Old Growth Forests Are Vital to Indigenous Cultures. We Need to Protect What’s Left

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The BC government wants to hear from the public as it reviews old growth logging policies.

The Tyee, OPINION- Joe Martin
January 28, 2020

Joe Martin is a master canoe carver and artist from the Tla-o-qui-aht Nation, a tribe of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth First Nations, located in Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island.

Eden Grove Port Renfrew
The unprotected Eden Grove Ancient Forest, located on Edinburgh Mountain near Port Renfrew, BC, in Pacheedaht First Nation territory. Photo by TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance.

The B.C. government is reviewing its policies to manage the province’s old growth forests and seeking public input.

This should be the opportunity for the government to start righting the mistakes of the past.

This new approach must obey the law of nature, under which we all live. This means we must understand Earth’s ecological limits and learn to respect them and live within them.

In Nuu-chah-nulth culture, the teachings of responsibility and respect for the land are passed down by our Elders as soon as our lives are conceived, and they continue until we die. These teachings are cornerstones of our culture, but they are foreign concepts to the provincial government and industry, who view our old growth forests as limitless resources to be plundered.

In my 12 years as a logger in Clayoquot Sound, I witnessed the destruction of some of the biggest trees and finest old growth forests I had ever seen. I witnessed the decimation of salmon streams, once teeming with steelhead, chum and coho, due to the clearcutting of entire valleys and landslides on the steep mountain slopes.

Although there have been significant conservation achievements in Clayoquot Sound through Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Parks, the destruction of old growth forests continues throughout much of B.C., and the province has continually failed to acknowledge how much has already been lost.

I was eventually fired from my job as a logger for refusing to haul two big logs across a salmon-bearing stream, knowing the logs would destroy key salmon habitat. I felt as though a weight had been lifted. I had become increasingly bothered by how horrible it was, what was happening to the land, so I joined in the effort to save the forest ecosystems I had once been paid to log.

I also took up fishing with my father, who worked as a fisherman, hunter, trapper and canoe builder. Throughout my life he taught me those skills and about how to respect the land, how to avoid disturbing the creeks in the forest to protect the coho, and the protocol to follow when selecting a cedar to cut for our cultural items — spending time in the forest, observing the birds and wildlife and avoiding trees with eagle’s nests or bear or cougar dens close by.

Our people practised for abundance rather than “sustainability.” To me, sustainability means keeping our natural resources on a lifeline until they’re eventually gone or until industry has finally had enough and moved on. Practising for abundance is making sure that your grandchildren won’t have to work as hard as you did. It’s ensuring that when we leave this garden for them, they will have everything they need.

This abundance is what allowed the Nuu-chah-nulth peoples to develop such a rich culture, which depends heavily on the availability of old growth red cedar in particular. We use cedar bark and wood for many cultural items such as woven hats, dugout canoes, totems, bentwood boxes and regalia. Our relationship and respect for these trees, the land and wildlife is represented and reinforced when we create and use these items, and we continue to rely on healthy forest ecosystems to maintain our culture.

Klanawa-Valley-Creek-Logged.jpg
Old-growth logging on steep slopes can impact rivers and streams, potentially damaging sensitive salmon habitat. Photo by TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance.

The destruction of old growth forests, for Nuu-chah-nulth peoples, equates to a loss of identity. The loss of connection to the land and of our languages threatens our survival and is the cause of many of the social problems in our communities.

Many communities, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, are struggling due to the destruction of forests caused by provincial government mismanagement. On Vancouver Island, about 80 per cent of big-tree forests have been cut and replaced with tree plantations. Much of what remains are bogs or scrub.

Yet companies are still clearcut logging across most of B.C., destroying rivers and streams and harming salmon and other wildlife. Jobs have been lost due to the failure of the province to stop industry from cleaning out the best old growth in the valleys and support slower, careful forestry and processing second-growth timber instead. With so little old growth forest remaining, now is the time for the province to act.

