Environmental law group files suit against B.C. government over access to Fairy Creek area

The remains of a cut block is seen in the background with a destroyed car in the foreground in the Fairy Creek logging area near Port Renfrew, B.C. Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021. People who have declared themselves "land defenders" claim the vehicle was destroyed by the RCMP as they protested logging in the surrounding area. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

An environmental law group is taking the B.C. government to court in an effort to end road closures that it says prevent scientists and researchers from studying wildlife in the Fairy Creek area of Vancouver Island.

Ecojustice launched the suit against the province on behalf of Royann Petrell, an associate professor emerita with the University of British Columbia.

The legal charity says at least eight road closures granted by the B.C. Forests Ministry have prevented Petrell and other researchers from accessing old-growth forests and documenting threatened species in the area near Port Renfrew, B.C.

In her affidavit to the court, Petrell says she has documented several threatened bird species in and around the Fairy Creek watershed since April 2021.

“The B.C. government doesn’t generally know where endangered birds and other wildlife are located," Petrell said in a statement announcing the legal action against the ministry.

"Citizen-scientists like me are trying to fill that gap before the province’s few remaining areas of old-growth forest are logged," she added.

The researcher says several gates and private security posts that were installed by Teal Cedar Products, which holds the rights to harvest timber in the Tree Farm Licence 46 area and is also named as a defendant in the suit, have prevented her and others from doing their conservation work.

"The gates in TFL 46 prevent citizen scientists from identifying and protecting at-risk species in areas where logging is imminent – and prevent us from doing what the B.C. government should have done years ago, before it approved logging in those areas," Petrell said.

Ecojustice lawyer Rachel Gutman is accusing the provincial government of putting the interests of resource development companies, like Teal Cedar, ahead of the rights of citizens to access the land.

"At a time of a biodiversity crisis, we need scientists like Dr. Petrell to be able carry out their important work of mapping species unimpeded," Gutman said. "Logging companies shouldn't be able to stand in their way."

Teal Cedar spokesperson Shawn Hall says the company "may grant access to TFL 46 through the gates in appropriate circumstances where [it] can be assured that the persons seeking access are not creating a safety hazard in doing so."

Hall said visitors can contact the forestry company or the province to request access to the site. "There are obvious safety risks when large groups of people seek access to an active logging site," he added.

Ecojustice says Petrell has not been involved in the blockades at Fairy Creek, which saw more than 1,100 people arrested while trying to prevent logging in the old-growth forests.

The ministry did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.