires?

No, the science tells us that RCMP are actually making this climate emergency worse by enforcing the clear cutting of some of the last remaining old-growth forests on the West Coast.

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Fairy Creek Got An Old-Growth Deferral

Splatsin First Nation Kukpi7 Wayne Christian knows the migration patterns of the last remaining southern mountain caribou in his territory in southeast B.C. — they spend their winters up in the mountains. He knows the way that water travels from glaciers to the region’s streams and back again. He knows what the region’s forests look like when they’re healthy.

Last month, he saw something he’d never seen before. The shiny green leaves of the cottonwood trees that make up part of the forest’s understory had turned a dull, parched grey — almost dead.

“I was thinking, what’s going on here? There is a signal here. Pay attention to this.”

Christian was on his way to lead a ceremony beneath a cluster of ancient cedar trees, marking the Splatsin Nation’s support for the blockades led by a group called Old Growth Revylution that opposes old-growth logging in the region.

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Police Raid The Hub For Fairy Creek Blockaders

In a major advancement of police activity in the old growth blockades around Fairy Creek on Southern Vancouver Island, RCMP raided the gate to the blockaders’ headquarters on Monday. It was the first time police had carried out arrests at the site identified as a communal hub for the movement.

It also signals the likelihood of more confrontation ahead in the biggest direct action fight to protect B.C.’s old growth forests in decades.

“The frontline has been brought to us,” Willow, a forest defender who is stationed at blockade headquarters, told The Tyee.

The escalation occurred as blockaders were preparing to mark their one-year anniversary occupying the forests in Pacheedaht Territories surrounding Port Renfrew.

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Fairy Creek Provides Opportunities For Conservation

Ever since protesters started chaining themselves to logging roads in the Teal-Jones Fairy Creek cut block on southern Vancouver Island, dozens of articles on old-growth logging have declared that the ancient trees are worth far more standing than cut down for lumber.

Usually, they go on to say that the trees’ value is incalculable.

The old-growth forests of British Columbia took 8,000 years to develop into amazing mini-ecosystems of biodiversity that store carbon, filter water, and provide habitat for endangered plant and animal species.

It’s a fool’s game to measure their value in dollars and cents, because we’ll never come to grips with the fact that the forests are priceless.

But logging companies have no trouble putting a price on the giant trees by calculating the value of the lumber that can be produced.

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Threats And Fear As Loggers Clash With Blockaders At Fairy Creek

Over 320 arrests have been made at the Fairy Creek blockades since police began removing forest defenders in mid-May. As enforcement of an injunction obtained by logging company Teal-Jones enters its seventh week, aggression from police and logging industry workers has been ramping up.

Each day the RCMP try to clear logging roads, encountering blockaders in what are known as “dragons” — a device that secures a person’s arm in a tube buried in the ground — or surreal-looking wooden tripods dangling up to 30 feet in the air. Land defenders have adopted these tactics in an effort to halt the logging of old-growth forests in Pacheedaht and Ditidaht territories.

Evidently frustrated with the slow pace of removals, the RCMP have begun using heavy machinery like chainsaws, excavators and jackhammers in close proximity to the bodies of blockaders.

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‘War In The woods’: Hundreds Of Anti-Logging Protesters Arrested

Police in western Canada have arrested more than 270 people as a conflict over old growth logging in British Columbia’s ancient rainforests continues to grow.

At the protest blockades in the remote woodland, hundreds of activists have been chaining themselves to giant tripods made from the trunks of felled trees, suspending themselves in trees for days or more at a time, and even securing their arms inside devices called “sleeping dragons” cemented into the roadway.

The movement is an attempt to pressure the British Columbia government to halt the cutting of what activists and experts say is the last 3% of ancient trees left standing in the province.

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Old-Growth Logging Protesters On Day Seven Of Hunger Strike

Old-growth logging protesters on day seven of a hunger strike are calling for an urgent meeting with B.C. Premier John Horgan and Forests Minister Katrine Conroy.

Brent Eichler, president of Unifor local 950, Zain Haq, a 20-year-old student at SFU, and Evie Mandel, 65, haven’t eaten food in a week but are continuing their strike at 401 Burrard Street in Vancouver. Reached by phone Saturday, Eichler said they were doing OK but very tired from only consuming water, lemon juice, and salt. He said he wasn’t sure how much longer they could continue without suffering adverse health effects.

Eichler said they have received a lot of support from young people and those who want a moratorium on logging old-growth forests.

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‘Monumental Steps’ On Protecting Old Growth Forests

The British Columbia cabinet has agreed to defer the logging of 2,000 hectares of old-growth forest in the Fairy Creek watershed and the Central Walbran Valley, Premier John Horgan announced Wednesday.

The two-year deferrals fulfil a request made by the Pacheedaht, Ditidaht and Huu-ay-aht First Nations, but are unlikely to satisfy people who have been blocking logging activity in the area between Port Renfrew and Lake Cowichan on southern Vancouver Island.

“These are monumental steps,” Horgan said. “I know it appears at the moment to be just another announcement by another premier, but these announcements are transformative for an industry that has been foundational to British Columbia’s success and will be foundational to our future success, but it has to be done in a different way.”

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Old Growth Protected In Fairy Creek

Three First Nations on southern Vancouver Island released a statement today saying they are taking back decision-making responsibilities for their traditional territories.

They have also formally given the British Columbia government notice they want to defer old-growth logging in the Fairy Creek watershed and Central Walbran Valley for two years and have repeated a request for everyone to respect their authority, including people who have been blocking logging and related activity.

“Since time immemorial, Huu-ay-aht Ditidaht and Pacheedaht First Nations have been stewards of the forest, fisheries and all resources within their ḥahahuułi (traditional territories),” said the statement. “For more than 150 years they have watched as others decided what was best for their lands, water and people. This declaration brings this practice to an immediate end.”

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