đž Archived View for library.inu.red âş file âş yew-seed-yew-s-invited.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 14:57:41. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
âĄď¸ Next capture (2024-07-09)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Title: Yew's Invited Author: yew seed Date: September 2020 Language: en Topics: fairy creek, ada'itsx, fairy creek blockade, indigenous soveriegnty, green anarchism, anti-civ, logging Notes: This zine was made by hands on the territories of the Lâkwungen and WSĂNEC Peoples, also known as the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations and the Saanich Nation. The interviewer is a settler, as is yew seed. The interviewer thanks yew for the generosity of their time and experience. "The Walbran Valley/River System" is the English name for Kaxiks in Nuu-cha-nulth. Be:tadt is the Diitiid?atx name for what in English is called "The Fairy Creek Watershed"
Q: Firstly, I wonder if you could talk about what was informing your
understanding of old growth. Particularly with regard to logging in the
Walbran valley. Was it through an anarchist channel, word of mouth,
affinity group? Perhaps was it something you decided you had to do on
your own?
A: While I was somewhat aware of it already, Kax:iks (Walbran Valley,
aka 'The Walbran', unceded Pacheedaht Territory) was brought to the
forefront of my attention in early 2015, in conversations with anarchist
comrades, as word spread that Teal-Jones Group had applied for cutblocks
in the heart of Kax:iks. Some of these comrades have close connections
to people who'd lived in the valley for extended periods of time. Around
the same time, an old friend of mine also shared stories with me of
their personal experiences of the fierce resistance in Kax:iks some 30
years ago now. According to a particularly memorable story, one of the
treesitters smeared themself in their own feces as a means of making it
more difficult for them to be arrested. My friend also shared with me
touching experiences of helping to relieve stressed out land defenders,
by doing things like taking them for chillouts and debriefs in the
forest, away from the action.
I attended a convergence at Kaxiks in the summer of 2016, where I first
encountered Pacheedaht elder Bill Jones, who was there along with the
family of deceased Pacheedaht warrior Harriet Nahanee, to dedicate a new
trail to her. As I recall, the trail ran along the edge of one of the
proposed cutblocks, and after the dedication ceremony, I hiked past a
little karst cave, up into the cut lock with some friends, to see up
close the ancient cedars surrounded by 'falling boundary' tape. I'd
never met Harriet Nahanee, but was aware of her involvement in
resistance to the 2010 Olympics, specifically her arrest for blockading
expansion of the Sea to sky highway between the Olympic venues of
Vancouver and Whistler. Iknew she refused to acknowledge the legitimacy
of the colonial court that she faced-asserting her Indigenous
sovereignty-and for this, was imprisoned for contempt of court. She died
shortly after release, from pneumonia contracted while in custody. This
colony has her blood on its hands. I've since been given to understand
that she was on the frontlines of grassroots resistance to logging in
Pacheedaht territory 30+ years ago.
At the 2016 Kax:iks convergence, the emcee of the trail dedication
ceremony began by stating boldly and clearly, that Indigenous people and
anarchists had been instrumental in successfully defending the territory
back in the day, and that this solidarity was needed once again, to
confront continued threats to the land. Iâd had the opportunity to be in
other ancient forests for extended periods of time before, but Kax:iks
had a different vibe to me. It was very obviously a site of ongoing
resistance--a place that many people felt very connected to in the
present--with a faded old mural under the bridge still visible from a
generation ago.
Collectively, these learnings and experiences inspired me greatly to get
involved. I also have to credit grassroots movements like Earth First!
in the so-called United States, and similar efforts I've encountered in
so-called Canada, as well as various 'green anarchist' publications and
tendencies for much inspiration over the years.
Q: Was there a moment for you when being out in the world, bushwhacking
maybe, or hiking trail-was there a moment when you realized your life
had to involve these environs in a serious way? Was it a slow build over
many years? influenced by a joy in solitude, or through family
tradition? A: It was a family connection that first immersed me in
ancient coastal forests in so- called BC, at a long term, off grid squat
that I later learned had received permission to remain from people
Indigenous to that place. I've also been involved in resistance to
highway and port expansion, mining, and other resource extraction along
the coast. Being in these places while engaging in resistance activity
have all been eye opening, life changing, deeply transformative
experiences.
They expanded perspectives formed while growing up in a suburban area,
where the forests I walked through to and from school every day were
replaced by seemingly endless sprawling subdivisions as the years went
by. It probably takes many generations to know an ecosystem well enough
to responsibly be a part of it, and I'll be happy if I have the
privilege of feeling like I'm just starting to put down roots and
getting to know this coast within my lifetime.
Q: Once youâd found yourself entrenched in that struggle, what was your
perception of the media and/or left-wing organizations who made the
Walbran their cause? What kind of people surrounded you, and what sort
of power dynamics ran through that social space?
A: I was dismayed to see that NGOs like Sierra Club and Wilderness
Committee were allowed to table at the 2016 Kax:iks convergence. Among
many other misdeeds- and setting aside the wider problem of the
treacherous, parasitic non profit industrial complex in general- just a
few years prior, these groups went behind the backs of Indigenous land
defenders to negotiate the
Sellout of the 'Great Bear Rainforest' (a marketing term they devised).
The GBR deal ensured that a large percentage of old growth forest in
those territories would be logged, while the grassroots movement was
putting their lives on the line for an end to old growth logging.
