Conservationists demand fast action from B.C.’s new forestry minister on protection for old-growth trees

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CBC News British Columbia
November 29, 2020

Katrine Conroy, MLA for Kootenay-West, was appointed this week as B.C.’s forestry minister

Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner and photographer TJ Watt leans against a huge, old red cedar before and after logging on southern Vancouver Island in the fall of 2020. (TJ Watt/Ancient Forest Alliance)

Stark photos released this week by a conservation group pushing hard for the province to protect what remains of B.C.’s largest and oldest trees is just one point of pressure the province’s new forestry minister is facing as she comes into the job.

On Thursday, MLA for Kootenay-West Katrine Conroy was appointed minister of forests, lands, natural resource operations and rural development, taking over from Doug Donaldson, who did not seek reelection.

Two days earlier, the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) released dramatic before and after photographs of massive cedar trees on Vancouver Island, where they were logged as part of a government-approved tree harvesting licence.

It’s a technique the AFA has often used to illustrate the impact of logging in areas where trees can be up to 1,000 years old. 

Watt examines an ancient red cedar stump measuring four metres in diameter that was cut down on southern Vancouver Island. (TJ Watt/Ancient Forest Alliance)

The term old growth in B.C. refers to trees that are generally 250 years or older on the coast and 140 years or older in the Interior. 

The trees have significance to First Nations, they are good for the environment, help to clean air and water, store carbon and house other plants and animals.

But they are also prized by loggers for their monetary value.

Andrea Inness, a campaigner with the AFA, says the latest round of photos taken by T.J. Watt have been shared thousands of times on social media, with comments from people asking the province to end the practise of cutting down the large, iconic trees.

“[People] are sick and tired of seeing photographs like that,” said Inness.

In taking on the forestry portfolio, Conroy — who has represented the West Kootenays for 15 years, and was minister of children and family development from 2017 — has clear direction in her mandate letter to give conservationists like Inness what they want, but maybe not in time to save the trees that remain.

The letter calls for her to implement 14 recommendations announced in September by a special panel, which travelled the province for months speaking with conservationists, unions, First Nations and the public to ask about the ecological, economic and cultural importance of old-growth trees and forests and how they fit into a new forestry strategy for B.C.

The panel’s most time-sensitive recommendation was to defer the cutting of old-growth forests most at risk of “irreversible biodiversity loss.”

In presenting the report from the panel, the province did announce the temporary protection of 353,000 hectares of forest in nine old-growth areas.

Conservationists like Inness and Jens Wieting, a forest and climate campaigner with Sierra Club B.C., were initially pleased with the move, but maintain such a small number of these special trees remain in the province that if more dramatic action is not taken immediately, an insignificant amount could remain by the time the province comes up with a new forestry strategy.

“We have to look at their willingness to quickly defer more old growth from logging,” he said.

Photos like these were shared recently on social media by the Ancient Forest Alliance in an effort to bring attention to the issue of old-growth logging. (TJ Watt/Ancient Forest Alliance)

An independent ecological consulting firm used provincial data in the spring to determine that while old-growth forests make up about 23 per cent of forested areas in the province — or about 13.2 million hectares — less than three per cent, or around 400,000 hectares, support biologically significant old-growth trees.

Sierra Club B.C. estimates that more than 140,000 hectares of old-growth forests — those with trees at least 120 years old — are logged each year along the B.C. coast and in the Interior. 

“We all know the data now, we all know that old-growth logging needs to come to an end,” said Inness. “The government just needs to listen and start acting.”

Money required

Both Wieting and Inness estimate the province would need to spend about $1 billion to meet the 14 recommendations, which include involving Indigenous leaders in future decisions and declaring the conservation of “ecosystem health and biodiversity” an overarching priority for the province.

That would need to include money to help First Nations assess the resources on their lands and transition away from logging old-growth trees, something the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs wants.

“For years, the government has enabled a debilitating and dangerous system that expunges the irreplaceable cultural value of old-growth forests, viewing not the immense roots these ancient and giant trees have set in our First Nation communities to sustain our cultures and livelihoods, but rather the pecuniary value of these trees that must be exploited in the short-term,” Grand Chief Stewart Phillip said in a release in October.

Financial support will also be needed for communities currently dependent on old-growth logging as they transition away from it, which could be tough for the province considering it’s facing a more than $12-billion deficit due to the pandemic.

