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Comment: Tla-o-qui-aht demand protection of ancient forest

Nov 18 2016/in News Coverage

Here's an amazing article by Tla-o-qui-aht band members Tsimka and Gisele Martin, speaking on behalf of the Tla-o-qui-aht Initiative for Interconnected Community Health, calling for the protection of the remaining old-growth forests in Tla-o-qui-aht territory in Clayoquot Sound and focused on concerns about logging at the Kennedy Flats (near the highway on the way to Tofino) and potentially at Tofino Creek. Their territory also includes the famous Meares Island, home to some of the largest trees on Earth, the Clayoquot Valley, Kennedy Lake, and Kennedy Valley.

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Nuu-chah-nulth people, since time immemorial, have always maintained respectful relationships with ancestral lands and waters. These relationships are the foundation of Nuu-chah-nulth cultural life — ways carefully nurtured according to ancient teachings, for the benefit of all generations and all forms of life.

The forest ecosystem was tended as a garden. It still is recognized as a living entity, with its own set of complex relationships among its many inhabitants, including people who continue to rely upon it for life.

Countless generations of Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations people have maintained abundant economies and ecosystems, until this way of life was interrupted by Canada’s colonialism, which introduced unrestrained resource extraction, commodification and exploitation of nature. This was accompanied by cultural genocide, widespread environmental devastation and severe impacts to First Nation economies that continue today.

British Columbia’s forestry policies and practices are founded on a colonial worldview that assumes there will always be more trees to cut and more profits to be made.

In 1984, the conflict between Nuu-chah-nulth people and the timber industry supported by the Canadian government reached a dramatic climax when the ancient cedar forests of Meares Island were threatened with clearcut logging.

Tla-o-qui-aht and Ahousaht were not consulted about plans to log within ancestral territories. At that time, Tla-o-qui-aht and Ahousaht became determined to uphold ancestral values and teachings of care, and to defend ancestral lands and waters.

In response to the planned logging, the Tla-o-qui-aht and Ahousaht First Nations sought an injunction from the court, which eventually worked its way to the B.C. Court of Appeal. The court recognized the logging plans’ interference with aboriginal rights and title, and placed an injunction on the island that would halt the logging until land-claim issues were resolved between Canada and the Nations.

In 1984, the Nuu-chah-nulth Nations Tla-o-qui-aht and Ahousaht declared Meares Island a Tribal Park. The island represents a mere fraction of the unceded territories. First Nations played a pivotal role in the 1980s movement to protect the forests. In the summer of 1993 the Clayoquot Blockades became known as the largest peaceful civil disobedience event in Canadian history.

Following the Clayoquot blockades of 1993, the Clayoquot Sound Science Panel was convened to develop recommendations for more sustainable forestry practices in Clayoquot Sound. While the recommendations are an improvement to the previous clearcut logging, they do not measure up to the practices of Nuu-chah-nulth ancestors in terms of sustainable forestry.

Following the 1993 protests, a joint venture involving five First Nations in the Clayoquot and Barkley Sound regions assumed control of the tree farm licences in Clayoquot Sound. The venture formed into a logging company with the stated intent of implementing the scientific panel recommendations.

B.C. law requires logging companies to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual fees to maintain a logging licence. The pressure to pay these fees means that a company holding a tree farm licence must cut large volumes of trees to maintain financial solvency and retain the required logging licences.

The Canadian government continues to allow the timber industry to threaten and impact ancient forest ecosystems, cultural lifeways and Nuu-chah-nulth people’s existence.

Old growth within Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation territory is now under serious threat. This September, damaging logging practices in the Kennedy Flats area were observed and documented by Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation citizens.

A petition is circulating asking elected and hereditary leaders to do what they can to stop any industrial logging of old-growth forests in Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation territory. Recent interviews and forums confirm that the majority of Tla-o-qui-aht members (interviewed to date) want all our existing old-growth forests protected.

Nuu-chah-nulth jurisdiction supersedes the colonial laws of British Columbia and Canada. Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation members have not been properly consulted and have not given consent for the current logging plans in Tla-o-qui-aht territory.

We, as Tla-o-qui-aht members, are committed to upholding our responsibilities to protect and defend the forests of our ancestral home to ensure that the sacred relationship with life-giving nature continues. There is grave concern within the Tla-o-qui-aht community that logging in the Tofino Creek area is beginning.

