Grassy Narrows just secured a ‘major landmark’ — 20 years after its logging blockade began
First Nation in northwestern Ontario gains promise that no logging company or lumber mill will touch trees from their land without their permission.
From the Toronto Star
Fri., Dec. 2, 2022
For 20 years, they’ve blockaded and marched, gone to court and negotiated, sang and drummed to protect their forest from clear-cutting.
And on the eve of the celebration of two decades of resistance, they have received word that no logging company or lumber mill will touch any trees from their land without their permission.
“This is a major landmark in our long fight to protect our Territory from industry,” said Chief Rudy Turtle of Asubpeeschoseewagong First Nation, more commonly known as Grassy Narrows.
“With this promise, all regional mills have finally committed not to use our trees against our will.”
It’s a victory that has come from years of protest on a remote gravel road in northwestern Ontario, but one that was sealed during a Zoom call between the head of the Weyerhaeuser Company, which owns a lumber mill in Kenora, and Turtle’s predecessor as band council chief, Randy Fobister.
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