Zain Haq, a history student, is 21 years old. He defends what is left of the primary forest that is near Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. This week he began serving his sentence for blocking work on an oil pipeline, the “TransMountain”.
For five hours, he remained seated in front of the construction site, preventing the deforestation machines from passing, until the gendarmerie arrived, arrested him and a judge sentenced him to 14 days in prison. But Zain Haq keeps smiling, and he tells the media who are worried about him: “being arrested by the Canadian police and finding myself in a Canadian prison, he told Global Citizen magazineit’s a straw compared to all that awaits us, and what awaits us is the climate crisis.”
This morning, Zain Haq, a 21 year old organizer of Save Old Growth will be sentenced to 14 days in prison at the BC Supreme court in Vancouver for breaking the injunction against the TMX Pipeline#SaveOldGrowth pic.twitter.com/HtSkJA0mwh
— Save Old Growth (@saveoldgrowth) February 15, 2022
Like many young people, what he fears is having to endure a succession of heat waves, floods, episodes of drought. In other words, an unlivable future. Born in 2001, he is part of the generation that grew up talking about the urgency of saving the planet, the dangers of greenhouse gases, global warming, the consumption of fossil fuels, oil, coal and gas. He saw the reports on endangered species, deforestation, he walked for the climate and sorted his waste.
And then he learned that a new 1000km pipeline was going to be built in his region, in addition to another already in service. Objective of this project: to triple oil deliveries to Canada, from 300,000 barrels per day to 900,000, a project that involves razing thousands of trees in a conservation area, as well as crossing a river and drilling through a mountain .
“I dedicate my time in prison to each of the 600 people who died in the heat dome and other climate disasters in BC last year. They will not die in vain” Zain Haq#SaveOldGrowth (picture credits @ttakaro) pic.twitter.com/dBDrgdPYx0
— Save Old Growth (@saveoldgrowth) February 16, 2022
Zain was shocked at first and then faced a dilemma: post his outrage on social media or go on the spot. He chose the second option and to physically try to delay the works, by remaining seated. Since 2020, he has been arrested nine times and then the tenth time a judge decided to send him to prison for violating the court’s injunction not to obstruct the works. But Zain pleaded guilty, and he is calm: “I keep hope, he told the National Observer newspaper, we can change the laws to preserve the planet, and if we have to go through prison to convince, well it’s not the end of the world, the real end of the world, that’s what will happen if we do not change anything.“