On July 3, 12 Greenpeace climbers formed an aerial blockade to stop oil tanker traffic from leaving Vancouver, hanging from Vancouver's Ironworkers Memorial Bridge, while flying banners designed by Indigenous artists from North America. Their message was to communicate the threat that the proposed Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline would have on the climate as well as the waters of the Salish Sea, as tanker traffic increases, further threatening the 75 remaining endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales. The climbers stayed on the bridge for two days, blocking the oil tanker Serene Sea from leaving Kinder Morgan’s Westridge Marine Terminal. On Thursday seven climbers were arrested. On this episode of Locus Focus, we talk with one of them.
Mary Lovell, one of seven activists arrested on July 5 as she descended from the 2nd Narrows Bridge, is a 26-year old young woman, sister, artist, and environmental and social justice activist based in Vancouver. Born in Baltimore and raised in Seattle, she has called the Pacific Northwest coast home for most of her life. She got her start as a door-to-door canvasser, talking to people about the environmental justice issues with the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion. Her stories of activism and experience in the environmental justice resistance have been featured in Teen Vogue, National Observer, and Ricochet.
- KBOO