Update From Fairy Creek: interview with Kathleen Code

[Kathleen Code is is a spokesperson for the Rainforest Flying Squad and other land defenders attempting to protect old growth areas at Fairy Creek. She founded the legal team, and is also a member of their media team. Since joining the effort in August, 2020, she’s worked closely with elder Bill Jones to understand the situation of the Pacheedaht First Nation, in particular their interactions with industrial forest company Teal Jones and the NDP government. I interviewed Kathy on December 3rd 2021, asking her for an update to round out the “Cortes At Fairy Creek” story. This is a lightly edited transcript of that interview.]

Photo courtesy Fairy Creek Blockade Facebook Page

Recent Events

Kathleen: So what’s been going on since October: Justice Thompson at one point did lift the injunction, saying that the behaviour of the RCMP was of concern to him, and the fact also that they had exclusion zones that were far from any industrial logging sites, as well as their arrests and treatment of media — it was of special concern to him.

But since then, the injunction has been reinstated by the Court of Appeal, pending their decision. We had a two-day hearing with them […] judging from the remarks of some of the Justices, it seems that they’re probably not thinking along the same lines as Justice Thompson. For them the overriding issue is that Teal Jones has a legal contract with government and is therefore allowed to log, regardless of what that looks like and regardless of the external and very public issues […] So we are kind of preparing for that.

In the meantime though, there’s been a lot of other things going on. Elders for the Ancient Forest this past weekend laid themselves down on the road at Granite Main and were arrested by the RCMP.

De: Yes, I understand that ten elders and a couple of other forest defenders were arrested in that incident.

Kathleen: These kinds of actions are continuing as well. There was a procession in Victoria on November 24th that ended up at the Legislature grounds, where they installed a 1200 year old cookie [a slice of tree trunk] on the lawn as a gift to the MLAs and to John Horgan, a reminder of what our forests used to look like and what they used to be, and what we need to protect.

Cookie arrives in Victoria (Rainforest Flying Squad Newsletter)

There are so few of those trees left. And this particular cookie was actually found in the rubbish heap / burn pile that Teal Jones had gathered, that would eventually have been burned as trash.

De: I’ve heard that the forest defenders have been pushed back out of the woods, towards the public road?

Kathleen: Yes, we have been pushed back further down to the road. We do have a camp still at roadside, and we have managed to regain some ground a little further up the road. So we still have a presence there. The numbers change […] it’s hard to know how many people are there at any given time but it is still a presence and we intend to maintain that.

And I really have to admire those people who are willing to withstand the weather in the winter months in BC, up there in the hills, because it really is very much colder than it is in most of the urban centres. So I admire the stamina and endurance and passion of those people.

In recent months we are experiencing the support of other First Nations in our efforts at Fairy Creek. We’ve had elders, matriarchs and chiefs coming from Quatsino, from Kamloops, from Haida Gwaii — from different bands all around the province, coming to stand with elder Bill and his stance for Fairy Creek.

Constitutional Rights, Police Behaviour

De: Speaking of indigenous solidarity, it seems like there were two stories at Fairy Creek from a journalist’s point of view. One was the perilous state of our forests and the attempt to protect them, you know, the Logging vs Reality contest on the ground. And the other was the very poor police conduct, their mistreatment of indigenous youth in particular. So is there any follow-up on that, have complaints been filed, is there an update?

Kathleen: When we started, we thought we were just protecting some trees, you know? And now we’ve had to go into the whole issue of First Nations and their land ownership and title and sovereignty. And then the conduct of the RCMP which even the courts were dismayed at. Yes, we have filed many formal complaints with the Citizen Review and Complaint Commisssion. That is an independent body, independent of the RCMP, that is supposed to review these complaints.

But their standard for investigation is rather high. You have to suffer risk of significant physical harm for them to investigate anything. What we’ve discovered since, is that there have been so many complaints that the commission established a Fairy Creek Blockade commission just to review them. But they’ve put the RCMP in charge of it. So that kind of defeats the purpose of an body independent of the RCMP […] And that seems to me more than slightly misguided. So I think we all know what the outcome of that one will be, we might as well not bother.

De: Wait a minute — you have this independent citizen oversight group so concerned about police behaviour at Fairy Creek that they set up a special group to consider it. And then they hand the file over to the RCMP for internal investigation.

Kathleen: Yes, that’s precisely it.

De: That’s a headline in its own right.

Kathleen: I know. The mind boggles.

C-IRG: RCMP’s anti-Enviro tac squad

De: Do you feel there’s any connection between the police response at Fairy Creek and the heavy paramilitary police actions at Wet’suwet’en?