All remaining old-growth forest in Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation territory must be permanently protected from any industrial logging.

Thank You to MEC!

Nov 11 2016/in Announcements, Thank You

So many THANKS to the Mountain Equipment Co-op's staff (many of them from Victoria and Vancouver pictured here on our 2013 hike to the Lower Avatar Grove near Port Renfrew) for choosing the Ancient Forest Alliance again for their year-end staff donation! We're most grateful to this wonderful group of outdoor and nature enthusiasts for supporting us over so many years!!

Echo Lake’s Old-Growth Forest and Eagle Roost Under Threat!

Nov 3 2016/in News Coverage

Near Harrison Mills, Echo Lake is a magnificent, unprotected lowland ancient rainforest, in a region where almost all such forests have long since been logged. Located by the Chehalis-Harrison Estuary near the Lougheed Highway, the region is home to one of the greatest salmon runs and perhaps the largest concentration of bald eagles on Earth – as many as 10,000 in some years, with hundreds roosting in the ancient trees of Echo Lake at night. As such, Echo Lake is one of the great natural wonders in the province – and perhaps one of the least visited so far.

There is a reason why so few people have seen Echo Lake. The lake is surrounded by steep mountains on three sides, with private lands encompassing the flats on the remaining side by the road. Only through the permission of private landowners or via organized tours can you traverse the private lands on its east side in order to access the old-growth forests on the Crown lands on the west side. This difficulty of access has helped to keep Echo Lake as one of the last enclaves of lowland ancient forest left in the region – until now. Echo Lake is in the unceded territory of the Sts’ailes First Nation band, who run eagle-watching tours in the area, and whose leadership has expressed concern about the fate of the old-growth cedars around Echo Lake.

In 2012, the Ancient Forest Alliance contacted the local landowners Stephen and Susan Ben-Oliel, whose private properties abut against the lake’s east side. Together we started organizing public tours, letter-writing campaigns, slideshows, outreach to attract provincial and national news media, and lobbying efforts.

In February 2013, the BC government protected 55 hectares in an Old-Growth Management Area (OGMA) primarily on the south side of Echo Lake, encompassing some impressive old-growth Douglas-fir stands. Unfortunately, the OGMA left out another 40 or 50 hectares of old-growth and mature stands on the west and north sides, within the Woodlot License of C&H Forest Products. The excluded area includes a spectacular “ancient red cedar valley” with some of the biggest trees. One tree, the East Side Giant, is almost 4 metres, (13 feet) wide. While the area at risk also includes second-growth stands, the BC government has tried to depict the entire area as a second-growth forest with just a smattering of veteran old-growth trees – which is far from the truth for those who’ve been there to marvel at the stands of giant red cedars and Douglas-firs.

In July, the Ben-Oliels discovered that C & H Forest Products had flagged a series of large red cedars near their property for logging and had been given the go-ahead to construct a 1400 metre road to access planned cut blocks on the lake’s north side. As Echo Lake is also part of the drinking watershed for local people, there are concerns about the risk to the supreme water quality in the area posed by road-building and logging.

The race is now on to mobilize concerned citizens to speak up to the provincial government, particularly in the lead-up to the May 2017 provincial election. The province could enact a Land Use Order, expand the Old-Growth Management Area, or implement some other protective designation at Echo Lake, while potentially finding an area of equivalent timber value in second-growth forests elsewhere for the licensee – something that the province is so far reluctant to do.

Already 80% of the original, productive old-growth forests have been logged in the southwest mainland of BC, including over 95% of the high productivity, valley bottoms with the largest trees. The Ancient Forest Alliance is working for a science-based provincial plan to protect all of BC’s endangered old-growth forests, and to ensure a sustainable second growth forest industry.

The protection of Echo Lake would be a vital step in the right direction.

Please speak up! Write a letter or email to your local Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), as well as Premier Christy Clark (premier@gov.bc.ca) and Forests Minister Steve Thomson (steve.thomson.mla@leg.bc.ca) at the Legislative Buildings, Victoria, BC, V8V 1X4. Ask them to protect ALL of the forests around Echo Lake – for the eagles, wildlife, drinking watershed, scenery, tourism, and because lowland old-growth forests are now extremely scarce in the Lower Mainland.