Access to several logging sites in the Laurentides wildlife reserve is blocked by Aboriginal people demanding that the cuts be stopped on Tuesday, south of Saguenay.
A group of Innu and Atikamekw united within the Collectif Mashk Assi, supported by non-natives, block access to a forest road at kilometer 216 of Route 175.
“We plan to stay until the cuts officially end,” he told The Press Michaël Paul, spokesperson for the Mashk Assi Collective.
PHOTO FROM THE MASHK ASSI COLLECTIVE FACEBOOK PAGE
A group of Innu and Atikamekw united within the Collectif Mashk Assi, supported by non-natives, block access to a forest road at kilometer 216 of Route 175.
The group denounces the “ransacking” of this Nitassinan, this ancestral territory, by the forestry companies to which the Quebec government has granted logging authorizations south of Lake Kénogami.
“We never consented to these logging operations,” says the Collectif Mashk Assi, which affixed posters to business machinery over the weekend, ordering them to leave the territory, and sent eviction notices by registered mail, Monday.
“By destroying our forests, you are destroying our living environment and you are violating our right to bequeath our territory, our identity, and our ancestral way of life to future generations”, mentions the eviction notice, indicated the collective in a social media posting.
More details to come.