We must listen to what Indigenous wisdom and science tells us, which is that we need to protect more forests to ensure their integrity and our own survival. The B.C. government needs to heed this wisdom and science in its old growth strategy. That means deciding what must be protected before deciding what can or can’t be logged. It means prioritizing biodiversity, fisheries, monumental trees, carbon storage, Indigenous culture, recreation and clean water over timber.

This must be coupled with support for Indigenous communities and economies. Without economic alternatives, many nations do not have the option of refusing logging in their territories.

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The author Joe Martin, photographed in his workshop in Tofino, BC, next to a traditional dugout canoe made of old growth red cedar. Photo by TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance.

We must all make a living, and if there are few employment alternatives to destructive resource extraction, what choice is there? None. And so our lands and our culture are sacrificed. The government must provide funding for First Nations’ economic diversification to create jobs while allowing remaining old-growth forests and culturally important areas to be protected.

The Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Parks in Clayoquot Sound are a good example. Tourism and recreation are big economic drivers here, and there is much work to be done in the tribal parks like building and maintaining infrastructure, which could lead a lot of our people away from jobs in logging and fish farming. I believe this would make the whole community much happier and it would be a great investment for future generations.

The province must recognize the cultural significance of the old growth forests that play such an important role in our lives. They must legally recognize and support Indigenous protected areas like tribal parks, starting in Clayoquot Sound, but also across B.C., and work with nations to support Indigenous-led land-use planning. It’s an important part of our peoples governing ourselves.

We have a responsibility to our future generations, and to uphold the teachings of our ancestors. We have to learn how to live together, how to listen to each other, and how to manage our remaining old-growth forests for abundance for the sake of our children and grandchildren.

The B.C. government is accepting public feedback on its proposed provincial Old Growth Strategy until Friday. For more details and to provide input, go here. 

Original opinion piece here

For Vancouver Island’s old-growth explorers, naming trees is a delight – but saving them is a challenge

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Conservationist Ken Wu has chronicled B.C.’s ancient trees and given them catchy names, hoping it will build support to keep them standing. Now, the province faces crucial choices about logging, biodiversity, Indigenous rights and the fate of the forests.

The Globe and Mail
January 7th, 2020
San Juan Valley, Vancouver Island

Graduate student Ian Thomas and conservationist Ken Wu marvel at an old-growth Sitka spruce, dubbed ‘Gaston,’ in Vancouver Island’s San Juan Valley floodplain.PHOTOGRAPHY BY MELISSA RENWICK/THE GLOBE AND MAIL

On a foggy day in November in the heart of a primeval forest, conservationist Ken Wu and biology graduate student Ian Thomas were standing at the base of a Sitka spruce, looking way up.

“Gaston!” Mr. Wu pronounced, pointing out the thick branches in the upper reaches of the 500-year-old tree, in which he sees the bicep-flexing character of his young daughter’s favourite Disney animation, Beauty and the Beast.

More than 80 years ago, in his collection of poems, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, T.S. Eliot provided exacting instructions for the naming of cats. The conventions around the naming of ancient trees is a less complicated affair.

Mr. Wu, who heads the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance, hunts big trees and gives them nicknames, hoping to build public support for protecting some of the last remaining old-growth forests on Vancouver Island. His nicknames aim to be as catchy as an advertising jingle. “We don’t have the luxury to be boring,” he explains.

“It’s just a fun way to draw attention – in a viral way, hopefully – to a magnificent, endangered grove.” He named Big Lonely Doug, a Douglas fir that has been identified as the second-largest in Canada, which stands alone in the middle of a clear-cut. He helped win protection for nearby Avatar Grove so its trees would be spared the same fate.

A fern brushes against a tree branch in Eden Grove, one of the old-growth forest regions Mr. Wu has explored.

These groves, spread out over roughly 500 hectares of the San Juan Valley floodplain, are largely unprotected. Two-thirds of the known old-growth forests here are on private forestry land, and one-third are on Crown land, within the operating area of BC Timber Sales.

The province has approved sections of land in the valley for logging, and Mr. Wu and Mr. Thomas are racing to catalog what they hope to save before the logging trucks roll in.

Forestry remains a major economic driver in British Columbia for many communities, and the provincial government is under pressure to protect the industry, which depends on a steady supply of both old- and second-growth logs to feed the province’s sawmills.

