Protesters gather to demand action on old-growth forests

As part of a provincewide day of action, Indigenous land defenders and their supporters held a ceremonial street occupation and prayer walk in Victoria, in a bid to protect old-growth forests from logging interests, and to demand governments, at all levels, take urgent action to save what remains of Vancouver Island’s majestic mature forests.

"We are here now helping our politicians [to] quit lying to themselves and to quit the world of ‘let's pretend,’” Pacheedaht Elder Bill Jones told the crowd.

“We're here to work together for Mother Earth."

Old-growth forests in the Fairy Creek watershed in the southern part of Vancouver Island, are a part of the Island’s unique identity and allure. They provide a critical anchor of biodiversity in the region—but at the same time they present a significant source of income to multiple communities.

The two realities have caused significant tensions between corporate, community and environmental group interests.

However, as wildfires burned across the province this summer, an inescapable and binding truth persists, that well-managed old-growth forests diminish the threat of ecological degeneration and wildfires.

The Sierra Club BC has argued “remaining primary old-growth and mature forests are quickly becoming our best hope to maintain natural carbon sinks and reduce climate impacts—with research showing that industrially degraded landscapes are particularly vulnerable to mega-fires.”

The popularly known Fairy Creek protest movement—recognized as one of the longest civic protests in Canadian history—began in 2020 and ended two years later with protestors being chaotically cleared by the RCMP in what is widely held as the the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history.

The provincial government extended logging deferrals at Fairy Creek to 2025.

However, three years after the provincial government released its Old-Growth Strategic Review (OGSR) titled A New Future for Old Forests, the people gathered outside NDP MLA Grace Lore’s office on Thursday would argue that not enough has been done to stop the destruction of the forests.

Earlier this year, The Sierra Club BC, Stand.Earth and the Wilderness Committee issued their own assessment on the provincial government’s progress in implementing the 14 recommendations it made in the OGSR.

It gave it a failing grade.

In their joint report card, they point to NGO research that has shown tens of thousands of hectares of old-growth remain at risk and that 55% of what the BC government identified in the deferrals remains open to logging.

It’s those thousands of hectares of ancient trees that the people who gathered Thursday say they are trying to protect.

Environmental activist Paul Chiyokten Wagner led the group in song and prayer.

Well-known for his work within Fairy Creek movement Pacheedaht’s Jones thanked those in attendance for their continued willingness to fight, and said he hoped that politicians would do the same.

From the head of the colourful circle, Jones encouraged Murray Rankin, the MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head—and a former minister for indigenous relations and reconciliation—along with Lore and other politicians to question a system that “makes them think that they can take everything and not give nothing back.”

When asked, in an interview, how she maintains hope that governments will do the right thing, Jackie Larkin, a founding member of Elders 4 Old Growth said, “Rather than worry about maintaining hope, I focus on the work that still needs doing.”