Protesters "Defend the Eastern Slopes" with Kananaskis Logging Blockage
Rocky Mountain Outlook
Jessica Lee
KANANASKIS – Protesters opposing a logging project in Kananaskis Country have built a 10-foot blockade to keep forestry crews from entering the area and say they will form a human wall if authorities move in to dismantle it.
Around 20 people erected the wall on October 25th in response to B.C. lumber company West Fraser’s plans to rebuild a bridge over the Highwood River. A bridge was removed last year amid public outcry of logging operations set to go ahead near the river’s headwaters, which environmentalists say threaten critical fish habitat and water quality.
“The blockade is a symbol of defense. It’s a big, imposing log wall with spiky wooden tops,” said Colin Smith, a protester. “It very much gives the message of ‘keep out,’ but the sign on the front of it says ‘defend the eastern slopes.’”
That is the overarching message, he says.
“It’s a strong statement of drawing the line, defending the water and defending this wilderness that is so important to millions of Albertans.”
West Fraser plans to log approximately 1,000 hectares of forest in the Upper Highwood watershed of Kananaskis, a region that includes critical headwaters of the Highwood River and its tributaries such as Loomis Creek.
Conservation groups, including the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, say these waterways provide spawning and rearing habitat for federally and provincially threatened bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout listed under the Species at Risk Act.
Under the act, any activity that could harm a threatened fish species or its habitat requires oversight by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO).
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