Texada protesters turn up heat

Gulf Islands Driftwood
Wednesday, December 29, 1999

By Tanya Lester

“Slow down” is the message environmental activists want to send to Texada Land Corporation (TLC) concerning clearcut logging on Salt Spring Island.

They will say it with their bodies when they block Burgoyne Bay Road and stop a TLC logging truck on its way to the company’s unloading site at Burgoyne Bay next Wednesday.

“We want to send the message we have the power to stop clear cutting if we so choose and it’s also in support of our love of the trees,” said Robert Osborne, the Direct Action Committee (DAC) spokesman. “We want them to slow down so we have more time to do fundraising for the land acquisition.”

The January 5 action begins at 8 a.m. and is open to the public.

Murray Reiss, who was one of 15 people who attended a DAC meeting last Monday, believes it is important to stop a logging truck even though this action will minimally affect the TLC operation.

“It is a clear and unambiguous way of standing with others while they’re taking dead trees off the island,” said Reiss. “They view it only as a commodity, the land we live on. They need to really slow right down and give the conservationist community time to make an offer to buy the land while there is still something there to conserve.”

Reiss said his move to the island’s south end was partly in response to the Channel Ridge development in the Vesuvius area. He hopes destroying the south end’s pristine forest will not meet the same fate.

The non-violent civil disobedience action was planned when DAC met at Tides Inn on Monday amid rumours that TLC has brought in a feller-buncher in order to log two and a half times more quickly.

According to Osborne, TLC may also plan to move their logging operation from Mount Tuam to Mount Maxwell as was reported by a DAC meeting participant.

Osborne said Texada officials have not returned his calls concerning these matters.

The January 6 event will also be the site of DAC’s weekly meeting. It will be followed by a Thursday evening Fulford Hall general meeting

in which an overview of the environmentalists’ future campaign will be discussed.

Osborne said sign-up sheets for those wanting to participate in the non-violent civil disobedience training camp on the January 22 weekend will be available at the Fulford Hall meeting.

A rally, for which DAC organizers hope to attract 1,000 people, is set for January 15 at the Burgoyne Bay Road where the January 5 action takes place.

At last Monday’s DAC meeting, it was decided to phone everyone listed in the Lion’s Club Salt Spring Island directory to publicize the rally.

E-mail the writer: Tanya Lester