Logging begins despite protestors in southern Alberta
Posted Feb 1, 2012 9:07 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Four people protesting planned logging in a Foothills recreation area in southwestern Alberta have been arrested.
Pincher Creek RCMP say two officers went to the site in the Beaver Lake District Wednesday morning and most of the protesters voluntarily left.
The protesters set up camp in the Castle Mountain area more than two weeks ago to block logging trucks owned by Calgary-area forest company Spray Lake Sawmills.
Alberta Sustainable Resource Development served the protesters with trespassing notices and an enforcement order.
When protesters ignored those, government officials served them Monday with a court order to leave the area.
Those arrested were taken to Pincher Creek, then released on a promise to appear February 24th in a Calgary courtroom.
Two recent polls show that nearly 80 per cent of residents are opposed to the logging and 75 per cent want the area designated as a Wildland Park.
Gordon Peterson, President of the Castle-Crown Wilderness Coalition tells 660News, they plan to appeal the decision and it demonstrates the government’s failure to listen to Albertans.
He says it seems the interests of this one private logging company are more important then the interest of the general public, the wildlife or the environment.
The area was given a Special Place designation in 1998 but is only one out of 81 Special Places that hasn’t received it’s final designation.
Resident Peter Sherrington says this is a critical piece of a larger area for a number of reasons all of which have greater value then the value of the logs that are going to be removed.
The protesters say taking down trees in the area will hurt tourism, disrupt the watershed and destroy core grizzly bear habitat.
