Trudy Duivenvoorden Mitic

On her first trip to Fairy Creek, the author finds her daughter coping with the violent pepper-spraying of the RCMP earlier that morning. ON SATURDAY, AUGUST 21, I WENT TO FAIRY CREEK to participate in a circle ceremony hosted by Pacheedaht Elder Bill Jones. I was hitching a ride with my daughter Caroline, and we were going up for the day. We had arranged to meet my other daughter Laura at the recently installed red gate across the main entrance to several of the forest defenders’ camps on the logging road into Fairy Creek. From there we would walk together to the ceremony site a bit further in. Laura and her partner Pat are devoted environmentalists who’ve given much of their last five months to the Fairy Creek protest, their careers as musicians and their band, Carmanah, having been sidelined by the pandemic. Caroline and I had long been wanting to go to Fairy Creek, and today was the day. We chatted lightly on the way up but grew sombre when the landscape began including hillsides that looked as if they’d been buzzed with giant clippers. Also worrying was the RCMP’s increasingly hard-hitting tactics at Fairy Creek as of late, perhaps spurred on by an aggressively impatient industry, or perhaps by their own frustration over having failed to banish the protesters in short order, despite being the ones with all the training, legal power, muscle and gear including helicopters and ATVs. Helicopters delivering ATVs, to be exact. It was they who had the seemingly unlimited budget and fresh recruits daily, including specialized teams for when the going got tough. Whatever the reason, these last few weeks had become increasingly volatile and dangerous, and more protesters were being injured. LAURA HURRYING ALONG THE ROAD to where her truck was parked was the first sign that something was amiss. By the time we caught up with her, she’d climbed into the back and was rummaging through a backpack. “Pat’s been pepper-sprayed and needs a clean shirt,” she said. “They were all pepper sprayed earlier this morning, it’s unbelievable.” Wordlessly we follow her back to the gate, where two ambulances are attending to the last of the injured. People stand milling on both sides of the highway, many still dazed, clutching water and dousing eyes. Pat puts on his shirt; his shoulder-length hair still drenched. It seems they spray the hair so it drips into the eyes to prolong the temporary blindness, not to mention the excruciating pain. “I guess they thought I needed my hair washed because they just kept spraying my head,” he jokes, but his eyes are red and sad. Laura Mitic tending to victim of pepper spraying by RCMP (photo by Shaena Lambert) A group of day visitors wait near the gate for the Elders to arrive and lead them through. Someone keeps reminding everyone to stay off the pavement, this being the highway from Port Renfrew to Lake Cowichan. To step on it is to risk being arrested for impeding traffic, and this is not where the protesters want to waste their strength and numbers. A line of black motorcycles keeps cruising by ominously, back and forth. The black-clad riders are not out on a casual drive. We note their thumbs-up to the RCMP. And their Quebec license plates. There are many influences in this struggle, perhaps more than we know. The hairs on the back of my neck stir a little. I’M STILL TRYING TO GET MY BEARINGS. “Why did this happen?” I ask Laura. She doesn’t know, it’s impossible to know. Pent up exasperation, maybe. The RCMP had arrived angry and aggressive that morning, which was verified in videos I pored over later. It was expected they would go to River Camp that day—one of the last stands in that touch-and-go weekend—to finish mincing it into the ground. (Yes, literally. Pounding it down with the bucket of a backhoe.) Maybe they hadn’t anticipated the tight knot of 60 or so people blocking their access at the red gate. In one video, a member of their District Liaison Team—the DLT—can be heard saying they had not expected a group that large. Instead of dealing with the blocked gate, the RCMP pulled out their chainsaws and felled enough nearby saplings to open an alternate access route. Then those headed for River Camp drove their vehicles through and vanished up the logging road. A dozen or so officers, maybe more, stayed behind and turned their attention to the gate. The group’s efforts there were now moot, but still they clung together and resisted efforts to pry them apart. Red spray cans appeared and were portentously shaken. The alarm was sounded among the defenders, who tightened themselves up and lowered their heads. The spraying began and mayhem ensued. Video of pepper spraying event just before Trudy arrived. IT’S ALMOST NOON when the RCMP allow us through the gate, but no further today: The ceremony will have to take place in this gravel clearing, right off the highway. At the back of the clearing, where it narrows back into the dirt road, RCMP members now stand behind yellow tape to keep us contained. RCMP (with Teal security employee) keeping defenders in check (photo by Caroline Mitic) Security guards for Teal Jones shuffle