The Walbran Valley old-growth logging protests, also known as the 2025 Walbran Valley blockade, are an ongoing () protest against old-growth forest logging on southern Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. Beginning on August 25, 2025, protesters established a camp blocking a logging road to prevent Tsawak-qin Forestry Limited Partnership- a joint venture between Huu-ay-aht First Nations and Western Forest Products- from accessing eight cut blocks of old-growth forest.
On September 12, 2025, British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Amy Francis granted an injunction ordering the blockade removed, paving the way for Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) enforcement. The order went unenforced for more than two months. The RCMP cleared the camp in operations beginning November 25, 2025, dismantling the cougar sculpture that had blocked the road and allowing logging to resume, and reported eleven arrests by December 9. Criminal contempt charges were approved against ten people in April 2026, and in August 2026 the injunction was extended to January 31, 2028 after several hundred trees in the company's cut blocks were found to have been spiked.
The blockade represents a continuation of old-growth forest conflicts in British Columbia, following the 2020-2021 Fairy Creek old-growth logging protests, which resulted in 1,188 arrests and became the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history.
Background
Old-growth forest policy in British Columbia
In April 2020, a strategic review panel led by Al Gorley and Garry Merkel submitted "A New Future for Old Forests: A Strategic Review of How British Columbia Manages for Old Forests Within its Ancient Ecosystems" to the BC government. The panel concluded that "the priorities that currently drive our forest management system are backwards" and warned that without urgent action, "conditions that exist in many of these forests and ecosystems are simply non-renewable in any reasonable time frame." The review provided 14 interconnected recommendations designed to achieve what the panel termed a necessary "paradigm shift" in forest management, with implementation timelines ranging from 6 to 36 months. The NDP government promised to implement all recommendations, though environmental advocates have argued that implementation has been insufficient and old-growth logging continues in priority areas identified in the report.
On September 11, 2020, Premier John Horgan publicly released the review and committed to implementing all 14 recommendations "in their totality." The most critical recommendation called for immediate deferrals within six months for ecosystems "at very high and near-term risk of irreversible biodiversity loss." A Technical Advisory Panel identified 2.6 million hectares of ancient, rare, and big-tree old growth requiring urgent protection.
Implementation record Five years after the government's commitment, environmental organizations documented that zero of the 14 recommendations had been fully implemented. By 2025, the government had deferred only 1.2 million hectares- 46% of the 2.6 million hectares identified as priority areas by scientists- leaving 1.4 million hectares of the most endangered forests still open to logging. Sierra Club BC's analysis of provincial data revealed that old-growth logging remained essentially unchanged from pre-review levels, averaging approximately 150 soccer fields per day from 2019 through 2021, despite government claims of "record low" harvests.
The most critical implementation failure involved Recommendation 6, which called for immediate deferrals of at-risk ecosystems within the first six months. Environmental groups issued joint report cards documenting that the March 2021 deadline passed with "almost all at-risk forests remaining open to logging." Ken Wu, Executive Director of the Ancient Forest Alliance, stated in September 2025: "The BC government promised an ecological paradigm shift in its system of old-growth forest management, but five years later, they have resumed their heel-dragging on policy progress to buy time for the destructive status quo of old-growth liquidation."
Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs declared on the five-year anniversary: "Five years after the Old Growth Strategic Review, so little has changed...it feels like lip service." A coalition of 88 BC organizations issued an open letter documenting that the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework- the review's most critical legal mechanism- remained delayed with no public timeline after five years.
Connection to Fairy Creek The Walbran Valley blockade follows the 2020-2021 Fairy Creek old-growth logging protests, located approximately 12 kilometres from the current blockade site. The Fairy Creek protests resulted in 1,188 arrests between May and December 2021, making them the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history. Several participants in the Walbran blockade, including Pacheedaht Elder Bill Jones and protester Will O'Connell, were prominent figures in the Fairy Creek protests. The Walbran Valley was also a focus of the "War in the Woods" protests of the 1980s and 1990s, which extended to Clayoquot Sound. In December 2024, the BC NDP and BC Green Party signed a cooperation agreement that included a commitment to permanently protect the Fairy Creek watershed, though the agreement did not address broader old-growth protections in the region.
Upper Walbran geography and protection status The Walbran Valley is located on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island. In 1995, the British Columbia government created Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park, which protected the lower Walbran Valley while leaving the upper Walbran outside the park boundary and open to logging. The contested logging area is within Tree Farm Licence 44 (TFL 44), which was historically held by MacMillan Bloedel before passing to Weyerhaeuser and then to Western Forest Products. In recent years, Huu-ay-aht First Nations became a 35 percent partner in the licence.
