Thousands of people in communities across the province took to the streets in ForestMarch 2021 on Friday.
The largest Vancouver Island march was in Victoria, where an about 250 people gathered in Centennial Square.
Some pushback
There was some pushback.
What was meant to be a healing ceremony in front of the Ministry of Forestry offices in Port McNeill turned into arguments between environmentalists and industry supporters.
ForestMarch 2021 in Courtenay
Quadra Island residents Geraldine Kenny and Rod Burns joined about 100 protesters in the driving rain at Courtenay.
About 30% of the crowd were students.
Burns mentioned a half dozen pro-industry supporters with commercially produced signs stating “Forestry feeds my family.”
Some nearby high school students carried homemade signs saying “Living Forests Feed Many Families” and “Worth More Standing.”
Kenny alluded to the shift a public opinion, “30 years ago, they would have lynched us” for marching in support of the forests.
She said there was a constant cacophony of supporting honks, even from a passing logging truck.
From the response to her placard ‘Clear cutting is ecocide,’ Kenny concluded the word ‘ecocide’ is no longer a term only used by environmentalists. It has entered the public domain.
“When we eradicate these ancient forests, we’re not only destroying our heritage and history, we’re also killing the future for our children and all animals on this coast,” she said.
Other communities
There also were protests in nearby communities Nanaimo, Qualicum, Duncan, Sechelt, and Powell River, as well as mainland centres like Vancouver, Prince George and Nelson.
Links of interest
- (Cortes Currents) articles about, or mentioning, old growth forests
- (Cortes Currents) articles about, or mentioning, sustainable forestry
- (Cortes Currents) articles about or mentioning a sustainable cut
- (Cortes Currents) articles mentioning second growth forests
- (Cortes Currents) articles mentioning third growth forests
- (Cortes Currents) articles mentioning Geraldine Kenny
- (Cortes currents) articles mentioning Rod Burns
This program was funded by a grant from the Community Radio Fund of Canada and the Government of Canada’s Local Journalism Initiative.
Top photo credit: Youth with Worth More Standing placards – Rod Burns photo
You state that the logging truck drivers were honking in support of your protest. That is incorrect. You will be hard pressed to find any logger that supports you or the narratives you push. Just wanted to clear that up thanks.
Hi Tom: Two of my sources mentioned the logging truck, I quoted one of them. Read the article again, it states “a constant cacophony of supporting honks, even from A PASSING LOGGING TRUCK.” They were talking about ONE logging truck not, as you wrote “the LOGGING TRUCK DRIVERS (plural) were honking in support.”
That logging truck was not honking in support of you. I was standing right there with my prefabricated sign ?
You claim the pro FORESTRY signs were “commercially produced” but that the kids and protesters had “homemade signs”??
What about a plastic perforated placard on MILLED LUMBER stapled and taped with plastics and earth metals is not “commercially produced”. Just because you got your felt pens (you didn’t make those either!) out, and ASSEMBLED them less efficiently or cohesively than those that wake up at 4am to work TOGETHER, doesn’t automatically give you hypocritical lot an ounce of moral superiority.
That comment was a profound and demonstrable version of why so many DON’T support you; you mean well, but you’re all so thick with self-righteousness, it’s distasteful and shows you only wish to IMPEDE others, not actually create a better tomorrow.
Other people that that BEING LOSERS.