The tree Mr. Wu dubbed Gaston stands in a rugged section of Vancouver Island’s west coast. Sitka spruce are the largest in the world, and have been found reaching close to 100 metres in height next door in the Carmanah Valley. In these wet valleys on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, the trees thrive in a foggy, boggy micro-climate that incites fast growth.

Together, the pair have charted 22 similar groves on this floodplain that features trees no less than 250 years of age. Mr. Thomas, who ought to be finishing his thesis on bird song, has been distracted for weeks, scouring hectares of the valley bottom.

Port Renfrew, B.C., calls itself the Tall Tree Capital of Canada.

To visit some of these groves, we drive past the town of Port Renfrew (which bills itself as the Tall Tree Capital of Canada), eventually turning onto a rough and narrow gravel road. Then, on foot, we pick our way through a forest floor thick with giant sword ferns and lichen-draped salmonberries.

“I love these ecosystems, but it’s a hellish sort of bushwhack through a lot of it,” Mr. Wu warns.

This is what Mr. Wu refers to as the Serengeti of Vancouver Island’s rainforest: It is home to Roosevelt elk, black-tailed deer, wolves, cougars and black bears.

The easiest part of the hike is where the elk have broken a trail; their fresh hoofprints after the recent rain suggest we are following a busy thoroughfare.

The forest understory is quite unlike what is found in the region’s second-growth forests – there is a luscious disorder here, with branches draped in solid curtains of moss, trees growing out of the decay of fallen nurse logs. In one grove, a young hemlock tree grows up and into the side of a massive spruce. Perhaps one day it will take over the space.

It is not a wilderness – the Pacheedaht First Nation people have occupied these lands for thousands of years, and their ancient villages and campsites have been recorded up and down the San Juan river, an important spawning ground for chinook salmon and green sturgeon.

Mr. Thomas climbs ‘Gaston’ to take a closer look.

“Gaston” is growing about two kilometres east of a former summer fish camp near Fairy Lake. In these forests, the Pacheedaht have harvested red cedar to make long-houses, masks and canoes. Spruce roots were used to make rope, fishing line and thread.

Yet as we hack our way further into the forest, any hint of human intervention disappears. The vibe is very lost-in-time.

“This feels like a dinosaur should be stomping around,” Mr. Wu says.

These floodplains that nurture both old-growth Sitka spruce and salmonberries are rare, classified by the Ministry of Environment as “red-listed” ecosystems – endangered or threatened.

However, these trees could be up on the auction block at any moment. A large cedar here can be worth $50,000 to a logging company. The old giant Gaston would likely be destined for two-by-fours, if it ends up in a sawmill.

Mr. Wu, right, and T.J. Watt of the Ancient Forest Alliance walk down a logging road on Edinburgh Mountain near Port Renfrew. The forest was recently logged by the forestry company Teal-Jones.
Mr. Wu sits on one of the felled Douglas fir stumps. He has spent eight years documenting the ancient trees of the San Juan Valley, which he thinks of as the Serengeti of Vancouver Island.

Today, B.C.’s provincial government, the New Democratic Party, is poised to make some critical decisions about the future of old growth.

Doug Donaldson, Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, appointed an independent panel last summer to consult with British Columbians about how to manage old-growth forests.

The deadline for public response to a questionnaire is Jan. 31, and the panel’s recommendations are due back in the spring of 2020. When he announced the panel, Mr. Donaldson said in a statement that he is “committed to developing a new thoughtful and measured approach to managing this resource for the benefit of all British Columbians.”

Mr. Donaldson has also promised what he describes as significant amendments to the Forest and Range Practices Act, after his initial consultations showed strong public support to protect old growth forests.

But B.C. has yet to say how it will assist Canada in its commitment to meet its targets in a global effort to stem the tide of biodiversity loss.

The government is under intense pressure to keep logging. The B.C. forest sector is in crisis. Mills are closing as the timber supply shrinks and trade disputes drive up costs. The labour-friendly provincial government, now 2½ years into its current mandate, is wary of measures to curb logging and to date has offered few, and small, victories to conservationists.