Kathleen: Oh, definitely. In fact some of those officers are the same officers who attended Fairy Creek.

Officer Charney (Checkpoint/Twitter, via Rabble.ca)

They all just flew up there when the injunction was lifted, up to Wet’suwet’en complete with their assault rifles and tracking dogs and went to wreak havoc on those people. To me, this speaks to the whole issue of civil disobedience within Canada, where a peaceful protest is a chartered right […] and yet the government has developed these militarised units within the RCMP that says otherwise, that says No, you cannot practise civil disobedience, especially if you’re indigenous.

And I really hope this is something the courts do look at. We saw a glimmer of hope with Justice Thompson’s decision to lift the injunction […] but for government or law enforcement authorities to allow this type of behaviour towards peaceful Canadian citizens or peaceful indigenous people, it’s just not right. I would never have thought, as a Canadian citizen, that I would be speaking so badly and thinking so badly of the RCMP in my lifetime.

De: Yes it seems to me that some of this stuff is in violation of the Constitution. So now your group has gone from defending trees, to defending free speech and the right to protest and peaceable assembly.

Kathleen: Along with media access. We’ve had one journalist who has been all over the world practising his business, and he says only in China has he encountered such opposition [from] law enforcement, to letting him get his job done.

De: I have read a little bit about a special task force within the RCMP that was created specifically to intimidate and control environmental protesters. I think they call them the Green Guys? Do you know anything about this?

Kathleen: Yes, they’re a group called — innocuously enough — the Community Industry Response Group. But in reality they are a militarised tactical unit that I think are practising their techniques on Fairy Creek and then going up to Wet’suwet’en for some more practise. So corporations are using these militarised tactical RCMP units to protect industry, the assets of industry, the ability of industry to continue exploiting natural resources.

But we have to remember that many of these resources are on the unceded lands of indigenous peoples. There are no treaties. Technically this is not even Crown land — government treats it like Crown land, but indigenous peoples still have rights and title to it. I’m not so sure this is a Constitutional issue, but I think it would certainly involve the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

And we do have several Canadian cases that uphold indigenous sovereignty, titles, and rights. So we have already established that in Canadian law. And yet, the Canadian government is busy ignoring that on both the Provincial and Federal levels.

I read the Forest Revenue Sharing Agreement. I read the Agreement in Principle which is Step Five of the six-step treaty process […] and it turned out that elder Bill and his people had never seen it, let alone been consulted on it, had no idea that these agreements were being signed on their behalf by the elected council. And yet the Provincial and Federal governments were signing […] despite a lack of free, prior, and informed consent. So I think there’s a lot of work to be done there!

While We Talk, Logging Continues

De: A lot of people I think were confused by the goverment’s deferral move, the fancy foot work they did. Is logging of old growth still happening at Fairy Creek under existing permits? Are those ancient trees still being taken down?

Kathleen: Oh absolutely. They’re in the process now of logging what we called Heli Camp. That old growth forest is being logged as fast as they can. Any pre-approved cut blocks, they are busy clear-cutting those. And I believe they have got to a good many of them. And they are applying for new cut blocks on an ongoing basis. Government has no intention of stopping these approvals.

When it came to deferring the lands at Ferry Creek and TFL-46, they deferred nothing of the forest that we were actively protecting. Those forests remain at risk. Teal Jones is free to cut them.

De; So this deferral, then, what did it actually defer?

Kathleen: It did defer many hectares that were already under a sort of loose protection called the Old Growth Management Area, and some wildlife habitat areas. Those were included in the deferral areas. So some of them were already under some form of protection, though government and industry are able to play shell games with those, too, to swap out patches so they can still get at the old growth forest.

De: I think you are answering one of my main questions, which is whether the province is moving any closer to protecting our old growth. Sound like the answer is basically “Not at all.”

Kathleen: Not at all. Even with this deferral process — that they’ve given to the First Nations now, giving them 30 days to decide whether they want to defer old growth forests that are defined on the maps. From what I have heard from forestry experts who have had a look, those maps are very poor. They don’t indicate all of the old growth areas. Some of them are cut blocks that have been sold by BC timber sales. So they are counted as part of the deferral area, but the cutting is going ahead anyway.

And then to give the First Nations just 30 days to make these decisions […] it would be difficult for anybody to look at these maps and see exactly what is going on, and then to ground-truth that information would certainly take more than 30 days. So I think this is just another example of government not consulting with First Nations, but handing over the responsibility without doing any of the groundwork. From what I have heard, it may be only rumour, but I’ve heard that logging companies are already trying to make deals with the First Nations that have been offered these deferral options.

De: That sounds calculated to cause dissent and division within those First Nations communities. Because some folks may be tempted by the money, but others will want to protect their ancestral territory.

