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Jul 6, 21

Fairy Creek: Forest Defenders Take Back Waterfall Camp

Report from the Fairy Creek Forest blockade. To keep up with the ongoing action, follow them on Instagram for daily action reports.

Today we had a huge victory. Despite confusion earlier in the week about reducing numbers at camp (to be clear, we are NOT, and we need you now more than ever), we have managed to take back Waterfall Camp!

At about 5:30 this morning, forest defenders near Waterfall Camp executed an action that had been planned for weeks.

A small group of blockaders bushwhacked down the hill and recovered a completed tripod they had earlier stashed from the bushes. Running with three 20 foot lengths of wood on their backs, they picked a spot on the road right after the turn off to Waterfall Camp. They knew they had a narrow window of opportunity and worked quickly to get the tripod set up before police arrived. It broke twice before they succeeded.

One defender recounted, “Third time’s a charm. We hoisted her up there right as the cops arrived. Like, literally a 10 or 20 second thing. It was in [r]ight in the nick of time.”

An RCMP officer driving a canopied ATV attempted to drive under the tripod before forest defenders advised him of how much danger he was putting the tripod sitter in. An RCMP pickup showed up just as the sitter got onto the top.

Once the tripod was erected and occupied, more than 30 defenders came out of the bushes and surprised the RCMP positioned right at Waterfall Camp. Walking past the police barricade, they set up a log contraption with a hole through the centre for a defender to lock into called a “Carebear” immediately behind the last RMCP vehicle, trapping the vehicles and a few officers behind an arbitrary line of our own.

Once the officers realized they were trapped, they began negotiating with us. We allowed one of their vehicles to drive some of the distance back down the road and a few of their officers to bring food and water up to their trapped colleagues in exchange for the release of our first arrest for the day, a support person who was arrested without warning for simply providing water to a tripod sitter.

As of this writing, there is still a police vehicle trapped behind our barricades up at Waterfall.

The BC NDP is spending untold sums of money on enforcing this injunction. Helicopters are circling every day for much of the day. Upwards of 40 officers are sent to every enforcement. Specialized extraction tools. For what? To allow another company to destroy the land and make heat waves, climate change, and the current mass extinction more severe? For an industry that not only doesn’t make BC money, but COSTS us? The BC NDP gives $365,000,000 on average to the forestry industry every year.

Meanwhile, the Town of Lytton has burned to the ground. The NDP has not given a cent in relief money. Many First Nations around Canada don’t have clean drinking water RIGHT NOW. Almost 500 people have died from the heat wave. Why is this enforcement what the NDP chooses to spend our tax money on? Where is our climate resilience? Where is our climate justice?

We can stop this, but we need your help.

Numbers have gotten low due to a misunderstanding about reducing our presence. The need to have a strong presence at camps could not be more urgent. If you don’t join us in person this week, we may lose HQ. Police have been scoping the place out and commenting on how low numbers are. We love you, and thanks for everything you’ve done.

Come to camp.

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