Public Can Visit 1,300 Yr.-Old Douglas Fir in B.C.
9/2/99
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Title: 1,300 Yr.-Old Douglas Fir in BC
Source: Vancouver Sun
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: September 2, 1999
Byline: By Gordon Hamilton, Sun Forestry Reporter, Vancouver Sun
Public can visit old Douglas fir, top court rules Interfor gets
extension to its injunction, keeping protesters out of its Elaho
Valley road-building site.
A Douglas fir tree believed to be the oldest in Canada will remain
accessible to the public after B.C. Supreme Court Justice Randall
Wong on Wednesday limited an injunction application by International
Forest Products.
Wong gave Interfor an extension to its existing injunction, aimed at
keeping protesters who suspend themselves from trees out of its road-
building site in the Elaho Valley. But he restricted it to 500 metres
around the active work area.
"It was a compromise," said Interfor chief forester Ric Slaco. "This
is an improvement over what we had. Now we are going to have to see
what happens."
About a dozen members of the radical Forest Action Network and
People's Action for Threatened Habitat have set up a camp near the
work site and have suspended themselves from trees, slowing down the
road work. The protest is taking place in old-growth forest at the
end of an isolated logging road about 100 kilometres north of
Squamish.
Interfor had sought to have a larger area included in its injunction
to separate supporters from the actual tree hangers, who are in
violation of the existing injunction.
Interfor lawyer Bill McNaughton told the court equipment has been
damaged and the supporters have been holding tree-climbing classes
near the actual roadwork, an apparent demonstration of their
intention to continue violating the injunction. He said tensions are
growing as a result of the close proximity of the workers and
protesters.
Environmentalists not taking part in the protest, however, claimed
the broader injunction would cut access to the old Douglas fir,
impairing their ability to continue with a forest research program.
The tree is about 1,300 years old, according to WCWC.
"You can go see the tree. It's out of the exclusion zone," a jubilant
Joe Foy, of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, said outside the
court Tuesday.
Slaco said he intends to contact the wilderness committee to discuss
improving public access to the tree and other issues the committee is
pursuing in the region. Interfor has temporarily excluded the grove
in which the tree stands from its logging plans.
The wilderness committee, which prides itself on being law-abiding,
was concerned Interfor's application would exclude committee members,
scientists and the public from examining the tree, which is near
Interfor's current road building activities.
Lawyer Karen Writen, representing the wilderness committee in court,
said the committee has an equal right to access to the old tree
region as part of its effort to have a national park created there.
"Protect the active work area, yes, but do not unduly restrict the
rights of the public to have access to the area for legal purposes,"
she said. "The wilderness committee's interest is to ensure some
portion of this region is preserved as a national park. And they must
document the values that make it worthy of protection as a park."
The wilderness committee discovered the old fir tree during earlier
explorations.