News Release

Wilderness Committee to continue efforts to raise awareness and halt old-growth logging

VANCOUVER – Logging company Teal Jones has failed to secure a nine-month extension on its injunction in the Walbran Valley on Vancouver Island – a sensitive area at the centre of the growing movement to protect BC’s old-growth forests.

In a civil suit and accompanying injunction order filed on November 24th, Teal Jones wrongly named the Wilderness Committee as organizers of a blockade protesting logging activity in the area. The original injunction expired on December 14th at midnight.

During a well-attended hearing yesterday in Vancouver, the court allowed the injunction to be extended only to January 4th, despite the company’s application to extend the injunction until September 2016.

“We’re glad to see that this injunction will be lifted early in the new year, and that it won’t be restricting public access to this incredible old-growth forest for several months as the company requested,” said Joe Foy, National Campaign Director with the Wilderness Committee.

“We will continue to travel to the Walbran to take photos, share videos and educate the public about the fight to save this spectacular ancient forest,” he said.

In its most recent application to the court, Teal Jones also requested that the terms of the injunction be expanded to prohibit members of the public from being within 50 metres of company vehicles. This request to create injunction “bubble zones” was turned down by Justice McEwan.

Many supporters and forest advocates – including another individual named in the injunction – travelled from Vancouver Island to attend yesterday’s court hearing. The court order requires that Teal Jones give adequate notice of such hearings to those named in the injunction, and states that future hearings on this file should be heard in Victoria.

“The old-growth forests in the Walbran Valley are some of the finest remaining in the world. These thousand-year-old groves are ancient places, like Mayan temples or Angkor Wat. Our government in Victoria should be protecting the remaining heritage old-growth forests, not helping the logging companies chainsaw them down,” Foy said.

The Wilderness Committee is represented by lawyers from Ecojustice.

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For more information, contact:

Joe Foy | National Campaign Director, Wilderness Committee
604-880-2580, joe@wildernesscommittee.org

Additional resources:

Photos of the Walbran Valley
https://www.wildernesscommittee.org/walbran_valley_photos

Order of Mr. Justice McEwan made December 16, 2015

Photo: Wilderness Committee representatives join activists in the Walbran Valley, December 2015 (Kenneth Fersht).