DIARY ENTRY FROM:

Marleen

June 14 , 1997

My name is Marleen and I'm from Belgium. Lots of people, both at home and here in Canada want to know why I come here to protest the forest industries practices. "Isn't there enough work to be done where you live?", they want to know.

I'll tell you why I come here. Fighting genetically engineered foods, chemicals for agriculture, nuclear transports and more of this technical stuff makes me forget sometimes that it's nature I want to protect. We in Europe have no pristine areas left. Where I live, it makes your day to see a squirrel, let alone a fox.

For years I thought we in Europe were quite happy. We have parks, make a tree a protected monument, and we don't cut the grass along the roads anymore to allow wild flowers to blossom and spread their seeds.

But I never realised we were so environmentally conscious for the sake of survival. We have gone too far. There's no real nature left. In their effort to provide a better material future for their kids, my parent's and their parents' generation took away what their children need most to survive: a healthy and rich environment.

So if you want to know why I sit on a tripod 10 metres above the ground over a logging road, eat and sleep on this tripod, if you want to know why I came here and risk arrest in stopping the logging companies, this is why. Because I care. I don't want Canada's future generating to feel as deprived as I do. My parents may not have been aware of what they were doing, and now that they know, it's too late. I want to make people see that once it's gone, you can't replace it and make it exactly as it was before anymore.