Canadian environmentalists block logging operations for one week and running

18.1.12

Envi­ron­men­tal­ists in Alber­ta, Cana­da have been block­ing log­ging oper­a­tions in the Cas­tle Wilder­ness Area for over a week despite below freez­ing tem­per­a­tures. On Jan­u­ary 11 sev­er­al dozen envi­ron­men­tal­ists, includ­ing local res­i­dents, set up tents on the access road for the log­ging oper­a­tions. Spray Lakes Sawmills wants to log 300 acres of land in the wilder­ness area.

 ”If we keep peo­ple there and the machin­ery idle until spring, that might be a good time — come spring, they won’t be able to do any log­ging. I hope it doesn’t take that long, but we have a lot of com­mit­ted peo­ple, peo­ple com­ing from all over,” said Gor­don Peter­son of the Cas­tle-Crown Wilder­ness Coali­tion (CCWC) told CBC News.

 Accord­ing to CCWC the, “Cas­tle Region is an impor­tant part of the Crown of the Con­ti­nent Ecosys­tem which cov­ers approx­i­mate­ly 27,000 square miles of Alber­ta, BC, and Mon­tana and includes Water­ton Lakes Nation­al Park, Glac­i­er Nation­al Park, and the Bob Mar­shall Wilder­ness.” It also serves as an impor­tant wildlife cor­ri­dor and is crit­i­cal habi­tat for griz­zly bears. In addi­tion to log­ging the Cas­tle Wilder­ness is threat­ened by oil and gas projects in the area.