More people have been arrested at the ‘Cougar Creek’ old growth protest camp in Carmanah Valley.
Earlier this week, Lake Cowichan RCMP announced that an old growth protest blockade was raided, as police enforced court-ordered injunction.
Police attended the blockade on Tuesday, November 25th, to enforce the BC Supreme Court injunction order, which was granted in mid-September to Tsawak-qin Forestry Inc.
This injunction prohibits anyone from impeding the company from gaining access to the site on which they plan to resume logging operations.
The Cougar Camp blockade was reportedly comprised of between 15 and 20 protesters at the time of the raid. This camp is located in the upper Walbran Forest region of the Carmanah Valley, and has been blocking logging activities along a logging road there since August 28th.
The camp gained notoriety when it was established due to the massive driftwood effigy of a cougar that was positioned in the middle of the logging road to block traffic.
This giant Cougar effigy has since been removed from the road.
On Wednesday, November 26th, one day after the initial raid, police shared more information regarding their arrests and revealed that more protesters had been arrested.
Police say that on arrival, they discovered that several individuals had reoccupied the camp and had either attached themselves to a structure or obstacle on the road or had perched atop a tree sit in protest of the logging operations.
Since Wednesday, RCMP have arrested seven individuals; six for breaching the injunction, and one for criminal mischief.
They have all since been released on conditions and will attend court in January.
Lake Cowichan RCMP were aided in this raid and enforcement by the RCMP’s Critical Response Unit – British Columbia (CRU-BC) and Police Liaison Team (PLT).
The Cougar Camp blockade is just the latest attempt by activists to halt the logging of old growth forests in BC.
During the police raids of the Fairy Creek blockade in 2021, over 1,100 arrests were made, for which the RCMP came under massive scrutiny regarding their ethics, and for their gatekeeping of the media, who were often kept from the site where they were trying to report from.
