Blockades persist despite injunction
An almost two-month blockade of access roads to Westfor logging operations in southwestern Nova Scotia will persist until protesters are arrested, the Extinction Rebellion (XR) group says.
“We're not calling it quits until it's quits,” said Nina Newington, an XR spokeswoman who has been part of the blockades since the first was set up on Oct. 21.
We don't know what direction it's going to go,” Newington said. “We managed to get 29,000 signatures on the petition that Nature Nova Scotia set up, in an incredibly short time. I think the government's come under more pressure about the forestry and the endangered species than they have in a long time. That's not all us, we're just being part of that, but it's good to be part of it.”
Being the main cog in the blockade action brought an interim injunction ordered by the Nova Scotia Supreme Court against XR in response to an application from Westfor, a consortium of 13 mills established in 2016 by the Nova Scotia government to increase the efficiency of forest management on Crown land in the province.
The interim injunction was served Friday to members of XR at the sites of their blockades in the New France area of Digby County.
The injunction bars the defendants, or anyone acting on their behalf, from blockading roads or interfering with access anywhere where Westfor is licensed to cut. The injunction specifically mentions the areas in Digby County but its scope encompasses any woodland site on Crown land in Southwest Nova where cuts have been approved.
“That seems like a pretty massive overreach,” Newington said.
The company has said it will seek a permanent injunction from the court on Jan. 26 and 27.
“There is a provision where we can ask for that (court dates) to happen sooner so we are going to move that up and really focus on challenging that (wide range of the ban) because that's pretty outrageous,” Newington said.
The interim injunction claims Westfor and its contractors have suffered significant financial losses and damages due to the blockade which has crucially cut into their estimated profit margin of $2.8 million and may seek damages against the defendants.
Newington thinks those numbers are inflated.
“It seems absurd,” Newington said of estimated financial gains and losses. “It seems basically like an intimidation tactic.”
Newington said there have been as many as 14 people involved in the two blockades that are about 15 kilometres apart as the crow flies. Most of the time, the numbers at the blockades and in the encampment are smaller.
She said there are 670 hectares of Crown land approved for cutting that have yet to be cut at two locations near Rocky Point and Caribou lakes, both bounded on the east by the Tobeatic Wilderness Area.
“There has been no logging at all at the Rocky Point Lake, that we've been able to completely stop. The Caribou one, the more recent blockade, unfortunately, they already had equipment back in there,” Newington said. “There has been a limited amount of logging in one parcel.”
Wildlife biologist Bob Bancroft released a Moose Map last week highlighting all of southwest Nova Scotia and confirming multiple mainland moose sightings and or signs of the presence of the endangered species in that area.
"We are standing up to protect wildlife and their habitat,” Newington said. “When the moose are in trouble, so are we. To address the climate and extinction crises, we need to protect and restore our natural forests. Industrial tree plantations are ecological deserts.”
Newington said a blatant attempt is being made to claim Crown lands for the exclusive use of forestry interests.
"Many blockaders will be arrested in the coming days for the crime of doing what our government has failed to do: protecting the habitat of endangered species, specifically the mainland moose, and interrupting the clearcutting frenzy that is leveling Nova Scotia's remaining natural forests,” Newington said.
“We will face charges of contempt of court when it is the Department of Lands and Forestry that is in contempt of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court's finding that ‘the minister has exhibited a chronic and systemic failure to implement action under the Endangered Species Act.'”
Extinction Rebellion has continually demanded an immediate moratorium on all proposed and current logging on Crown lands from Fourth Lake south to the Napier River in Digby County, a moratorium that it says should remain intact until ecologically based landscape use planning for the area has been conducted by independent ecologists and biologists, as recommended in the Lahey forestry report.
The group requested a meeting with Derek Mombourquette, the lands and forestry minister, on Nov. 11 and later staged a sit-in at the minister's office in downtown Halifax.
The minister has not replied to the group.
“We are standing up to protect wildlife and their habitat. When the moose are in trouble, so are we. To address the climate and extinction crises, we need to protect and restore our natural forests. Industrial tree plantations are ecological deserts.” Nina Newington XR spokeswoman