B.C. man hospitalized on 24th day of hunger strike to protest old-growth logging

A group protesting old-growth logging in B.C. says one of its members has been hospitalized on the 24th day of a hunger strike.

Save Old Growth says 68-year-old Howard Breen’s “death-watch team” noted he was experiencing blurred vision, loss of balance, back pain around the kidneys and possible heart problems.

Breen said earlier Saturday that he stopped drinking liquids two days earlier in a bid to pressure the province to stop all old-growth logging due to the climate crisis and that he won’t end his protest until the forests minister agrees to a public meeting.

The activist group says one of Breen’s daughters, who is a nurse, assessed him at his home in Nanaimo and called an ambulance.

“His status is unclear as we have not yet heard the results of any tests, however our understanding is he will likely be put onto an IV drip,” the group said in a statement. 

Breen started his hunger strike on April 1 after 57-year-old Brent Eichler who has now gone 31 days without food.

Breen said Saturday that he will continue his protest until Forests Minister Katrine Conroy agrees to a recorded Zoom meeting that would be available to the public

Conroy has said in a statement that she spoke with Breen and Eichler on Friday and had a “meaningful conversations” with Breen and Eichler.

Conroy refused to meet with them and other members of a Save Old Growth group.

“It was very clear that she had no interest in a public, recordable meeting on Zoom with her chief forester, deputy minister or whoever else she wanted to bring to it. And, of course, we would have brought our climate and forests experts,” Breen had said from his home in Nanaimo.

“I hung up on the minister because she was just giving me this typical line,” he said. “With the urgency that the moment requires there was no time, really, to be wasted further discussing something that was prepared to meet us halfway on.”

Related Article: B.C. man wanting public meeting has ‘death-watch monitors’ on Day 23 of hunger strike

The statement from the group says the hunger strikers insist “they will not stop until they get a commitment from the minister to hold a public meeting.”

Conroy said she had “meaningful conversations” with Breen and Eichler.

“I conveyed my distress for their well-being while listening directly to their concerns. I urged them to protect their health as we continue the important work to protect old-growth forests,” she said in an emailed statement from the Forests Ministry.

Breen called the conversation “polite,” but said other action taken by Save Old Growth, including recent blockades of bridges and major roads, points to the seriousness of the “climate emergency” linked to logging.

However, he denied some commuters were angry about the group’s tactics, saying there is widespread support for those participating in various forms of protest while risking arrest. Two people were taken into custody last week after allegedly chaining themselves to a 227-kilogram barrel placed in the middle of the Trans-Canada Highway on Vancouver Island.

They want the B.C. government to stop all old-growth logging in the province.

Related Articles: 

• Climate change cited as reason to deny injunction extension over logging in B.C.

• Indigenous leaders concerned over B.C. government’s old-growth deferral process

• Ongoing protest over old-growth logging on Vancouver Island marks one year

Members of Save Old Growth are among the more than 1,000 people who have been arrested in the Ferry Creek watershed northwest of Victoria for allegedly violating an injunction against blockades.

B.C. Supreme Court has heard about 400 of them were charged with criminal contempt.

Breen said the RCMP arrested him elsewhere for other protests and that he is currently facing 12 charges, including for three times when he glued his hands to logs.

The province appointed an independent, two-person panel in 2019 to review old-growth policies and is also consulting with the public.

Conroy announced earlier this month that B.C. was working with First Nations to defer logging across more than a million hectares of old-growth forests at risk of permanent loss, an area greater than 4,100 Stanley Parks.

 

– With files from Nikitha Martins and Robyn Crawford