The blockade continues at the Bigmouth Forest Service Road, 120 kilometres north of Revelstoke.

After three months, Old Growth Revylution is determined to prevent repair work on a road in the area unless it鈥檚 for deactivation and the abandonment of plans to log in the Argonaut and adjacent Bigmouth drainage.

鈥淲e鈥檙e afraid that if we leave, they鈥檙e quite capable of ploughing those roads and logging in the winter,鈥� said Virginia Thompson, a member of Old Growth Revylution, in a news release. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 know if we can pull it off, but we are sure going to try. We have a few people who are very at home in the backcountry and know-how to winter camp and don鈥檛 mind being quite solitary.鈥�

The protest, which started with marches in the city in solidarity with the blockades at Fairy Creek on Vancouver Island, morphed into a more local focus, with the Revelstoke blockade beginning July 7.

The blockaders are protecting three cut blocks that were not included with 11 others in a government deferral, December 2020, meant to temporarily prevent logging in the area until the caribou herd planning process is complete.

The demand to leave the Argonaut drainage alone is supported by First Nations, including the Splatsin and Ktunaxa Nations, and environmental organizations, such as Wildsight, Y2Y, Wilderness Committee and Valhalla Wilderness Society.

Also of concern is the inland temperate rainforest in the area.

鈥淭he decline of mountain caribou has mirrored the destruction of the inland temperate rainforest ecosystem,鈥� said Eddie Petryshen, Wildsight conservation specialist, in a news release.

Since setting up camp on the forest service road, Downie Timber has stopped road building and harvesting operations in the area.

鈥淯ntil the B.C. government honours the conditions of their own Old Growth Strategic Review Panel and releases maps of areas that should be deferred because they are at near term risk of irreversible biodiversity loss, the land defenders will continue to take action to protect the last intact areas of the globally unique inland temperate rainforest in the valleys north of Revelstoke,鈥� said Old Growth Revylution in the news release.

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