All posts by Rochelle Baker

Rochelle Baker is a staff reporter with Canada’s National Observer, thanks thanks to a grant from the Local Journalism Initiative of the Government of Canada. She previously worked as a newspaper reporter and photographer in BC’s Lower Mainland for over 7 years.
Forests

Save Old Growth organizer fears his climate activism has made him a target for deportation

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

An international student leading a controversial civil resistance campaign to end old-growth logging in B.C. is fearful the Canada Border Services Agency is looking to deport him.

Zain Haq, a co-founder of the Save Old Growth (SOG) protest group behind a recent series of highway blockades across the province, has been ordered to show up at a CBSA office.

The third-year history major at Simon Fraser University who hails from Pakistan is in Canada on a study permit, a document issued by Immigration Canada. 

Continue reading Save Old Growth organizer fears his climate activism has made him a target for deportation →
Forests

Protesters kick off campaign to block roads, highways until B.C. bans old-growth logging

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Minutes after stopping a car on Vancouver’s Ironworkers Memorial Bridge to disrupt traffic Monday, protesters holding a “Save Old Growth” banner were arrested.

Continue reading Protesters kick off campaign to block roads, highways until B.C. bans old-growth logging →
Forests, Justice

Save Old Growth protester shatters hip during blockade

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A young man who fell from a ladder after it toppled during a protest against old-growth logging on a Vancouver Island highway was undergoing surgery for a shattered hip Tuesday afternoon.

Protester Trevor Mckelvie fell about 20 feet to the pavement when the ladder he was balanced on collapsed not long after an angry motorist, held up by the blockade on the Patricia Bay Highway, broke pieces off a support structure Monday morning.

Continue reading Save Old Growth protester shatters hip during blockade →
Rivers & Oceans

‘We are salmon people’: First Nation leaders in B.C. demand audience with fisheries minister

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Editor’s note: The Klahoose, Homalco and Tla’amin First Nations are among the 102 First Nations demanding that fish farms be moved onto land.

It’s been nearly five years since Tribal Chief Tyrone McNeil has pulled salmon from the Fraser River and strung fish over wooden racks to dry in the wind, preserving food for his family and his people’s ancestral traditions. 

He and other First Nations leaders and communities in B.C. dependent on salmon are grieving the ongoing disappearance of the fish that defines them. And they are angry Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) continues to deny their constitutional right of first access to fish, said McNeil, president of Stó꞉lō Tribal Council. 

Continue reading ‘We are salmon people’: First Nation leaders in B.C. demand audience with fisheries minister →
Rivers & Oceans

West Coast kelp is in hot water, but scientific insights may help save our underwater rainforests

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

B.C.’s critical kelp forests withered as climate change has triggered marine heat waves along the entire West Coast in recent years. 

But exceptions to the rule may provide insights helpful to saving and restoring our underwater forests, said Samuel Starko, a University of Victoria researcher.

Continue reading West Coast kelp is in hot water, but scientific insights may help save our underwater rainforests →