As part of that 'Big Green' swindle, groups like Greenpeace have
completely abandoned the matter of logging on the rest of the coast,
including so-called Vancouver Island, having used it as a bargaining
chip in their negotiations with the logging companies in their GBR
'victory'. Greenpeace was once at least some kind of player in wide
ranging direct action against logging, dropping banners off the roof of
the legislature and providing material support to blockades.
It seems as though a fierce, largely grassroots (at times with major
anarchist factions/tendencies) culture of resistance to logging was a
force to be reckoned with⌠from the first ever logging blockade in
so-called BCâthe successful Indigenous defense of Meares Island in the
mid 80sâto Kaxi:ks, to the Elaho, to Bear Mountain, to the 2010
Olympics. As far as I can tell this resistance has dwindled in recent
years⌠By my reckoning, due to repression (Green Scare, West Coast
Warriors, Olympics, No Pipelines graffiti raid), gentrification (pushing
people away from the coast, and making it harder to maintain
grassroots/anarchist infrastructure) transphobia and TERFs sowing
division, and.. Understandably, many people, including some anarchists
turning away from social movements towards nihilism. In this context,
NGOs have taken up so much space and resources--that could otherwise be
used for grassroots direct action-entrenching dogmatic white liberal
reformist politics, thereby helping to neutralize and recuperate
resistance. I want to do what I can to rekindle anarchist and grassroots
resistance.
Q: Do you remember having anything like a 'win condition'?
A: To me, direct action is all about taking responsibility for
ourselves, and in my own mind is practically synonymous with the concept
of anarchy. Resistance is life, and so on. I want to enjoy life and
therefore, I enjoy resistance, and try to be a joyful, playful rebel.
Experiencing pleasure and fulfillment from these activities always feels
like a win to me. Direct action is everything from learning about
foraging and subsistence, to supporting a suffering comrade, to actively
resisting industrial expansion. I formerly saw these activities as paths
that occasionally intertwined; I now see them as continuous and
inseparable from each other.
Q: Trees, potentially, are mysterious and powerful beings. Has your
perception of trees changed much in the last 20 years?
A: My perception has changed greatly in the sense that I now know much
more about the difference between an ancient forest and a tree farm, It
seems to me as though science (and
especially most recently mycology), has lately been affirming aspects of
what we already should've known from Indigenous relationships with and
teachings about the biosphere, and our personal intuitive understandings
of forests and other ecosystems. It's sad that some feel the need to
clinically dissect these webs of life to understand them.
Q: The organizing around the Fairy Creek blockades is not an
anarchist-forward process- -although I believe it strongly borrows from
principles rooted in anarchism - and it remains to be seen how this
movement will be carried or influenced by various ideologies. What do
you see happening on this front line, or what sort of things happen on
other front lines that cause you concern or maybe bring you hope?
A: In a roundabout way, the pathetic, mind numbing routines of NGOs who
do nothing to prevent old growth logging and as I described earlier, in
some cases actually promote it) have helped created the circumstances in
which something like the Fairy Creek blockades came to be. I've so far
been impressed in my personal experiences by a few qualities of the
grassroots people- many of whom are disillusioned former supporters of
NGOs-that came together around Fairy Creek:
⢠accepting the presence of anarchists from the start, without question
or debate.. And, broadly speaking, attempting to organize at least
quasi-anarchically even if not self-identifying as anarchists
⢠knowingly embracing the importance of remaining nimble, informal and
unaffiliated, not predictably self-isolating as "Friends of Fairy Creek"
or something along those lines
⢠encouraging people to start blockades elsewhere on the Island or
so-called BC rather than converge at a single place in Pacheedaht
territory
Some concerns are a lack of decolonial analysis among some, and/or
conflicting views of what that is, and an almost total absence of
anti-capitalist analysis coupled with strong reformist tendencies. The
open hearted invitation to the blockades by Pacheedaht elder Bill Jones,
the presence of Tla-o-qui-aht elder Joe Martin (veteran of BC's first
logging blockade on Mares Island), the offers of rides for and increased
involvement of Indigenous blockaders, the offer of free rides to the
blockades from West Coast Trail Bus-these are all interesting
developments-we'll see what happens!
Q: Do you believe there will still be much work to do if and when we
lose all island old growth? Is defending old growth, for you, getting at
the issue itself? Or is there a deeper issue you seek to halt by
involving yourself in a process like this?
A: What happens if we 'lose', what happens if there's no old growth
left? As far as I'm concerned, life and resistance will go on. Some who
lack an anti-capitalist and/or anti- colonial analysis, or perhaps
fetishize the concept of old growth forest as untouched or uninhabited
by humans, may feel that old growth forest is all that's left worth
defending. There's also the 'respectability'/'public opinion' that
weighs on some of the more liberal minded folks, who think we're riding
a wave of popular opinion that supports protection of old growth. They
see resisting other logging as a step too far, and seem unconcerned with
resistance to non old growth logging that's been happening in various
places on the coast the last few years.
I think it's been a bit of a stretch for some of these folks to move
fairly rapidly from blockading logging in one small area, to trying to
spark a movement to end old growth logging⌠It will be interesting to
see what happens if some people take more radical and generally
anti-industrial, anticapitalist actions against logging.
I invite anarchists who are interested in anarchist/autonomous forest
defense, at Fairy Creek or elsewhere, to get in touch at
forest_autonomy@riseup.net
For more background on Teal Jones logging in Pacheedaht Territory:
https://bcblackout.files.wordpress.com/2020/07/smashtealjones2016-web.pdf
-yew seed