between the RCMP stronghold and the gate, the dust rising off their boots. While we wait for the Elders to settle themselves in, we speak in hushed tones, and note that everyone else is doing the same. It feels like a requiem for irretrievable loss, for best efforts that are still not enough, for justice that fails when the well-heeled aren’t looking. It feels hopeless, truth and righteousness having been buried too deep under the weight of self-interest, ulterior motives, voracious greed, blind allegiance and pride, campaigns of misinformation, a deeply flawed political system still steeped in colonialism, and yes, racism. Everyone seems to be processing thoughts. When does a scrap of gravelled, besieged earth become hallowed ground? When the Indigenous Elders begin speaking. The aged among them may look frail, but their words are clear and unhurried, formed by the laws of the land, the reverence for it, and centuries of accumulated experience in nature. Their eyes seem to burn when they speak, not with animosity but with absolute conviction. Up until now, nature’s truth hasn’t changed much from century to century. Elder Bill Jones with Rose Henry (photo by Caroline Mitic) Elder Bill Jones extends a generous welcome, in this clearing surrounded by trees that are tall but still only juveniles compared to their ancestors up the hill. In measured tones, he rebukes the work of the RCMP but not the members themselves, reminding them that this special place is for them and their children too. He thanks and comforts the mostly young defenders who, for the love of the planet and life itself, found themselves assaulted just hours earlier in a manner usually reserved for hardened criminals. The elders ask all older visitors to come form a circle. My girls nudge me forward. Now the drumming and singing starts, and the stories about healing and medicine and the gifts and powers of the cedar tree pour out. Cedar is so central to traditional life that it provided almost every need, yet rarely did a tree have to be cut down. Elders circle ceremony (photo by Caroline Mitic) “We are an ingenious people,” proclaims the elder Chiyokten (Paul Che’ oke ten Wagner) in summary. He is a master of story and song from the WSANEC nation, and next he introduces the cedar brushing ceremony, for cleansing, rejuvenation, purification and healing. Cedar boughs are dipped in water and then gently brushed over recipients, starting at the head and ending at the feet. Everyone is invited to receive the brushing, starting with the frontline defenders. On this day, they need it the most. Afterwards they walk around the inside of our circle as we murmur our thanks and support. Some cry silently. Some are steady-eyed and resolved. Everyone is processing; no one is capitulating today. Now it’s our group’s turn, and as the cedar is gently brushed over me, I think about the many layers of my society that keep me separated from the natural world. I become aware of a deep impoverishment. At one point a security guard approaches me on the sidelines and softly asks how he can get to the gate without interrupting the ceremony. I suggest he wait until the dancing stops, and then ask him about his job. “I open and close the gate, that’s all,” he says, and then unexpectedly asks, “Why do they want these trees anyway?” He has no idea. “I don’t follow the news much,” he admits apologetically. He’s from Vancouver, but his company is currently providing security for Teal Jones. He’s worked 20 days straight and wants to go home. “Maybe I need a new job,” he concedes, adding that it’s not easy finding meaningful work these days. THE ELDERS HAVE FINISHED brushing everyone and now make their way to the yellow tape. They invite the four officers standing behind it to be brushed as well, reiterating the benefits of cleansing and healing and opening the heart to this moment. The officers agree somewhat awkwardly—granted, it’s a fine line—and step in front of the tape. The tape itself is brushed as well. In that moment, it looks like reconciliation gaining ground. But reconciliation is a dodgy target, to be recalibrated again and again. It will suffer setbacks, perhaps as soon as tomorrow. Or later in the day, when the DLT member interrupts the ceremony—not rudely—to ask everyone to make way so the River Camp arrestees can be driven through and taken away. The speaker stops, the crowd complies. Then the officer says, “It’ll be another 15 minutes.” “They do this all the time,” Laura sighs. “They get us ready, then keep us waiting. It’s all on their terms, to show their power, to intimidate us and wear us down.” Laura Mitic on logging road at Caycuse Camp in April 2021 (photo by Dawna Mueller) The arrestees will be worn down too, having been locked in a van for hours, possibly injured and with no medical care. (The RCMP medic, I now realize, is a medic for his colleagues only. Since that morning, he’s gained notoriety—not for his deftness with splints and bandages, but with a canister of pepper spray.) LATE IN THE AFTERNOON we step back again to let the entire RCMP convoy through—they’re calling it a day. It’s an interesting if