🚀 go-pugleaf

  A  community  protest  against  the   University   of   British
Columbia's   plan  to  clear-cut  a  south  campus  forest  ended
September 21 - 100 days from the stormy  June  evening  on  which
the tree-sitters first entered the area.


  Those persons who were conceived to be active  protestors  were
served  a  Writ  of  Summons  from  the  Supreme Court of British
Columbia  on  September  16.  On  the  advice  of  lawyers,   the
protestors  decided  to  leave  the  site at 16th Avenue and East
Mall. None of those involved could afford the  impoverishment  of
years of litigation in the courts should the University bring its
heavily-punitive injunction against the group.


  The restraining order sought by the  UBC  administration  would
have  brought criminal charges, including trespass, intimidation,
nuisance,   obstruction,   interference,   conspiracy.   Attached
affidavits asserted vandalism and theft.


  The document named ten persons: ironically, a number  of  these
persons  had  simply  entered  the  area to help remove tents and
equipment. Also listed in the Writ of  Summons  were  "John  Doe,
Jane Doe, and persons unknown."


  In short, the restraint would ensure that no person,  known  or
"unknown,"  might  act  on  individual conscience without putting
*all* persons at risk.


  The University  now  has  a  powerful  corporate  tool  in  the
restraining  order.  A  Board  of  Governors' agreement this past
summer assured that the University would follow public process in
its  plans  from  now  on: as it happens, the first act of public
process, not two  months  later,  found  the  UBC  administration
asking  the  Supreme Court of B.C. for a criminal reading against
its own students and neigbours.


  Community protestors supported the tree-sitting action for  100
days  to  draw  public  attention to UBC's South Campus Plan. The
Plan would cut down all remaining  forest  on  that  16th  Avenue
site, replacing the trees with great tracts of market housing and
industrial research facilities. Plans for increased road  systems
to  "double  vehicular traffic" (University planner Andrew Brown,
in  a  June  public  meeting)  would  make  traffic  islands   of
playgrounds  and  schools,  and would further pollute residential
living spaces.


  Finally, the South Campus Plan would change the whole nature of
the  University,  from  a  public  institution  to a private one.
Perhaps president David  Strangway  envisions  a  Corporation  of
Advanced  Engineering  as  the  future for this Point Grey campus
(see *Vancouver Sun*, July 30, 1993).


  Protestors at the South Campus site do not share the  Strangway
vision.  They  went  to  the public lands at 16th Avenue and East
Mall this summer to represent *their* B.C. constituency,  and  to
fight for its rights.


                                    Nancy Horsman