Spotted Owl Victory a Wake Up Call
© Environment News Service (ENS) 2001
July 19, 2001
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada, July 19, 2001 (ENS) - Western Canada Wilderness Committee staff and volunteers are celebrating today after a B.C. Supreme Court ruling that overturned several logging permits in the habitat of an endangered Northern spotted owl near Yale, in the Fraser Valley.
The ruling came after the provincial Attorney General's Office gave up their case in the face of overwhelming evidence to be presented by lawyers from Sierra Legal Defense Fund who are acting on behalf of the Wilderness Committee.
The evidence shows that the Forest Service knew that logging would endanger an owl but went ahead and approved specific cutblocks in critical habitat.
"This is a huge victory that can open the door for the protection of Canada's endangered species", said an exuberant Gwen Barlee, endangered species campaigner for the Wilderness Committee. "We took a big gamble, with the looming threat of damages if we'd lost, and it paid off big."
Barlee was referring to an earlier claim by the logging company, Cattermole Timber of Chilliwack, that the environmental group would be liable for the estimated $175,000 the company would lose if it could not cut down the old growth trees and export the logs before a raw log export permit expires on July 31.
Cattermole Timber general manager Ted Holtby did not return calls requesting comment on the court's decision.
"We were ready to file overwhelming evidence that B.C.'s spotted owls are going the way of the dodo bird," said Devon Page, lead council for Sierra Legal Defense Fund. "In this particular case, Cattermole Timber was logging in an area approved by the Forests Ministry over the strong objection of the Ministry of Environment. Clearly, the Attorney General didn't want that fact presented in court, enabling us to claim this important victory."
But Barlee cautioned that this is only a temporary reprieve for the owl. The Forest Service will be revisiting the decision to log the area of critical habitat. The Wilderness Committee will be entitled to make submissions to the next decision maker.
In the absence of strong federal and provincial endangered species legislation, each time a spotted owl or other endangered species is threatened with logging or development, another court case could be brought.
"Over the last month we've been clawing away to get interim injunctions, and ultimately this ruling in the hopes of saving one member of a critically endangered species. There are over a thousand species at risk in the province. Imagine how many hundreds of thousands of hours of the court's time it would take to save each one this way," said Barlee.
The Wilderness Committee is more than ever convinced that the endangered owls will not survive without habitat protection. "The information from Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection biologists filed in court clearly shows that this species is declining quickly. The province's current four year old Spotted Owl Management Plan is really an extinction plan," said Barlee.
A panoramic aerial view of the area showing the cutblocks and owl habitat.