The Teal-Jones Group is expected to send fallers into the Fairy Creek area near Port Renfrew any day, saying only a small portion of the planned cutblock will be harvested and that the timber is needed to keep its cedar shake and lumber mills operating and workers employed.
But RCMP will first have to clear blockades leading into the company’s harvesting area, and when that will happen remained unclear Thursday as demonstrators continued to brace for arrests.
A court injunction was delivered this week to a growing camp of demonstrators, who are preparing to be removed by police and face potential contempt of court charges.
They are dug in and maintain they will stand despite “imminent arrests” and amid a groundswell of fresh arrivals, demonstrations around the province, support from some Island municipal councils and increasing volume on social media.
Glen Reid, a camp manager with the Rainforest Flying Squad, said Thursday from Fairy Creek that fundraising for the group has surpassed $200,000, food donations are arriving daily and support is coming in from celebrities such as Academy Award-winning actor Mark Ruffalo, former wrestler Hulk Hogan and musicians Bruce Cockburn and Midnight Oil, who have given organizers permission to use their songs on social media.
A demonstration planned for Sunday at the legislature is generating a buzz, with dance instructor Amalia Schelhorn organizing a rotating “flash mob dance” in support of the Fairy Creek blockade.
Fairy Creek protesters are getting their messages across on social media and using encrypted apps to communicate among themselves to avoid police monitoring.
“Many lawyers have shown up at the camp, asking ‘how can we help?’ ” said Reid. “This is how you get things done. We’ve got all kinds of people here who care about saving this place.”
Teal Jones said it wants to cut what they are legally entitled to. The situation has been “muddied in overstated claims” that it is harming a critical watershed containing old-growth timber.
“We just want to get people to work. These jobs support families on the Island and all over the province,” said Jack Gardner, a great-grandson of the founder of the Teal-Jones Group.
The company said the Fairy Creek watershed covers 1,178 hectares, but most of its 216-hectare approved cut-block is outside the watershed, and only a small amount of the watershed is available for harvesting. The rest is protected for wildlife habitat or on unstable terrain not suitable for logging, and won’t be touched, Gardner said. “It is time for that work to get peacefully underway — important work, done responsibly.”
The company said it will proceed “with the care and attention to environmental stewardship British Columbians demand.
“We will harvest over time, leaving all large cedar trees standing and untouched as required by B.C.’s Signature Tree regulations. We will plant new trees to replace those we do cut, which will grow into the next generation of forest.”
According to the Ministry of Forests, to be considered for protection, a tree must meet a set of criteria, including still being alive, not being already protected in a park or protected area, on provincial Crown land (excluding private property or federal land), having verified geographical co-ordinates for accurate location and meet the diameter requirements by species type.
Teal-Jones Group was founded by Jack Jones, starting with a backyard cedar roofing mill in 1946. It’s now run by his extended family, employing more than 1,000 people directly. The company said it also has hundreds of contractors, providing well-paying jobs that support Island communities.
Gardner said “every stick harvested” is processed at its mills in B.C., including a facility in Lumby that cuts cedar blocks for guitars. Teal-Jones, he said, is the world’s largest maker of guitar tops and ships cut pieces to guitar makers in Canada and around the world.
“Everything from each log is used,” said Gardner. “Nothing gets wasted. The chips and sawdust from mills is used to make pulp and paper and biomass for green energy production.”
Teal-Jones said some older trees are harvested during its operations, but extensive studies within cutblocks are carried out to ensure protected trees and sensitive eco-systems are not harmed before the province gives approvals.
Gardner said high-elevation hemlock, cypress and red cedar will be harvested in the Fairy Creek cutblock. A road to the area will be blasted out of the rock and be about 600 metres long, he said.
Teal-Jones said 70 per cent of B.C.’s old growth forests are protected, and less than one per cent of the land available for forestry is harvested each year. It works within its Sustainable Forest Management Certification with input from local communities, stakeholders and First Nations.
Tree Farm Licence 46 was established in 1955, and includes the Fairy Creek and Caycuse area, where demonstrators halted logging over the Easter weekend. The Caycuse area has been harvested since the early 1970s.