Back in her days as an opposition MLA, Conroy frequently spoke up for the embattled logging communities she represents, saying the B.C. Liberals should have done more to achieve fair stumpage rates, reform forestry management, and encourage reforestation to help keep the industry viable.

The new minister did not respond to a request for comment before publication of this story. 

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B.C.’s old-growth forest announcement won’t actually slow down logging: critics

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Note: Last week we welcomed the release of the Old Growth Strategic Review panel’s long-anticipated report, which includes strong recommendations to protect old-growth forests & overhaul BC’s forest management regime.

We also welcomed logging deferrals in 9 areas across BC, but closer inspection reveals that some of those areas were already deferred or have little at-risk, productive old-growth.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of BC’s most endangered ancient forests are still at risk. The NDP government must act quickly to protect the most at-risk stands (as the panel recommends) and commit to fully implementing their recommendations.

Read the Narwhal’s explainer piece below:

The Narwhal
September 16, 2020

As rumours swirl of a snap fall election, the NDP government has announced development deferrals for nine areas — but closer inspection reveals a startling absence of old growth, and some areas have already been clear cut 

When governments make announcements on a Friday afternoon, it’s usually because they don’t want much scrutiny. 

That was clearly the case on Sept. 11 when the B.C. government released a consequential old-growth strategic review report, barely giving reporters a chance to glance at the fine print and recommendations prior to a press conference with Doug Donaldson, Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development. 

Donaldson’s ministry simultaneously sent out a news release announcing the “protection” of nine areas in B.C., totalling almost 353,000 hectares, to kickstart the NDP government’s “new approach to old forests.” 

Sounds good, right? 

But wait. As the adage goes, the devil is in the details.

“If you look at the facts … it still essentially preserves the core of the old-growth logging industry,” said Ken Wu, executive director of the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance. 

“Left as it is, it will liquidate most of the remaining endangered old-growth.” 

So what did the government commit to? And what did the old-growth strategic review report say? 

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Did the B.C. government implement permanent protections for old-growth?

In a word, no. 

Donaldson announced that development will be temporarily deferred in nine old-growth areas while consultations about future designations are held. “The areas that are announced today are already areas where harvesting is not taking place, and therefore the economic impact in the immediate term is going to be insignificant,” he told reporters. 

“Deferrals aren’t protection,” said Wilderness Committee national campaign director Torrance Coste. “They’re two-year deferrals, hopefully to buy time for those forests to be protected.”

Eight of the areas are in southern B.C. — omitting the northern boreal forest and rare and endangered interior temperate rainforest from logging reprieves.

It’s business as usual everywhere else in the province, including in the central Walbran and Fairy Creek on southern Vancouver Island, in endangered caribou habitat in the Anzac Valley northeast of Prince George and on the Sunshine Coast, where residents have stapled felt hearts on old-growth trees as part of an effort to protect the Clack Creek forest from clear-cutting.

“It’s largely talk and log in a lot of cases, with loopholes big enough to drive thousands of logging trucks through,” observed Wu, the founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance.Judy Thomas BC forester Anzac Valley spruce beetle

Retired B.C. government forester Judy Thomas surveys a clear cut near the Anzac Valley, just north of Prince George, B.C. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

What about the development deferrals?

Clayoquot Sound, with more than 260,000 hectares deferred from development, represents almost three-quarters of the deferrals in size.  

But when GIS mapper Dave Leversee crunched the numbers, he found that about 137,000 hectares of the land newly “deferred” from development in Clayoquot Sound is already under some form of protection, including parks, Wildlife Habitat Areas and Clayoquot management reserves. 

Less than nine per cent of the total area announced for a development deferral consists of old-growth forests of medium to good productivity, meaning there are optimal conditions for supporting the biggest trees, Leversee discovered.

“There’s a lot of non-forested areas in that number: rocks, mountain peaks, swamps, things like that,” he said of the 260,000-hectare Clayoquot Sound “old growth development deferral” area on the government’s map.Clayoquot Sound

An aerial view of old-growth forests in Clayoquot Sound, part of a temporary deferral that will prohibit logging in this area for two years. Photo: TJ Watt / Ancient Forest Alliance

It’s much the same story in the Kootenays, where Stockdale Creek and Crystalline Creek in the Purcells are on the list of development deferrals.

