First Nations blockade delays logging

A five-month-long First Nations blockade has forced Tolko Industries to temporarily give up its plans to log an area near Vernon, B.C.

Tolko's Mark Tamas said the Okanagan Indian Band's defiance of a B.C. Supreme Court order to lift the blockade has caused the company to miss the window for a winter harvest.

Tamas said the company will try to log again when the snow has melted and it will continue to complete fieldwork for an archeological plan for the forest.

Chief Stewart Phillip, with the Okanagan Nation Alliance, said the suspension of logging is a good opportunity to bring the federal and provincial governments in to negotiate a settlement.

Phillip said the band is most concerned about protecting its watershed and the archeological heritage that may be present in the 270 square kilometres of forest that make up Tolko's tree farm licence.

In January, the B.C. Supreme Court granted Tolko the right to harvest the pine-beetle infested wood, but limited the area to be logged while the company took the necessary steps to preserve archeological evidence.