People waved placards inscribed with a spectrum of environmental concerns in front of a shimmering Georgia Strait on Earth Day – but for one organizer the core message focused on old-growth protection.
“What I organized was in solidarity with the Fairy Creek blockade and to lobby the NDP government to enact the 14 recommendations put out in the Old Growth Strategic Review,” Alycia Schwindt of Gibsons told Coast Reporter, while standing near a crosswalk at the Davis Bay pier on April 22.
“Some people are here just because they come and protest for Earth Day every year, they had no idea there was an event organized.”
The 25-year-old stepped in for Elizabeth Waite, 24, and Lila Clift, 22, of the Gambier Guardians youth group, who organized a rally last month at the same location in solidarity with protesters blocking access to a cutblock in an area known as Fairy Creek northeast of Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island.
The group is also demanding that the NDP take action on the 14 recommendations contained in a report by professional foresters Garry Merkel and Al Gorley to establish and implement an old-growth strategy for the province.
Waite has been at the site of the blockade, located on Pacheedaht First Nation
territory, for approximately three weeks, said Schwindt. Clift had recently returned.
Last week Pacheedaht hereditary chief Frank Queesto Jones and council chief Jeff Jones raised concerns over the “increasing polarization” over forestry activities in the area and asked environmentalists to leave forest management discussion to the Pacheedaht, which are still in the process of negotiating a treaty and writing a resource management plan.
Logging company Teal Jones has been granted an injunction against the blockade, but RCMP have not yet enforced it.
On April 13, Premier John Horgan said protesters should respect the first nation’s wishes.
At the Davis Bay protest, Schwindt said the issue was complex. “The government has kind of forced Indigenous groups to choose between the impoverishment of their people and the impoverishment of their land,” she said.
“What a lot of Indigenous activists are asking us to do as a larger community is to decolonize, and so personally, I think standing in solidarity with the Indigenous people who are advocating for their traditional values is really how to be a good ally.”
Typically, the main Earth Day attraction on the Sunshine Coast is a festival at Roberts Creek. This year festival organizers directed people to a virtual event hosted by the Nicholas Sonntag Marine Education Centre in Gibsons, featuring Squamish Nation spokesperson and council member Chris Syeta'xtn Lewis.
– with files from Nelson Bennett and Darron Kloster