Moss grows on Douglas maple trees near Port Renfrew. B.C.’s government is under increasing pressure to continue logging in old-growth forests like these.

In December, forest industry workers gathered on the front steps of the B.C. Legislature in Victoria to demand the government intervene in a months-long strike by 3,000 Western Forest Products employees on Vancouver Island.

Ron Tucker was among the protesters. A second generation logger who now owns his own small logging outfit, Mr. Tucker represents the dilemma for the government.

These workers come from NDP-held ridings. While ecologists such as Mr. Wu say the industry needs help to adapt to second-growth logging and more secondary manufacturing, the protesters say B.C. has already created enough protected areas.

“It would shut the forest industry down if you took old-growth logging out of the program,” Mr. Tucker said in an interview. He works in a tree farm licence on the north end of Vancouver Island where the harvest is one-fifth second growth, and four-fifths old growth.

“This industry is far too important for this province to lose. It is still the biggest economic driver in B.C. I mean, they’ve got new hospitals planned, and new schools planned, and all these big expenditures,” he said. “Without forestry, there’s no way that they can can do what they say they’re gonna do.”

The image of Big Lonely Doug does not sway Mr. Tucker and his colleagues, who just want to get back to work and meet their mortgage payments.

“I’m not gonna deny clearcuts are ugly. They are. And [conservationists] take pictures of this ugly clearcut and then basically go back to the general public and say this is what logging is. It’s so far from the truth. I’ve been in logging my whole life. I’m actually almost falling timber that was planted when I first started hauling logs.”

Just outside Port Renfrew stands Big Lonely Doug, which was saved from clear-cutting in 2011.

Mr. Wu argues there is far more to be gained by leaving these forests intact. Old-growth forests can foster tourism and recreation jobs, while supporting endangered species, clean water, wild salmon and carbon sequestration to contribute to the battle against climate change.

His Endangered Ecosystems Alliance has called for a moratorium on logging of the most intact old-growth tracts. They want funding to establish Indigenous Protected Areas – tribal parks – that would allow local First Nations to manage the lands. And they want government to offer incentives and regulations to encourage the development of a value-added, second-growth forest industry so that people such as Mr. Tucker can still make a living, without threatening the biodiversity that depends on old-growth forests.

The Indigenous component would be critical to this, as many First Nations communities rely on forestry partnerships to build their own economies. That includes the Pacheedaht First Nation. In September, B.C.’s chief forester increased the amount of timber available to be harvested in this region, through Tree Farm Licence 61, because the forests are growing faster than estimated in the previous timber supply review. The Pacheedaht First Nation has a joint venture to log in TFL61, which includes 2,900 hectares of forests that are older than 240 years. Any new protected areas here will have to provide for the human well-being of the people who have traditionally occupied these lands.

Mr. Watt looks up at a western red cedar in Jurassic Grove, an unprotected stretch of old-growth forest along the Juan de Fuca Marine Trail. For generations, these forests have been home to the Pacheedaht people, who build longhouses and carve masks from red cedar wood.
‘I love these ecosystems, but it’s a hellish sort of bushwhack through a lot of it,’ Mr. Wu says.

Mr. Wu’s quest for big trees along the San Juan river started eight years ago, when he was running the Avatar Grove campaign in the next valley over. He suspected there were some stands of old growth hidden in the mature second-growth forests, but he didn’t have time to explore.

It was Mr. Thomas, who happened to take a tour of old growth with Mr. Wu, who sparked the hunt. “I was blown away. It’s incredible this still exists,” Mr. Thomas said as we explored the valley. He started studying satellite maps of the San Juan Valley bottom to plan his next visit. “I wanted to check out all these groves when I should have been writing my thesis.”

For a biologist, the San Juan Valley floodplain is a gold mine of eco-diversity. Standing at the base of a 300-year-old tree, Mr. Thomas sees a natural sculpture that is impossible to replicate in a second-growth tree plantation. He points out where bats can roost, and how the massive roots that grew over a long-decayed nurse log have left an opening for a black bear’s den. A pine marten has retreated up the trunk to safety while we invade its turf. The diversity of form and function makes space for them all.

