For Immediate Release, March 27th, 2021
Contact:
Maayan Kreitzman 604 723 9577
Unceded Coast Salish Territories (VANCOUVER, BC) — Extinction Rebellion’s Vancouver chapter will engage in peaceful civil disobedience today, Saturday, March 27, 2021. Starting with a gathering at 12:00 noon on the North side of Vancouver City Hall, located on the unceded territory of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, the group plans to walk onto the Cambie Bridge and peacefully occupy public space, disrupting regular traffic.
The action, featuring speakers, music, and art, will take place on the same day as a mass mobilization at the B.C. Legislature to call for an immediate end to old growth logging - an action initiated by the group blockading logging of the Fairy Creek watershed on unceded Pacheedaht territory.
“Logging old growth directly violates Extinction Rebellions’s second demand to Act Now. Cutting down ancient forests not only destroys the rarest and most biodiverse habitat we have, it also trashes an extremely effective carbon sink and disturbs the soil, resulting in further CO2 emissions,” said Kelly Tatham, a volunteer with Extinction Rebellion. “These trees are a vital component of mitigating catastrophic warming and biodiversity loss on the planet and they deserve to be respected as ancient living beings - not ravaged for consumption.”
The BC government’s Old Growth Strategic Review Panel report, released in September 2020, recommended an overhaul of old-growth management in the province including a halt to logging in rare and at-risk ecosystems. The government has missed the six month report deadline and old-growth forests continue to be felled daily. Likewise, the Federal government is moving ahead with Trans Mountain pipeline construction against the recommendations of the PBO and CER, who, in reports last year, warned that the government-owned project would not be profitable if Canada takes action to cut its GHG emissions.
“With both pipelines and logging, governments are ignoring their own experts and continuing with dangerous and morally bankrupt resource exploitation that everyone knows has no future. That’s why we are demanding that power be transitioned to a Citizens’ Assembly on climate and ecological justice,” said Maayan Kreitzman, an Extinction Rebellion volunteer. “Citizens’ Assemblies empower regular people that represent what Canada actually looks like to decide on real solutions. They are our best hope to upgrade democracy in time to prevent climate-chaos fuelled social collapse and mass extinction of species.”
The group’s third demand regarding the creation of a Citizens’ Assembly (CA), is being forwarded through a proposed Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill for BC. CA’s are randomly selected groups of regular people who are tasked with making decisions after a process of deliberation, with the support of professional facilitation and access to experts.
Extinction Rebellion (XR) is an international grassroots movement that uses nonviolent direct action to mobilize the public to drive systemic change in the face of the climate and ecological crisis. Extinction Rebellion is fully made up of volunteers and relies solely on donations. Extinction Rebellion believes it is a citizen’s duty to rebel, using peaceful civil disobedience, when faced with criminal inactivity by their Government. XR Vancouver’s four demands are:
Government must respond to the climate and ecological crisis with a just transformation that is actively decolonial, prioritizing the livelihoods of workers and the rights of those most oppressed by the present system, including our non-human relations.
Government must tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency, working with other institutions to communicate the urgency for change.
Government must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025.
Government must create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens’ Assembly on climate and ecological justice. ###