At least one demonstrator has been arrested following the return of crews from the Squamish-based company Black Mount Logging to the Clack Creek cutblock.
Backed by a court injunction against Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF), the logging crews resumed cutting on Feb. 4.
ELF has been trying to use the courts, as well as protests and a roadblock, to prevent harvesting of the area known as the Clack Creek Forest in BC Timber Sales (BCTS) cutblock A93884.
Black Mount secured a court injunction against any attempts by protesters to block its crews from working in the cutblock on Jan. 28.
Sunshine Coast RCMP commander Staff Sgt. Poppy Hallam said Wednesday that officers were present to monitor the situation when logging crews went into the area Feb. 4 and were also there the following day, but there were no issues.
According to the Living Forest Institute, an ELF-backed initiative that has been active in publicizing the recent protest actions, some 30 people returned to the area on Feb. 6 and were again met by RCMP, and ELF member Laurie Bloom was arrested.
At an earlier demonstration, Bloom, who was also arrested during a 2016 logging protest on Mount Elphinstone, said she was willing to be arrested “if the opportunity arises.”
“I feel it’s one more way to have this issue heard,” she told the crowd at the Jan. 30 event. “We have struggled 30 years in this community to get this park and if the Clack Creek Forest comes down we lose connectivity permanently between the upper and lower parks and that dream dies.”
Hallam confirmed one arrest at the site Thursday and said the person would be charged with disobeying a court order and blocking a public highway.
Hallam also said RCMP are investigating the discovery of a sign warning trees had been “spiked” – a term for inserting a foreign object that can cause a chainsaw to jam and possibly kick back.
