The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Clearcut protest at Lands and Forestry office results in arrests
The long-running protest against clearcutting Crown land and further endangering mainland moose in the province resulted in two arrests Tuesday at the Lands and Forestry office in downtown Halifax.
While members of the group Extinction Rebellion continued their camp and blockade of loggers in Southwest Nova Scotia, four protesters staged a sit-in at the minister’s office at Founders Square.
“They gave us clear warning that they were going to arrest us,” said Eleanor of the Extinction Rebellion group.
Eleanor, who preferred not to have her last name used, said the four were sitting on the floor outside the office and asked to speak to Minister Derek Mombourquette but were told he wasn’t in. They then said they would leave peacefully if the minister would call Nina Newington, spokeswoman for the Extinction Rebellion group that is blocking access for logging equipment in Digby County but were told by reception that they didn’t have the minister’s contact number.
Eleanor said she was handcuffed and dragged down the hall, to the elevator and through the building atrium to a police car.
She and another sit-in protester were charged with failing to leave the premises when asked and fined $237.
The sit-in followed a letter from Newington to the minister requesting a meeting for Newington and two others with Mom bouquette.
“We’re asking them to suspend the logging approvals for the Crown land,” Newington said Tuesday from one of two blockades at the cut areas in the New France area, in the western area of the Tobeatic wilderness area in Digby County.
Newington and her group have camped out in prospectors tents since Oct. 21 to block equipment from entering the prospective clearcut area. She said they set up the second blockade area Sunday afternoon and loggers showed up at 9 p.m., with two RCMP officers in tow.
Loggers returned the next morning and forcefully told the protesters to move their vehicle or they would move it for them.
“There is a bit of pressure,” Newington said.
Westfor, a consortium of 13 mills and industrial forestry groups, is behind the harvest plans, but ultimately Lands and Forestry has approved the cuts, she said.
In her letter, Newington explained to the minister that logging is being allowed in an area that moose frequent.
“If we had not blocked access to the area around Rocky Point Lake when we did, it is likely that the 200 hectares approved for Variable Retention and 30 per cent harvests would have already been cut,” she wrote.
New cuts are reaching ever closer to the Tobeatic, she said.
Newington and her group are calling for an immediate halt to all logging activities on the Crown lands bounded by Fourth Lake Flowage to the north, the Tobeatic Wilderness Area to the east, the Napier river to the south and a combination of the Silver River Wilderness Area and private lands to the west.
“This suspension of logging approvals should be accompanied by an independent review by biologists to establish best management practices for the area with the primary goal of protecting mainland moose and establishing the core habitat necessary for their recovery.”
Newington said her group has seven people camped at each blockade and expects more to join them Wednesday morning.
The protesters have had confrontations with the logging crews, she said, but they are hunkered down for the long haul.
“We’re there for as long as it takes,” she said. “We’re set up at both blockades with prospectors tents and wood stoves.
“At some point, you just say enough is enough. We’ve been waiting for Lahey for two years and they are just on a clearcutting frenzy.”
The Liberal government commissioned and then signed off on the Lahey report on forestry practices in August 2018 that included recommendations and concluded that “protecting and enhancing ecosystems should be the objective (the outcome) of how we balance environmental, social, and economic objectives and values in practising forestry in Nova Scotia.”
Newington said if Lahey were truly implemented, the frenzy of clearcutting would not continue but instead Lands and Forestry has approved the clearcutting of more than 18,000 hectares since the Lahey report was delivered two years ago.