A B.C. First Nation has mounted a legal challenge against the Ministry of Forests after one of its officials approved a timber-cutting permit in forests that overlap with a proposed Indigenous conservation area.

In an April 21 application, the Kanaka Bar Indian Band claims a district manager approved cutting permits for Interwest Timber Ltd. to harvest roughly 35 hectares across four cut blocks.

B.C.’s Office for the Attorney General and staff for Kanaka Bar both declined to comment on the petition. Interwest did not respond to emails and phone calls by the time of publication.

None of the claims have been tested in court.

The logging area, which also includes a permit to build an access road, “substantially overlaps” with traditional territory the band has spent years negotiating to protect.

In an affidavit, band councillor Pauline Michell described its traditional territory as its “backyard” where extracting resources requires consent.

“The overall impact to the area will be devastating for decades,” Michell said. “There will be things that don’t come back ever.”

One of 15 communities of the Nlaka’pamux Nation, most of the Kanaka Bar people live in several reserves south of Lytton, B.C. Their traditional territory, known as T’eqt’aqt’n or “the crossing place” spans 32,000 hectares of rugged terrain in the Fraser River Canyon.

While Interwest has held a forest licence in the area since 1998, the band has intentionally limited industrial activity. In 2021, leadership declined a logging company’s request for access, choosing instead to pursue an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA) across three watersheds—the Kwoiek, Four-Barrel and Siwash.

Since then, the band has established regular discussions with the province, with the goal of turning the entire forested area into a conservation area similar to the neighbouring Stein Valley Nlaka’pamux Heritage Provincial Park.

By 2026, Kanaka Bar claims the project was well underway. The band had built up an endowment worth millions of dollars, and the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship had signalled it was willing to explore other legal designations by filing a “notation of interest” for the project.

‘Like dropping a pebble in the water’

For the Kanaka Bar, a lot is at stake. Located in a transition zone where coastal old-growth meets Ponderosa pine, the territory hosts a unique, newly identified ecosystem of desert parsley and grassy stands.

A 2022 screening report identified 42 at-risk species—including the Northern spotted owl and white sturgeon—alongside grizzly bears, cougars and mountain sheep. The land also boasts Canada’s largest Interior Douglas fir and B.C.’s largest Rocky Mountain juniper.

Beyond conservation, the band sees a future in ecotourism, centred on landmarks like the Kwoiek Needle and Schist Peak, the tallest mountain in southwest B.C., according to documents filed in court.

Recent wildfires have already put pressure on the landscape. In her affidavit, Coun. Michell said fire has decimated staple foods like pine mushrooms. She warned that machinery used for logging will only cause more damage and have a lasting impact on the land and the food it produces.

“When you disturb one, it affects all of them,” she said of the plants and trees in her people’s territory. “It is like dropping a pebble in the water and seeing how it ripples out.”

After learning about the permit approval, Kanaka Bar’s lands manager Sean O’Rourke visited a proposed cut block, he said in an affidavit. The area contained trees between 140 and 250 years old, and when he arrived he found some with bear claw marks on their trunks.

There were also signs humans had been there: several trees had been spray painted and flagged for harvest.

O’Rourke claimed the ministry gave the company permission to build a road leading directly past the cemetery of a Japanese cattle ranching family that occupied the area over a century ago—all with no buffer zone. The forested area also likely contains a large number of archaeological sites important to the Kanaka Bar Indian Band, he said.

“Based on what I observed, the cut block appears to have been prepared to be harvested,” O’Rourke said in his affidavit.

Band claims consultation breached ‘Honour of the Crown’

The legal petition alleges the Ministry of Forests’ consultation process fell far short of what’s required by law.

In the fall of 2025, Interwest attempted to notify the nation of its intent to log in the area. Two letters allegedly delivered through physical mail were included in court filings. But according to Kanaka Bar Chief Jordan Spinks, he never received them.

Correspondence included in an affidavit filed by Spinks show a senior advisor with the Ministry of Forests emailed the chief on March 6, 2026, reminding him of the fall letters from Interwest. The email also informs the chief that one of the proposed cut blocks overlaps with Kanaka Bar’s proposed conservation area.

Spinks claimed he didn’t see the email until early April, a few days after the Ministry of Forests official approved the permit “without any meaningful consultation.”

In an affidavit, the chief said the email was only sent to him, and that it was lost in the shuffle of the 50-75 daily emails he receives as chief.

On April 8, Spinks claimed he spoke to Minister of Forests Ravi Parmar in Victoria, B.C., stating his frustration that the ministry had approved logging permits within Kanaka Bar’s planned conservation area.

“Just to make it clear, Kanaka Bar is not in support of this cutting permit,” Spinks later wrote a ministry advisor.

Kanaka Bar alleges the district manager’s decision to approve the logging permits was “unreasonable” because the Ministry of Forests official approved cut blocks without considering another ministry’s past work to turn the forests into a conservation area.

Kanaka alleges the official breached their constitutional duty to consult the band and “failed to uphold the Honour of the Crown.”

The request for judicial review asks the court to quash and set aside the decision and remit it back to the district manager’s so they can “meaningfully consult and seek accommodation with Kanaka Bar.” It is also seeking a temporary injunction to restrain Interwest from harvesting in the area.

​Legal challenge invokes controversial DRIPA ruling

The petition comes at a volatile moment for resource extraction in B.C.

Exports stifled by an ongoing trade war with the United States has led industry groups to pressure government to fast-track permitting on everything from mining and fossil fuel projects to logging.

The court action also leans on a late-2025 B.C. Court of Appeal decision that has helped precipitate a political crisis for the B.C. government.

The Gitxaala Nation had earlier challenged B.C.’s mineral claims regime as “inconsistent” with the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA).

B.C.’s Legislative Assembly passed the act in a unanimous 2019 vote. In the years since, the law has acted as a blueprint guiding how the B.C. government will implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

The legislation also provides a mechanism for the province to enter into agreements with Indigenous governments to share or delegate statutory decision-making authority. In certain areas, that process is expected to lead to joint or consent-based governance.

But in its landmark 2-1 ruling, the appeal court found DRIPA is not merely aspirational policy but is incorporated into B.C. law. That means courts could legally enforce DRIPA as an “interpretive lens” through which B.C. laws must be viewed and measured.

The BC Conservative Party and some industry leaders have called for DRIPA to be repealed entirely, raising concerns that the court precedent could be used by First Nations to upend existing laws that govern resource extraction in B.C.

B.C. Premier David Eby aggressively moved to push through amendments to DRIPA, only to walk back those plans when First Nations from across the province—as well as those from inside his governing caucus—put up a “wall of opposition,” as the premier put it.

Last week, Eby and the First Nations Leadership Council (FNLC) released a joint statement announcing the government would abandon its spring plans to introduce legislation that would suspend or amend DRIPA and other legal provisions impacted by the Court of Appeal ruling.

The province and FNLC would work together with all First Nation leaders “on a path forward to discuss and consider the government’s stated legal concerns, while upholding the title and rights and human rights of First Nations,” the April 20 statement said.

“Together, we commit to genuine collaboration to find solutions as soon as possible, and before the fall legislative session.”