Kathleen. Yes. And I think it’s another example of “Talk and Log,” because while we’re discussing all this, the logging continues. And right now, according to a Stanford research group, we don’t have very much of this highly productive old growth forest left. From what I understand, every hectare counts now, every hectare of old growth holds so much biodiversity and is part of a complex system of which we really know so little.

And yet government and industry are willing to destroy it all before we even have a chance to study it. We’ve had scientists go into Fairy Creek and document all sorts of rare and protected species. These are all things we have made government aware of, and it hasn’t made the slightest dent in their approach at all, they are still intent on clear-cutting the trees.

Michele Babchuk admits BC forestry must change

De: And yet even elected politicians like our own Michele Babchuck are starting to admit that this has to change. On December 1st, the Campbell River Mirror (pg 5) printed a statement from her office, actually connecting logging practises to flooding, to fires, to landslides. She references a Sierra Club report and actually says, “It’s not just about not cutting down a tree. It’s about the ecosystem and the watersheds.” And that seemed like quite a change — for a BC politician from a logging town to be saying this.

Kathleen: Absolutely it is. We cannot continue to clear cut. We need a completely new framework about how we conduct forestry in this province. We’ve done clearcutting for so long, and I know there are a lot of registered professional foresters who swear by it, that all you have to do is replant tree plantations and everything’s cool.

Well that is not the case. We need to understand the complexity of these old growth stands more thoroughly, and we need to restore what we can, we simply cannot continue conducting forestry as we have been for the last few decades. And loggers have known this for decades, they know the end is coming. So it shouldn’t be a surprise to them. But they are so eager, I think knowing that these are the last days, they are so eager to get everything out while they can, while government is allowing them this time.

De: I’m going to ask you about that fairly common allegation from the logging lobby, that the forest defenders are a bunch of outside agitators and they take foreign money, that a lot of protesters are not even from BC.

Kathleen: Well, yes there is criticism from the industrial forest products companies that we are funded internationally, or have foreign influence. I would say, we accept funds from anybody, but we are locally based and very proud of the way local people have supported this organisation.

And what we are finding is that the industrial logging companies are often owned by foreign investors who live off-shore and really don’t care what happens to BC. Once the forests have been ravaged, they don’t care, they’re going on to the next forest, wherever they can find one.

What Next?

De: So do the forest defenders have a goal or strategy for this winter? A lot of people read the headlines about deferral and said, Yay, the forest defenders won! It’s all going to be OK! But clearly that is not true. So what’s the next move?

Kathleen: We will continue our presence on the ground, fortified by people like the elders — bless them for everything they do for us. We will pursue a number of legal options through the courts, including the injunction. We have a strong media presence and will continue to use that to pressure government to do the right thing. We have a number of angles.

We also know that Teal Jones’ ten-year review is coming up, and that includes public consultation. So we are waiting for that and will make sure that we are part of that public consultation.

We are searching for anything and everything we can do. We are also in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en and have donated $15,000 towards their effort, and several of our people have gone up there to stand with them as well.

The courts have recognised that we, the people at Fairy Creek, the Rainforest Flying Squad, we are of a peaceful nature. We have adhered to our code of conduct. We address issues with songs and drums. And we have done our very best to maintain this as a peaceful movement.

And I think this has got us as far as we have gone, this has been to our credit, that we have managed this for so long in face of the RCMP actions and government inaction. I’m very proud of our movement and all the goodness that this has brought out in citizens of BC and of the world.

De: Can listeners who feel strongly about this issue support your effort in some way?

Kathleen: Oh there are many ways, regardless of whether you are here on the ground or further afield. If you are in BC, certainly contact your MLA. MLAs have been curiously silent on this issue for the most part, just toeing the party line and messaging, which I think is unacceptable if they are truly to represent their constituents.

You can donate to our Fairy Creek fundraiser. We have a number of fundraisers which support everything from people living in the camps, to our legal actions, to the people who have been arrested and fined. We are taking care of our people on all fronts.

You can write to your local papers, or form a solidarity group in your neighbourhood. There are many communities throughout BC that are deciding to protect their own forests. There are many First Nations groups that are saying, “Enough is enough, get off our land […] enough of the destruction, we can’t stand any more of it.” There are so many ways that people can help.

De: Is it easy to donate?

Kathleen: If you go to Last Stand for Forests, the website, you’ll find a fundraising link there. Or just google for Fairy Creek Fundraiser, or Rainforest Flying Squad or something along those lines. Eventually you’ll get there.

De: Well thank you Kathleen, very much, for taking the time to give us this update.

Kathleen: Yes, you too. Thank you so much.


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