Government and company officials continue to avoid comment as an environmental blockade near Port Renfrew reached its fifth day Friday. Attempts by the Mirror to speak to representatives of logging company Teal Jones and area MLA and Premier John Horgan went unreturned, as protesters continued with a blockade launched Monday to stop Teal Jones Group from punching road access into the Fairy Creek watershed.
It is day ten. James Darling is drinking his raspberry leaf tea. His most recent choices have been green, black (for its caffeine) or lemon grass. Aside from that, his only sustenance is water, salts and some drops that have potassium and magnesium in them. I phoned less than two hours before he and Robert Fuller leave. Last week they demonstrated in from of their MLA’s office. This week it is MLA Doug Routley’s turn. What do the Nanaimo hunger strikers hope to accomplish?
Two Nanaimo men are demanding the province take action. It has been three years since BC’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change was given his mandate letter to “Enact an endangered species law and harmonize other laws to ensure they are all working towards the goal of protecting our beautiful province.” Their political ally, the Green party, is “calling on the BC NDP government to implement a moratorium on all high risk old-growth ecosystems across the province, while a strategy for science-based old growth management is developed.” Will the NDP Government protect Old Growth forests?
Robert Fuller and James Darling are on the second day of a hunger strike. The 61-year-old former BC Forest service employee/ treeplanter/ sawmill worker and 35-year old musician had just returned from their Nanaimo MLA’s constituency office when I phoned them. Around ten people were with them, waving signs. Fuller remarked that if the response from people walking or driving by is any indication, as much as 98% of the public may want to see BC’s old growth forests preserved.
On June 27, Cortes Currents published a personal report about poaching in the Community Forest. Odette Auger lives beside the woodlot in Larsen’s Meadow and says there has been a significant increase in theft since the Community Forest took over management. While her account is subjective, it contains pictures, details of several specific incidents and a record of correspondence with the Cortes Community Forest Cooperative (CCFC) going back several years.
