RCMP move to end Fairy Creek blockade on Vancouver Island, allowing logging to resume

RCMP saythey have begun enforcing a court injunction banning blockades of logging activities in an area of western Vancouver Island.

In a statement, RCMP say they are temporarily controlling access to the Fairy Creek watershed area northeast of Port Renfrew as they enforce the civil injunction.

The statement says the controls were imposed Monday to allow loggers with Teal-Cedar Products to start work.

A checkpoint on a forest service road leading to the area will remain in place until the company has completed its work.

The RCMP say enough police officers are in the area to keep the peace.

Protesters have had blockades at the Fairy Creek watershed since last summer to block Teal-Jones, a Surrey-based forestry company, from logging the old-growth forest within the company's 595-square-kilometre tenure.

The B.C. Supreme Court issued the injunction April 1, allowing logging in an area that protesters say is one of the last remaining stands of old growth timber on southern Vancouver Island.

Teal-Jones vice-president Gerrie Kotze said after the injunction was granted that most of the watershed that falls within the company's tenure is unavailable for logging and its plans at Fairy Creek been "mischaracterized.''

The company plans to harvest a small area at the head of the watershed, well away from the San Juan River, Kotze said in a statement last month.