disquieting spectacle, vehicles for every possible scenario, 17 in total. The stone-faced occupants all stare straight ahead; some are filming us. When the twin, windowless paddy-wagons roll by, a roar of support rises from the crowd. Caroline and I start heading for home, though we move slowly, against the tug of this beautiful wilderness, its storehouse of wisdom, the struggle for its survival. Laura is staying but understands the yen, having slept under the stars here many times over the summer. “Returning to the city feels like I’m on an episode of the Truman Show,” she writes to me a few days later. “You realize just how make-believe our society is. It makes sense for humans to live together in a cluster, in community, and let nature be elsewhere, but we’ve become too far removed from the outside world. That’s made us apathetic and unaware, and our governments have exploited that. So now here we are, struggling for nature against the very systems and values we have produced.” The setting sun pours liquid amber into the forests as we pull away. The beauty of it takes my breath away. It fills me with hope, resolve and gratitude. For Nature, more beautiful than anything we’ve ever created. For the Indigenous elders who are unfailingly generous and patient. For the activists who dare to defy. For the old-growth forests and their first lesson: We need them if we ourselves are to survive. In the haze of the conflict at Fairy Creek, Trudy would like to clarify that civil disobedience is not a criminal offence, and that it has played an important role in protecting our rights and freedoms in Canada, according to the BC Civil Liberties Association. For more information, check the BCCLA website.

Two years ago John Horgan commissioned an updated report on the status and management of old growth forests in BC. Now he’s cherry-picking it to his own advantage. WHEN PREMIER JOHN HORGAN CALLED called a snap election last fall, he found himself promising, if re-elected, to implement all 14 recommendations of A New Future for Old Growth, a recently released report by an independent review panel consisting of expert foresters Garry Merkel and Al Gorley. For Horgan, it was a case of promise now, to get the Green Party off his operating ticket, and worry about the logistics later, once his desired majority had been achieved. The tactic worked, at least in the short run. Horgan himself had commissioned the report in 2019, tasking the panelists to “engage British Columbians and collect their views on the importance and future of old growth in the province.” The response from all over was clear, the government declared on its website: “It is time for change.” To those wanting the ancient and increasingly rare temperate rainforests permanently preserved and protected, the report flickered hope and perhaps—finally—some meaningful action. The authors reminded the government that this wasn’t the first report on old growth management. An Old Growth Strategy for British Columbia had been released in 1992 but many of its recommendations had either been only partially fulfilled or become political flotsam along the way. Had that report been fully embraced, Merkel and Gorley wrote, we would now likely not be facing “high risk to loss of biodiversity in many ecosystems, risk to potential economic benefits due to uncertainty and conflict, [and] widespread lack of confidence in the system of managing forests.” This time around, they advised, all 14 of the report’s recommendations must be implemented as a whole within three years’ time. Essentially, the authors warned the government not to pick a recommendation or two to chew on in isolation—a widely tried and tested political tactic for stalling while appearing to be busy as gangbusters. The authors would have known what they were up against. Garry Merkel, himself a member of the Tahltan Nation, told the media in late 2020 that in BC, “we’re [still] managing ecosystems—that are in some cases thousands of years old—on a four-year political cycle.” The decline in old-growth forests in Fairy Creek area: “non-renewable in any reasonable timeframe” (drone photo by Alex Harris) Throughout their report, the authors emphasized the alarming rate of decline in old-growth forests as well as their intrinsic value and irreplaceability. On page 14: “Old forests, especially those with very large trees…anchor ecosystems that are critical to the well-being of many species of plants and animals, including people, now and in the future. The conditions that exist in many of these forests and ecosystems are also simply non-renewable in any reasonable timeframe.” On page 27 they identified 13 of the “many values of forests with old and ancient trees” including unique, essential and undiscovered biodiversity, resistance to fire, and intrinsic value for human well-being and perpetual tourism. For years the Province and closely-aligned industry (too close, as David Broadland has shown in Focus) have narrowly defined old growth as trees that, in the Interior, are more than 140 years old, and on the coast more than 250 years old. But that’s been an inadequate and industry-serving