Sky-high protest stalls Cathedral Grove plans
for parking
Sandra McCulloch
Times Colonist
Saturday, July 24, 2004
The future of a proposed parking area at Cathedral
Grove is up in the air.
The stand of Douglas fir and western red cedar
is part of MacMillan Provincial Park located 16 kilometres east
of Port Alberni, on Highway 4.
Eight platforms provide housing for protesters
high in the canopy above the site where the province wants to
build a new, two-hectare parking lot.
Currently, parking at the popular park is little
more than pull-outs on either side of the busy road.
The protesters want the province to expropriate
400 acres surrounding the park and declare it a heritage forest.
They're also asking for the province to listen to public input.
Bill Barisoff, minister for water, land and
air protection, said Friday the government is in discussions
with Weyerhaeuser over expanding the park.
But he also remains committed to putting a
parking lot at the recommended site. A recent visit to the park
highlighted the safety hazards of people running across the
busy road.
"The safety issue has always been a concern,"
said Barisoff.
"It's such a magnificent area. When you
walk through it again you realize how magnificent it is."
Barisoff said the parking issue has been studied
for 10 to 12 years and it's time to move ahead. He expects construction
will begin in the fall.
In May, the courts quashed a bid by the province
to stop protesters from in-terfering with the construction of
the lot. The government's will to build the parking lot is matched
by protesters who want to stop it on the basis that its construction
will harm the big trees.
The protesters are a loosely knit group of
"non-violent civil-disobedience activists," said spokesman
Ingmar Lee.
"We are disappointed that none of the
organized environmental groups are interested in getting involved
in the kind of action it takes to stop the Gordon Campbell government."
The platforms built by the protesters form
part of a blockade, said Lee, a 44-year-old UVic student of
environmental studies.
"It's right at the entrance where the
province wants to install a 150-slot parking lot. I feel to
save these last tracts of primeval forest is very important.
The primeval forest of Vancouver Island is 97 per cent gone,
exterminated."
The small collection of giants at Cathedral
Grove draws a million tourists each year, testament to the public's
value of old-growth forests, he said.
The protesters have a reasonable alternative
to the "log it, burn it, pave it" style of parking
lot favoured by the government, Lee said.
He recommends a parking area be put under utility
lines that run along the north side of the highway.
"It runs parallel to the highway, right
through the park, all the way to Port Alberni. It's 66 feet
wide and it can accommodate literally thousands of angle-parked
cars.
"What the government would need to do
is make an artful one-lane
(access) road without cutting any of the big trees."
The protesters aren't going to go away, Lee said.
"This patch of Douglas fir forest is internationally
important, it's significant and it's worth fighting for. Whether
we win or lose the parking lot issue, we're there to stay."
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2004