“We hit the big-tree jackpot here,” Mr. Wu says.

This year, the provincial government will decide whether it is a jackpot to be protected, or harvested.

Overview: Where B.C.’s old forests grow

Some of Vancouver Island’s last old-growth forests can be found in the San Juan Valley floodplain, the traditional territory of the Pacheedaht people. Sitka spruce can grow to gigantic size there. But two-thirds of these forests are on private forestry land, and the rest on Crown land. Across B.C., Old Growth Management Areas protect ancient forests from development, but the province’s plan for safeguarding old-growth trees is now under review by an independent panel.

Read the original article

Thank you to all the businesses, organizations, and artists who supported the AFA in 2019

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The Ancient Forest Alliance would like to extend our deepest gratitude to the many outstanding businesses, organizations, and artists who supported our ancient forest campaign in 2019.

A huge thanks the Ball Foundation for their generous support, which strengthened our capacity to engage “non-traditional allies” like recreation and faith groups to broaden support for old-growth protection, and to Patagonia for supporting our efforts to pursue conservation financing solutions for Vancouver Island First Nations through their Environmental Grants Program. Our deepest thanks also to the Calgary Foundation and Smith Share Foundation for your generous contributions to our campaign.

A big thanks to Patagonia Victoria for organizing a hugely successful benefit night for the AFA at the screening of Treeline and for welcoming our canvassers to set up holiday booths. Thank you MEC Victoria for their in-kind gifts and for lending their retail space for our community outreach work. We also deeply appreciate the many local businesses that share their space with our canvassers before and after their shifts. It means so much to our team!

We would like to thank Bough & Antler Northwest Goods for sharing their creative talents to design AFA’s custom logo t-shirts and for donating a portion of proceeds from their business sales; Sea Flora Skincare and Gran Manitou for their generous donations and in-kind gifts; Banyen Books & Sound and to i.O.N Clothing Featuring Hemp and Company for retailing AFA Merchandise in their storefront, Kerrisdale Cameras Victoria for organizing staff fundraisers; and Tribe Archipelago and Elastic Email for your generous monthly contributions.

Thank you to the following businesses and organizations for your generosity and support: Tantalus Design, Island Return it Sidney, Handsome Dan Enterprises, Grumpy Hat, Skye Dreamer, Cadboro Bay United Church, Brentwood College Environmental Club, and Sierra Club BC.

We were thrilled to receive in-kind support from a variety of businesses and artists at our 2019 Year-End fundraiser, including:

Adrena LINE Zipline Adventure Tours, Artisans Well Gallery & Gifts, Axe & Grind, Baby Dog Canada, Big Fish Lodge, Botanical Bliss, Barnaby Black, Candace Perry Moen, COBS Bread on Millstream, COBS Bread West Shore, Country Grocer, Crag X Climbing Gym, Diane Moran, Fairway Markets, Floyds Diner, Fountain Diner, Il Terrazzo Ristorante, IMAX VICTORIA, Handsome Dan’s Port Renfrew, Kleque Method, Logan Ford, Lorelei Green, Lordco Parts Ltd. , Lynn James Art, Mark Leiren-Young, The Market on Yates, MEC Victoria, Michael Layland, Mile 19 Signs & Graphics, Patagonia Victoria, Richard Krieger, Robinson’s Outdoor Store, Save-On-Foods, Seaflora Skincare, Sheringham Distillery, Shelly Knocton Art, Real Canadian Superstore, Terry McLean, Thrifty Foods, Tiger Dave Tattoos, Quality Foods – Langford, Quest Reality Games Victoria, Turmeric Indian Cuisine, The Village Estevan, Victoria Bug Zoo Inc., Val Gavin, Village Food Markets, Wild Renfrew   and Cello Bride for her beautiful cello performance.

Thank you all again for your support, creativity, and for helping to make our work possible.

Sincerely,

Andrea Inness, TJ Watt, Joan Varley, Rachel Ablack, Tiara Dhenin, Amanda Evans, and Jacob Swain.

The Ancient Forest Alliance Team