definition, the authors explain. Every inaccessible (and therefore never logged) forest in the province will contain trees of all ages, from the saplings to the ancients, so under that definition, these can all be called old-growth forests. This classification helps to inflate old-growth inventory and mislead the public. When you can dump all of the province’s stunted, out-of-reach forests in with the salient and accessible rainforest giants without specifying the difference, it’s easy to fool the public into thinking we’re so flush with forests like Cathedral Grove that unfettered logging of coastal old growth is not an issue. But the authors are tolerating none of that, and in the report, they carefully and systematically show how little of the unprotected intact, coastal old growth is left. “We often hear that, ‘oh, we have nothing to worry about because we have 50 percent of our old-growth left,’” Merkel told the media in an interview last January. “And I think some of the people who are saying that actually believe it because they don’t understand the science. Very few people understand the science. And so, then it just becomes a big numbers game. But almost all of that 50 percent [of alleged old growth] right now is at the tops of mountains and has tiny little trees.” What’s especially troubling—and classic stonewalling—is that Horgan tacitly continues to let these distorted perceptions float around in the ether, despite hard evidence to the contrary in his own commissioned report. Misleading the general public is disgraceful enough, but allowing the false narrative of a plumped-up inventory to percolate through the industry and among its employees for the purpose of riling them up against folks who would rather see the forests preserved, is deliberately pushing the dirty work down the line. All the way down to the impasse, where the logger waving a “Forestry Feeds My Family” placard stands glaring at an activist gripping a “Worth More Standing” banner. Where unarmed Indigenous youth on their territory are roughed-up and, in at least one case, injured by swearing, enraged loggers “just trying to do an honest day’s work,” as the cliché goes. Where blinkered law enforcement follows orders that reek and will inevitably result in serious harm at some point. Where a logger’s wife, incensed by the blockaders keeping her man off the job, shouts into a television camera to, “bring in the forces, bring in the military, clear their asses out…,” her pointing finger stabbing the air in every direction. She then asks darkly, “How far can you push a family man?” There’s scant room for exploring real solutions when you’re working with blatantly inaccurate information. EQUALLY GUILEFUL is how the government has chosen to interpret the report’s 14 recommendations, which the authors grouped under four headings. The first five on the list are under the heading:“On conditions required for change.” The first of these—Number One on the list—is to “Engage the full involvement of Indigenous leaders and organizations to review this report and any subsequent policy or strategy development and implementation.” A chart in Gorley and Merkel’s report summarized these recommendations: Page16 of A New Future for Old Growth While Indigenous involvement is certainly a top priority, the authors make it clear it’s not intended to stall everything else on the list until fulfilled. Considering the centuries of chronic colonial wrongs, and all the bungling ways in which successive governments have dealt with that, Horgan and his cohorts would be stuck on this one well beyond the three-year timeframe. Nearly a year has already passed if you’re counting from the election date, nearly a year and a half if you’re counting from the report’s release date. All this to say that the other 13 recommendations would almost certainly be left unfulfilled. Nonetheless, Premier Horgan and Katrine Conroy, minister of forests and so much more, are sticking to their message that this is the most important item on the list—it’s the first!—and they seem happy to hang their hat there for the long haul. Whenever they appear in front of a mic, it’s always the same stalling talk that comes out—about the need to first consult with First Nations, about respect (which they have yet to translate into anything economically meaningful), and about all the work to be done, getting the work done, and doing the work. It’s a good place to be stuck if you don’t want to tackle anything else in the report. No critic would be so politically gauche as to challenge this effort, especially now, with the discovery of all those graves. It’s a very good place to be stuck if you want to keep your eyes averted from the two urgent recommendations singled out For Immediate Response: Numbers Six and Seven state in full: “[6] Until a new strategy is implemented, defer development in old forests where ecosystems are at very high and near-term risk of irreversible biodiversity loss. [7] Bring management of old forests into compliance with existing provincial targets and guidelines for maintaining biological diversity.” To legitimize #1 as the