Cathedral Grove being logged by Island Timberlands!! Speak up!

This happened this last weekend but I thought it was worth forwarding for others who haven't heard yet...

Wilderness News, Oct.4, 2008
Cathedral Grove being logged by Island Timberlands! Speak up!

Yesterday, logging began by Island Timberlands in Canada's most famous old-growth forest, Cathedral Grove, near Port Alberni. Millions of tourists from around the world have visited Cathedral Grove within the 300 hectare MacMillan Provincial Park while driving along the highway on the way to Port Alberni and Tofino. However, significant stands of giant Douglas firs and redcedars remain outside the park boundaries on lands owned by Island Timberlands. Incredibly, the company began greedily logging in these unprotected parts of the Grove yesterday and plans to continue until it logs 7500 cubic meters - over 200 logging truck loads - of old-growth forests in the Grove. The logging will even be visible from the highway.

Island Timberlands is a logging company owned by a Bermuda-based corporation, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, which was created recently by its parent company Brookfield Asset Management as an offshore investment firm that would be exempt from Canadian taxes and the enforcement of Canadian civil judgements.

There will be two protests for Cathedral Grove:

This Sunday, Oct.5, at 11:00 am at the Cathedral Grove parking lot in the provincial park.

And Monday, Oct.6, at 11:00 am in front of Island Timberland's Northwest Bay Division office on the Island Highway in Nanoose Bay at teh corner of the highway and Northwest Bay Rd.

BRING SIGNS.

Where is Premier Gordon Campbell in all of this? Where is the federal Harper government and the other politicians when it comes to logging in the most famous ancient forest in Canada?

Update:

Cathedral Grove Logging Blocked by "Frogs" and "Mice"

Early Monday morning, Vancouver Islanders placed a symbolic roadblock across an active logging road in Cathedral Grove next to MacMillan Provincial Park. Volunteers with Friends of the Grove (FROG) warned Island Timberlands contractors that others in the forest are prepared to interfere with logging operations by playing "cat and mouse" with the loggers.

Volunteer Seamus McCormack said the tree-cutting crew left the area at 9:30 am on Monday. "[The contractors] said they were just coming to get their truck so we let them in. When they drove back out, they said the company told them they are not going to log this block right now." McCormack said it was not clear whether the company was pulling out because of protests that began Sunday or for other reasons. The volunteers will continue to guard Cathedral Grove, he said.

"Cat and mouse" is a civil disobedience tactic that involves slipping into an area being logged, announcing one's presence, and disappearing again. Fallers are required for safety reasons to stop work if people are in the area.

Meanwhile, the Western Canada Wilderness Committee (WCWC) held a rally at the Nanoose headquarters of Island Timberlands at 1420 Island Highway. FROG and WCWC are demanding more protection for the ancient
cedars and firs at Cathedral Grove, and they denounced Island Timberlands' plan to cut down the forests alongside the Cameron River and MacMillan Provincial Park

MacMillan Park includes part of Cathedral Grove and some of the largest trees remaining on Vancouver Island. The grove provides habitat for Roosevelt elk and other rare species, but logging leaves the giants vulnerable to blow-down and erosion.

In 2006, a two-year-long treesit defeated a provincial plan to build roads, parking lots, and trails through Cathedral Grove. A BC Supreme Court justice declined to issue a court order to remove protestors camped out in the treetops, and the province eventually scrapped the parking lot plan.

The Nature Trust of BC is negotiating with Island Timberlands to acquire another section of the ancient forest grove adjacent to the park.