
In 2020, logging company Teal Jones was engaged in cutting irreplaceable, old-growth, temperate rainforest in the Fairy Creek area of their lease on Vancouver island. In response, substantial numbers of “forest defenders” gathered to protest and obstruct the old growth cut… and local history was made.
Protestors blocked the access road to Teal Cedar‘s cut blocks from 2020 through early 2021. The number of people arrested exceeded 1100 — which, according to CBC, made it “the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history.”
Cortes Currents has followed the story of the Fairy Creek protest as it developed; many Cortes residents spent time at the protest encampment, or are closely connected to people who participated. We continue that coverage now, with an update on the highly litigious aftermath of the blockade action.
As well as the unprecedented head count of people arrested, the duration and persistence of the blockade (despite harsh winter conditions) were newsworthy. So were the many allegations of unprofessional, and even brutal, conduct by RCMP on the scene — particularly the notorious “Green Guys,” the CIRG.

A flurry of litigation is now underway in the aftermath of the blockade action. Individual protesters are suing Teal Cedar, and a class action suit is being launched against the RCMP. Another unusual feature of this particular protest was the decision by Teal Cedar to pursue a civil suit against the protestors, for lost revenues. I spoke with the legal administrator for the Rainforest Flying Squad, Rani Earnhart, to find out more about what’s going on in the courts… and why the phrase, “the Fairy Creek Fifteen” may soon become familiar to us.
Rani is uniquely qualified to inform us on this subject:
I’ve been working on this issue almost exclusively since before the injunction, early when the blockade started, and my role has been to assist all of those arrested at Fairy Creek with navigating the colonial court system… with such functions as connecting people with lawyers; making sure they know when their court dates are; making sure people don’t get warrants for their arrest, and helping connect people to lawyers if they do get warrants; finding people — because they’re all over Canada and into the United States, they move around a lot — finding people; helping the court find people so that they can show up at their court dates… as well as other legal initiatives that are associated with Fairy Creek. So I’m probably one of the best people to understand and know the complete legal picture of the Fairy Creek blockades.
Teal Cedar, as Rani explains in our interview, needed to file a civil suit in order to obtain an injunction, which in turn was needed in order to get the RCMP involved in evicting the trespassing protesters from the logging road. Usually in similar cases, the civil suit is dropped after the injunction is obtained. But Teal Cedar has chosen to pursue the suit, and to add more defendants over time; the initial single defendant is now a list of fifteen names, of which Rani’s is one. Teal Cedar has the option to add further names.
By having Jane Doe and John Doe in the [defendant’s] name, it means that they reserved the right to add additional parties to the suit in time. So originally, there was only one name on it, and then they more recently filed something called an Amended Notice of Civil Claim — we tend to call that ANOCC for short — in which they added the additional parties, and I am one of the people named in the civil suit.
I was added in January of this year.
They are suing for unspecified financial damages. And they also want a permanent injunction, that the people named in the suit are permanently blocked from the injunction area.
And what they allege to be the cause for this, is that the people named were either blockaders or provided material support to blockaders. And so they’re identifying these individuals — with the right to add on more in the future as people who they would wish to claim damages [from] for the lost revenue due to the Ferry Creek blockades.
So they are charging us with “conspiracy,” and because they’ve Included the word conspiracy, that this group of people conspired together to do financial harm to Teal Cedar.
In the interview, Rani and I discuss the various implications of Teal Cedar’s choice to use the term “conspiracy” in their suit. How widely, for example, can the definition of “providing material support” to the protesters be stretched? Could it potentially include anyone who donated supplies, gave someone a ride, donated to one of the participating organisations?

Well, I take exception to the word “conspiracy” — I mean, there’s no conspiracy here.
There’s people executing their rights to protest an activity that they disagree with. And from what I know, and the recent polls done by many reputable environmental organisations, 80 to 85 percent of British Columbians agree with moratoriums against specifically old growth logging.
So this is a big club here. Was it a conspiracy? I don’t know. I don’t believe so. And most of the people who had any association with this, including myself, had never heard of Teal Cedar. So I really didn’t know who Teal Cedar was.
Given that most of the protesters and their organisations have limited means, we question what Teal Cedar has to gain in pursuing a very expensive litigation process. Do they really hope to get their court costs back, let alone restitution of “lost revenues”?
Well, the typical term that has been thrown around for this particular lawsuit is a SLAPP suit, which is a strategic lawsuit against protesters, basically against “public participation,” [to get people to] desist from expressing opposition. So some people are calling this a SLAPP suit, which is basically to get people to be quiet.
What they have to do — which they haven’t yet because it’s not that far along — is they have to prove financial losses. So their lawsuit is based on “financial losses.” We haven’t gotten that far, but if they have the paperwork and the ability to put to prove financial losses, then they can say that it’s not a SLAPP suit. So we’re really not far along enough to. to say whether there’s any grounds for this or not.
Teal Cedar is being represented by D L A Piper, “a very experienced firm for this type of work, and they have a whole team of people working on it.” The defence is a bit more complicated. “Because they’ve included the word conspiracy… it brings forward an inherent possibility of conflict of interest between the named defendants. And due to the potential conflict of interest, we have many lawyers involved.”