top priority and deflect anticipated outrage—especially since old-growth management is the heart of the report, and stopping the saws is an escalating public demand—the ministry tweaked the panel’s chart so as to be better aligned with it. The revised chart on the forests ministry website appears below. (Keep in mind that the election promise was to accept the recommendations, not modify them to better fit the government agenda.) The new heading—Prioritizing the Panel’s Recommendations—is the first sign that things have been rearranged. The banner is gone, and the Conditions Required for Change have been individually redistributed under the other three headings that have also been altered. Where did the first Condition land? Exactly where the government wanted it—still Number One on the list of 14 but now also leading the list of Immediate Measures (formerly For Immediate Response). Now it unabashedly presents as the government’s top priority. The government’s re-do of the A New Future for Old Growth report recommendations As for Number 6, the immediate deferral of logging “in old forests where ecosystems are at very high and near-term risk of irreversible biodiversity loss,” Horgan and Conroy made a few failed and farcical attempts to lock in the perception that old growth was now adequately protected. Last fall they announced protection for nine supposedly old-growth areas, and this spring they deferred logging for 2 years on 2000 hectares in Fairy Creek. Under closer scrutiny, both of these announcements swiftly shrank to almost nothing (see here and here). If the Ministry was really serious about partnering with First Nations on the management of old growth, you’d think it would actually listen to First Nations. To people like Grand Chief Stewart Philip, President of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, who, in a recent Stand.earth video, had blunt advice for Horgan: “If you’re committed to working with Indigenous peoples, stop the logging of old growth immediately.” You’d think the ministry would stop talking at Indigenous people, given how they’ve so publicly embraced Recommendation #1. But no. A new Forestry Intentions Paper—another paper!—drew reproach just days ago from the Tŝilhqot’in, Lake Babine and Carrier Sekani First Nations, who in a joint letter panned the government for developing yet another forest policy paper without Indigenous participation. “This is not a roadmap for a more just and robust future together,” wrote Chief Murphy Abraham of the Lake Babine Nation, “but rather a ringing endorsement of the status quo that ensures continuing conflict and uncertainty in our forests.” You’d think the government would also note that 85 percent of British Columbians now support an immediate end to old-growth logging. That support will only increase, thanks to the government-orchestrated fiasco at Fairy Creek, where blockaders tenaciously defending humanity’s right to preserve a healthy and diverse environment have experienced needless hardship and suffering at the hands of the RCMP, especially in the last few weeks. They’ve been unfairly portrayed, vilified and shrugged off by the various Goliaths in this saga, and from the media they’ve received a wall of indifference. Regardless of how this eventually unfolds, the RCMP is set to fall even further from grace, and the NDP brand will be the biggest casualty of all. Video clip of RCMP assaulting Fairy Creek forest defenders with pepper spray AFTER 71 PAGES OF MAKING A BALANCED CASE for preserving the old forests, the authors concluded their report this way: “Our ever-expanding understanding of forest behaviour and management, as well as the effects of climate change, have made it clear that we can no longer continue to harvest timber and manage forests using the approaches we have in the past while also conserving the forest values we cherish. We therefore have to be honest with ourselves and collectively and transparently make the difficult choices necessary to ensure future generations of British Columbians can enjoy and benefit from our magnificent forests, as we have done.” The government remains unmoved. Or maybe not. In June, after an onslaught of criticism, Minister Conroy selected yet another panel of experts, this time a five-person “Old Growth Technical Advisory Panel” to help further identify the most at-risk old growth forests. The panelists are a stellar group and include the indefatigable Garry Merkel. Maybe it’s a sign more deferrals are coming. Maybe it’s another round on the carousel to nowhere. Maybe it’ll be another report to tweak when nobody’s looking. In the meantime, the talking continues over the whine of the saws. For now, the government still believes it can have it all while leaving the rest of us in the sawdust. Trudy is feeling the mental strain of climate change, environmental degradation and irretrievable biodiversity loss, and finds it distressing to know there are people who still believe the government will fix everything. She’s thankful for the garden, nature and the people in her life who help her keep it all together. She may yet become a raging granny.

