Inside the battle to save Canada’s ancient, old-growth forests

Activists in British Columbia are erecting blockades to try to prevent logging of ancient trees on Indigenous lands.

Vancouver Island, Canada – A colossal battle to save the last temperate rainforest on Vancouver Island, Canada is under way, as police and forest protectors are engaged in a cat-and-mouse chase through hundreds of kilometres of thick woods. The Rainforest Flying Squad, a volunteer-driven activists’ group, is behind efforts to stop logging companies from extracting old-growth trees in and around the Fairy Creek forest, an area with some of the little remaining old-growth in the province of British Columbia (BC). The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have arrested more than 150 activists during the past three weeks while enforcing an injunction obtained in March by Teal-Jones Group, one of the main logging companies, to remove the forest defenders.