ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the way in which environmental blockading in Canada became fully established from 1986 to 1989 as a way of defending biodiverse places. The means of blockading developed along two core lines. The first followed precedents already set by Indigenous activists in broadening tactics associated with deploying barricades and bodies to block roads and occupy sites in order to protest biodiverse places and assert sovereignty over them. The chapter chronicles, in the context of new court decisions and changing government policies, how First Nations led campaigns in British Columbia, Ontario, Alberta, and elsewhere continued to combine Obstructive Direct Action, litigation and other strategies, in ways that became increasingly differentiated.
The chapter also explores how a second body of tactics emerged. These echoed developments in Australia and the United States in that they mainly involved non-Indigenous activists who turned to techniques of manufactured vulnerability that involved smaller numbers of activists minimising arrests via tactics such as tree-sits and lock-ons. The history of campaigns to defend forests in British Columbia and Ontario is used to explore patterns of diffusion, collaboration, and conflict with First Nations communities, and the development of distinct approaches to strategy, organisation, and normative protester behaviour.