A handful of politicians should not have the right to forever destroy the non-renewable wonders that exist for the benefit of all. May 4, 2021 I DREAM OF ONE DAY SOON being able to take a bus excursion to the rare and treasured old growth forest just north of Port Renfrew, in the Fairy Creek watershed and stretching all the way west to the Caycuse watershed. I dream of hopping off a Wilson’s electric bus at several stops in this spectacular new park, and walking quietly and contemplatively among the now-protected, ancient giants. I follow soft forest trails that languidly weave their way around massive, deeply-ridged trunks. Closer to the waterways I step on protective boardwalks over the tender lushness that is typical of a riparian ecosystem. There is nothing typical about this place. I slowly inhale the world’s cleanest air and hear the songs of countless birds that make their home here, in the immense forest canopy that rises full of life to dizzying heights. Here and there along the path, carefully placed panels explain the science and the marvels of this magnificent place. I want to read every word. I’m keen to hear the history too, from the local Pacheedaht and Ditidaht guides who are finally receiving adequate remuneration for the work they’ve been doing for centuries—protecting and stewarding their land and its resources. In their presentation, they will share how they lived before “civilization” befell their land, how the imposed colonial business model deliberately and persistently undermined their sovereignty, how it carted away entire old-growth forests and paid for them with the trinket equivalent of a stumpage fee. They will recount how decades of rapacious old-growth clearcutting and other accumulated tensions finally came to a head, in a David vs Goliath standoff at what has become known as the Fairy Creek Blockade in the time of the devastating pandemic. We visitors are a rapt audience. Photograph by Laura Mina Mitic THE VISION FADES, but here in the present, I get history’s gist. The model that has worked for settler governments from coast to coast to coast for the last five centuries is this: Pay people just enough to keep them appeased but still dependent on the continued trade of paltry handouts for irreplaceable resources. Pretend to consult meaningfully. Continue talking about clean water (without mentioning that white towns have had this almost forever). Throw in goodies like a sawmill or community centre if you have to. Stir dissent in any number of ways, including covert interference with Indigenous government systems. Find individuals that you can pay off—money talks in every setting. Make backroom deals and swear everyone to secrecy. Use your law enforcement resources if you have to. That’s the way it still works in 2021, and you can see it playing out at Fairy Creek and related blockades. Never mind that a standing ancient forest is worth untold millions for its capacity to combat climate change by capturing and sequestering vast amounts of carbon. (An 800-year-old tree typically stores 20,000 kg.) Never mind that it is a complete, unique and endlessly diverse biome—from the soil way up to the towering canopy—and therefore a key player in keeping future pandemics at bay. Scientists agree that the rainforest treetops are teeming with species yet to be discovered. University of Victoria researchers, who liken that world to a hanging garden, recently discovered 20 of them. Never mind that it has the power to heal. First Nations people have always known this, but the rest of us might finally be catching on. We keep hearing about forest bathing, and some healthcare providers, using resources developed by the BC Parks Foundation’s newly-formed ParX program, have begun prescribing visits to the forest for health and wellness. We’ve always loved our urban parks and forests but are beginning to realize that the wilderness beyond is even more crucial to our survival and wellbeing. Never mind that ancient trees are lucrative magnets for world-weary locals and eco-tourists alike. Forget cruise ship revenue with all its carbon-laden drawbacks: An old-growth forest is a rare and benevolent living shrine that will bring back people from around the world, time and time again. Port Renfrew knows that, and has called for a moratorium on old-growth logging in the region. Not so long ago, its few hundred residents were mostly loggers and other employees of the forestry industry. Now rebranded as Wild Renfrew, this “gateway to ancient forests, epic hikes and mighty surf” has become a busy tourist town, full of amenities for the steady stream of sightseers eager to experience the world’s oldest and tallest trees. The BC Chamber of Commerce knows that too. In 2019, and citing the transformation of Port Renfrew as an example, it passed a resolution calling on the provincial government to increase old-growth protection, stating, “In many areas of the province, the local economies stand to receive a greater net economic benefit over the foreseeable future by keeping their nearby old-growth forests standing.” I’m not sure, however, that Premier Horgan grasps that. Nor does he seem to get the irony—and tragedy—of some of his own doings. Last month in a chat with the CBC’s Gregor Craigie, he touted the improved cellular service coming soon to Port Renfrew and surrounding area. He