Daily Herald Contributor
Members from the environmental group Protect Our Forest were in downtown Prince Albert on Friday protesting against deforestation in northern Saskatchewan.
Members protested outside the former Prince Albert Forestry Centre on 800 Central Avenue, which now houses the USaks’ Prince Albert Campus. The group included members from the Wahpeton, Sturgeon Lake, and Holbeing areas, who say forests in that part of the province have important cultural value and house heritage sites along the North Saskatchewan River.
Protest organizers said it is one of the few intact forested areas still left, it is highly important for passing culture to the next generation. This is the area where the historic fur trade Hudson House was located, including a cemetery.
“We’ve been in consultation with this Provincial Forestry for about two years,” Carol Friedhoff, co-organizer of the Protect Our Forest said. “We want to protect our forest. As far as we know, we had a one year moratorium. They were going to wait a year before they started cutting. And then all of a sudden we got a new comer to the deal and he knows nothing about our struggles. He is always to busy. He said there is no records there is no paper work for the one year moratorium but we have been doing it for two years.”
Other protesters said trees are not being replanted after they are cut down. In cases where they are replanted, protesters said, the replanted trees are alien to the environment, or improperly spaced, which does not allow for free movement of animals in the forest.
“I am a harvester and gatherer, I gather different herbs and teas … all that stuff is all medicine for us,’ Linda Day another protester said. “Berries, blue berries, cranberries, Saskatoons, we are not going to be able to pick them. We will have to go way on the other side of La Range to pick them. That’s 100 miles or more that we have to go and pick our fruits and vegetables. We are not going to have our backyards anymore.”
Another protester, Barbara Applegate, was concerned about local wildlife.
“How will the animals eat? What will they eat? How will they hide from other animals and humans? The trees are not there,” she said. “When they are planting they put the trees so close together, the trees are so packed. They should give room for the animals to walk through too.”
“Why can’t they do it in a sustainable way? Indigenous peoples are starting to stand up for their own lands and if we want something replaced, we want our own stuff back. We’ve been on these lands for over 10,000 years,” Friedhoff said. “We are just the little guys up against huge corporate companies and the Government doesn’t seem to back us. As far as I can see, the whole province is for sale.”
The Ministry of Environment previously stopped plans to clear cut trees in the Holbein and Crutwell areas northwest of Prince Albert in January. The Ministry is unable to comment due to the ongoing provincial election campaign.