Only 5,500 of the valley's 13,000 hectares are protected. The Upper Walbran was never included in the BC government's temporary deferrals enacted in the central part of the valley in 2021.
Upper Walbran exclusion from deferrals The Upper Walbran Valley was specifically identified by the Old Growth Strategic Review's Technical Advisory Panel as a priority area requiring deferral to prevent irreversible biodiversity loss. Ministry officials acknowledged in 2025 that "there is some overlap with old growth technical advisory panel deferral areas" in Upper Walbran. However, when the BC government secured two-year deferrals for the adjacent Fairy Creek (1,184 hectares) and Central Walbran (1,489 hectares) in June 2021, it specifically excluded Upper Walbran from protection, leaving eight approved cut blocks open for logging.
The exclusion occurred despite the Upper Walbran containing some of Vancouver Island's last intact old-growth watersheds with thousand-year-old trees including giant Sitka spruce and western red cedar. Environmental organizations argued the decision prioritized immediate economic concerns over scientific recommendations for ecosystems at very high risk. The approved logging operations by Tsawak-qin Forestry were valued at approximately $3 million in timber revenue, and the Pacheedaht First Nation stands to receive stumpage revenue from the harvest.
The blockade
Establishment of Cougar Camp On August 25, 2025, protesters established a camp blocking a logging road in the Walbran Valley. The camp, called "Cougar Camp" by blockaders, featured a large sculpture of a cougar made from wood reclaimed from past logging activity. The sculpture sat in the middle of the logging road, surrounded by small handmade wooden signs bearing slogans such as "Defend the old growth" and "Protect the sacred." Pacheedaht Elder Bill Jones was present at dawn on the first morning, leading approximately 30 people to block fallers from reaching the eight cut blocks. The blockade prevented Tsawak-qin Forestry from accessing tools, equipment, vehicles, and eight cut blocks on the other side of the blockade. Approximately 12 to 24 people were reported at the camp during early September, with tents and a sheltered kitchen area behind a fence made from rough planks of salvaged cedar.
Key participants Will O'Connell, who participated in the Fairy Creek blockades, learned of plans to log the Walbran Valley cut blocks more than a year before the blockade began. After seeing satellite images revealing logging had started, O'Connell said he experienced "a wonderful clarity" about taking action. O'Connell stated: "I spent five years feeling like there should be more I'm doing for the old growth. I should be doing something because I'm feeling a continuous sadness for the loss of these places and the betrayal of the government, who is continually not acting." Pacheedaht Elder Bill Jones, who was at the forefront of the Fairy Creek protests, was named as one of the parties in the court filing and the only person to respond to the injunction application. Others named in the court documents included John Doe, Jane Doe, and "persons unknown."
Motivation and policy context The Wilderness Committee characterized the five years since the review as "five lost years," with Tobyn Neame stating in 2024: "The endless delays from the BC NDP are resulting in the destruction of irreplaceable forests they vowed to protect." Stand.earth's satellite analysis revealed that logging occurred in 324 areas the government had counted as deferred, with 31,800 hectares of candidate deferral areas destroyed between 2020 and 2025 during government reviews and consultations.
Legal proceedings
Injunction application
Tsawak-qin Forestry Inc. and Tsawak-qin Forestry Limited Partnership filed for an injunction to protect their permitted logging operations from interference. The company's request stated that the Fairy Creek blockade "resulted in a significant breakdown in the rule of law" and warned the Walbran situation "risks spinning out of control again" unless the court intervened. A statement posted on the company's website on September 8 stated that Pacheedaht First Nation Chief and Council, whose territory the cut blocks are on, consented to Tsawak-qin's logging plans. The statement said: "Our planned activity incorporates specific measures to integrate cultural and ecological priorities, including the protection of culturally significant trees, support for traditional bark harvesting and respect for Indigenous Knowledge."
Court hearings The British Columbia Supreme Court heard arguments from both sides on September 9 and September 11, 2025, in Vancouver. On September 9, following a call-out for support from Fairy Creek social media accounts, approximately two dozen observers attended the morning proceedings. Lawyers representing Tsawak-qin argued the blockade was unlawful and undemocratic, preventing legal harvesting activities. They stated the blockade put 11 forestry jobs and millions in revenue at risk during a "critical time" of year for harvesting, as machinery cannot operate in heavy rain. The company also raised safety concerns, saying a fire truck and emergency transport vehicle were inaccessible behind the blockade. One of Tsawak-qin's lawyers described Cougar Camp as a "sophisticated, targeted and well-funded blockade" organized by the same group that carried out the Fairy Creek blockades.