specifically enthused that it would help bolster tourism. When pressed, though, he kept his distance on the Fairy Creek dispute. What seemed lost on him was the scenario that cable trucks carrying tourism-enhancing infrastructure might end up rolling in just as oversized logging trucks carrying our most lucrative tourist attraction are rolling out. All with his tacit approval. The way we do forestry in this province is maddening. Last year, at the behest of the government, an independent panel produced a report titled, A New Future For Old Forests. The overarching message was the need to recognize that, “old forests are more than old or big trees. They are a product of ancient and unique ecosystems, and their characteristics vary greatly across the province. They can only be effectively managed in the context of broader public priorities, including the interests of current and future generations.” And yet, the forestry industry always seems to find them, peg them for easy, top-grade lumber, and manage to wrangle a license out of the government of the day. Not all old-growth grabs have been successful, however. A vigorous anti-logging campaign in 1990 in the Carmanah Valley, not far from the current blockades, resulted in the loggers being turned away for good and the establishment of the Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park. (Forestry company Macmillan Bloedel received almost $84 million in compensation for lost tree-farm licenses.) A few years later and further north, Clayoquot Sound became the scene of a long and acrimonious War in the Woods. After some 800 arrests and the dumping by loggers of 200 litres of human excrement at the activists’ staging site, the Harcourt NDP government shut it all down and declared the region protected. That was in 1995. Five years later, Clayoquot Sound received designation as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. But that’s not how today’s government is doing Fairy and Caycuse Creek. Horgan seems to have stubbornly dug in his heels and—it has been speculated—played a hand or two in the deal-making backroom. There’s been no expressed interest in seeking internationally recognized status and protection for the valleys and watersheds where these giants thrive. Instead, the government and industry—the “mindustry,” as writer David Broadland refers to them in FOCUS—continue to assess old-growth trees solely for their value in board lumber that, according to a spokesperson for Teal-Jones, the logging company with the license, is mostly destined to become decking, fencing, and other utilitarian products. That’s as ludicrous as tearing up rare old books to line the kitchen garbage pail. Premier Horgan has asked for patience while the report recommendations are slowly being digested by bureaucracy. But in the meantime, he allows the rampant cutting of old-growth trees to continue. This borders on the farcical and almost certainly ensures there’ll be nothing left to steward when protection finally becomes policy. Small wonder public objection is persistent and growing. Teal Jones had sought an injunction against the activists, and last month the BC Supreme Court granted it to them. It ordered the blockade gone and the roads opened for logging. Instead of complying, the activists have deepened their resolve and are appealing that decision. I’m not surprised. Judge Verhoeven, who granted the injunction, seemed less than wholehearted in his decision. (He also seems to have been working with incomplete or incorrect information provided by the company.) He based his decision on the strict letter of the law, but seemed to concede that he was limited to assessing the issue in isolation and unable to take the larger critical issues of climate change and environmental degradation—the “broader public priorities” cited in the above-mentioned report—into consideration. Clearly, and perhaps inadvertently, he has added to the argument that it’s time to change that law. And now in early May comes word that the activists have also served a Third Party Notice to the Province of British Columbia, thus drawing the government into a case it probably would have preferred to continue watching from the sidelines. It’s a gutsy move, but again, I’m not surprised. Its arguments have sharp teeth. In Quebec the Magpie River was recently granted all the rights and protections of personhood. Our giant trees—for starters—must receive this too. A handful of politicians in any given era do not have the right to forever destroy the natural and non-renewable wonders that exist for the benefit of all. NEAR THE END OF MY FUTURE EXCURSION, I learn that not all the trees could be saved by the blockaders, who braved months of public indifference and cold wet weather in rudimentary shelters before the madness was finally halted for good. Our last stop overlooks a barren valley dotted only with giant stumps that stand like stepping stones in a sea of destruction. I spot former premier Horgan gazing wordlessly into the distance. I wander over and ask him who our real heroes were, back in those times. Trudy Duivenvoorden Mitic is a Victoria-based writer. She has had a life-long passion for the care and preservation of nature but never imagined it would become such a battle. She’s grateful to all of the old growth’s defenders for doing the hard work that will benefit us all.