Anti-logging protest becomes Canada’s biggest ever act of civil disobedience

At least 866 arrested since April, as police condemned for violence against protesters defending Vancouver Island's ancient forests

A string of protests against old-growth logging in western Canada have become the biggest act of civil disobedience in the country's history, with the arrest of least 866 people since April.

The bitter fight over the future of Vancouver Island's diminishing ancient forests - in which activists used guerrilla methods of resistance such as locking their bodies to the logging road and police responded by beating, dragging and pepper-spraying demonstrators - has surpassed the previous record of arrests set in the 1990s at the anti-logging protests dubbed the War in the Woods".