Many lawyers sounds like significant legal expense, and Rani confirms that this is the case.
We’re fundraising specifically for legal defence — and the money goes to nothing but legal defence, as we have done throughout the Fairy Creek protests. We have fundraised before for legal defence, and we’ve gotten 400 people through the court system, almost entirely financed by this fundraising.
Those trials are reaching an end. I have one more in January, but they’re pretty much wrapped up. Funds are low for the Fairy Creek Fifteen. So we’re actively fundraising again at this time. And it’s moderately successful, but it’s difficult because we are looking at large amounts of money, because we need experienced lawyers.
They’re generally not pro bono; they’re often giving us reduced rates due to the nature of the business. But It, it’s not something where you can just self-represent and show up. It’s quite complicated litigation.
Rani emphasises that the legal process is extremely slow; if Teal Cedar does choose to take their civil suit all the way to court, the process could take two years or more. In the meantime, other litigation has sprouted up in the wake of the blockade.
There’s other actions happening in the courts beyond this civil lawsuit. There is at least four individuals who’ve launched suits against specific and unnamed RCMP officers, about abuses to their human rights. There’s a class action lawsuit, again largely focused on RCMP actions, based on abuses that occurred and “abuses to process,” meaning people were arrested and held in areas where there was no real cause, or where RCMP simply used tactics that were not acceptable.
So there are other legal matters moving forward. They all move forward at a snail’s pace. A lot of people had their cars towed, and Teal Cedar demanded $2500 to get your car back, plus you had to sign various paperwork; and we had some of those individuals suing in small claims court over that issue, and I’m not sure how that went. Things are proceeding in the courts, but the longest one, the longest-term one will probably be the class action lawsuit. That’ll take years and years. Ultimately, if we succeed in the class action lawsuit, that would be a huge win.
The lead in that were largely journalists who were excluded from areas where they could see what was going on, and the police used illegal exclusion zones to exclude journalists. They also searched people going into zones… there’s three different things that that can qualify you for the class action. It took a very long time but we did find a law firm willing to do that, and now they are at the stage of certifying the class. And the class will be quite large, possibly up to a thousand individuals who experienced improper behaviours.

The notorious CIRG is the target of multiple legal actions at this time, and a systemic review has been initiated in which the CRCC will investigate a large volume of complaints against the “Green Guys.” Unfortunately, Rani says, the review will be non-binding and largely based on testimony from within the RCMP (outside testimony is not being accepted). The process is apparently delayed due to CRCC being unable to get the information they’ve requested from the RCMP.
Currents readers may be interested to know that Teal Jones is currently also in litigation against the government of BC and the Haida Nation, asking $75M in compensation for “lost revenues” due to a suspension of logging operations on a lease in Haida Gwaii. This lawsuit is Teal Jones’ response to events in 2011, when the Haida Gwaii Management Council imposed ecosystem-based management on forestry operations throughout the archipelago — including the two tenures Teal operated there at the time.
Corporations bringing suits for redress of “lost profits” in response to environmental and climate policy is a trend on the increase worldwide, as governments respond to the climate crisis and catastrophic environmental damage by limiting extractive operations.
The ad hoc, grassroots Rainforest Flying Squad coalition and their allies appear to have taken on several protracted and costly legal challenges in the aftermath of their historic action at Fairy Creek. Rani asked us to provide the official point of contact for any readers who would like to donate to the legal defence fund.
The website is fundrazr.com, and within that site, the Fairy Creek defence fund is “Last Stand Legal Defence Fund“.
Cortes Currents will continue to follow the story of the Fairy Creek Fifteen and related litigation, as it develops.
[All illustrations — including feature image — are by Midjourney v6, prompts by author. The inline image themes are drawn from eyewitness testimony from Fairy Creek blockade participants, but are not literal representations of events at the blockade, nor portraits of actual people.
Currents regrets that the audio quality of Zoom interviews is unreliable.]