Numbers dwindle at the protest camp on Burnaby Mountain

Only about half a dozen people remain at the site of a protest camp on Burnaby Mountain this morning, a far cry from the huge crowds yesterday.

Police have also blocked vehicle traffic up to the anti-pipeline protest site, so protesters wanting to return to the camp will have to go on a bit of a hike.

On Thursday, 26 Kinder Morgan protesters were arrested on Burnaby Mountain; seven of them were released on a promise not to return to the campsite. The rest of them are being given the same option and if they agree to abide by the court order they will be released.

It took a few hours for police to remove all the protesters from the upper camp, many of them yelling to supporters and media nearby as they were arrested. “We believe in another way, we believe in a clean and just transition,” activist Brigette DePape yells as she is arrested. DePape first came to public attention for holding up a ‘Stop Harper’ sign in Parliament in 2011. “We stand with First Nations people who oppose the Kinder Morgan pipeline.”

To applause and cheers, one woman walked past the yellow police tape and went to the structure where the sacred fire is burning. “I am staying here, I am not moving our sacred lands,” she says. Two demonstrators remain inside the structure where the fire is burning and are still talking with RCMP about moving the fire to another location on the mountain.

One protester was in a tree at another site but he was removed by RCMP.

WATCH the raw footage of the protester being removed:

Kinder Morgan workers arrived on site at about 12:45 p.m. In a press release the company says they are pleased the majority of individuals complied with the order to move out of the designated area. They say their crews will be “respectfully relocating any items that are in the designated work area.”

RCMP says personal items will be catalogued and safely stored inside a secure container and people will be given access to those items.

Kinder Morgan will begin mapping out a work area today.

The RCMP are also in discussions with First Nations on how to respectfully remove a sacred fire and totem pole that remain inside the zone and in contravention of the order.

“We want to be clear. The RCMP is acting under the order of the B.C. Supreme Court. As always, our long term goal is to honour the protesters rights to peacefully protest, to carry out the orders from the court and most importantly to ensure public safety for all those involved,” Burnaby RCMP says in a press release.

More than 20 police officers moved in on the protest camp that has been there for weeks, wearing video cameras on their uniforms.

“The people are protesting, they’ve been given an area, a legal assembly area to protest and we’re just conducting our investigation,” says S/Sgt Major John Buis.

The first thing officers did when they arrived was ask the protesters to move to the other side of the road and they read out the court order that the protesters were told to move their camp by Monday at 4 p.m.

Buis says a temporary road restriction has been put in place on Centennial Way while officers clear the camp.

On Nov. 14 Kinder Morgan was granted an injunction by the B.C. Supreme Court to remove protesters from the mountain. The company’s lawyer argued in court the activists prevented field studies to build the Trans Mountain pipeline in the area.

Simon Fraser University Prof. Lynne Quarmby, a defendant in the injunction ruling, told The Canadian Press she is very disappointed police are taking action today and believes the officers are operating under “tremendous pressure” from the energy giant.