Wildsight conservation specialist Eddie Petryshen pointed out that only 0.1 hectare of the 9,600 hectares deferred in Crystalline Creek area, a tributary of the south fork of the Spillimacheen River, was slated for logging.

In Stockdale Creek, just 223 hectares out of 11,500 hectares that received a development deferral were on the chopping block, Petryshen said, noting that both areas provide important grizzly bear and wolverine habitat and connectivity.

“It’s a far cry from the numbers they’re talking about,” Petryshen told The Narwhal.

“While both these watersheds are intact, have very high biodiversity values and need to be protected, most of the old growth in these drainages is not believed to be under immediate threat from logging.” 

After Clayoquot Sound, the largest temporary deferral from development consists of 40,000 hectares in the Incomappleux Valley east of Revelstoke, an inland rainforest with trees up to 1,500 years old. 

“The deferral areas appear to cover a lot of inoperable forest, or forest that’s already been clear cut,” said Valhalla Wilderness Society director Craig Pettitt. 

The society is suggesting that 32,000 hectares of the Incomappleux deferral unit be allocated “to actual endangered forest elsewhere, instead of protecting inoperable or clear cut areas outside of the ancient forest.”

Pettitt said he is happy the Incomappleux has been acknowledged. But he said the inland temperate rainforest — hosting some of B.C.’s rarest ancient forests — is “severely underrepresented” in the government’s announcement. Spruce Inland Temperate Rainforst clear cut logging

Clear-cut logging of spruce in B.C.’s interior. Less than one-third of the world’s primary forests are still intact yet in B.C.’s interior a temperate rainforest that holds vast stores of carbon and is home to endangered caribou is being clear-cut as fast as the Amazon. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

And then there’s the deferral of about 5,700 hectares in the Skagit-Silver Daisy area, on the edge of Manning Park, where the B.C. government had already announced that logging permits in the Skagit River headwaters would no longer be permitted, but mining exploration has been causing friction with Americans downstream.  

Also on Vancouver Island, more than 2,200 hectares were deferred from logging around McKelvie Creek — the last unprotected, intact watershed in the Tahsis region, in Mowachaht/Muchalaht territory. And just over 1,000 hectares, an area roughly the size of two and a half Stanley Parks, were deferred in H’Kusam, near Sayward.

The remaining deferrals consist of just over 4,500 hectares in an area known as the Seven Sisters, northwest of Smithers, and more than 17,000 hectares around the Upper Southgate River in Bute Inlet on B.C.’s mid-coast. 

Coste said the Wilderness Committee is waiting on shapefiles and more information from the government so it can determine what portion of the nine deferrals lie in the 415,000 hectares of old forest left in B.C., home to trees expected to grow more than 20 metres tall in 50 years.

“That will be the real test,” he said.

Wait, what did the old-growth strategic review report actually say?

The report, commissioned by the B.C. government, was written by foresters Garry Merkel and Al Gorley.

The 216-page report calls for a paradigm shift in the way B.C. manages old-growth forests. It lays out a blueprint for change with 14 recommendations.

The report says old forests have intrinsic value for all living things and should be managed for ecosystem health, not for timber. It also says many old forests are not renewable, which counters the prevailing notion that trees, no matter how old, will grow back. 

The report was widely praised by conservation groups, which welcomed the temporary development deferrals and called on the B.C. government to commit to implementing Merkel and Gorley’s recommendations. 

“The report itself is fantastic,” Wu said. “It covers most of what we’ve actually been calling for for decades. What’s needed is to commit to those recommendations.” TJ Watt logging

Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner and photographer TJ Watt surveys recent old-growth clearcutting by Teal-Jones in the Caycuse watershed in Ditidaht Territory on southern Vancouver Island. Areas of highly productive, endangered ancient forest like this still remain at risk in many regions. Photo: TJ Watt / Ancient Forest Alliance

What did the report recommend?

Top of the list is to engage “the full involvement” of Indigenous leaders and organizations in an old-growth strategy.   

Immediately deferring development in old forests “where ecosystems are at very high and near-term risk of irreversible biodiversity loss” and “prioritizing ecosystem health and resilience” are among the other recommendations.

In an interview with The Narwhal, Merkel said people from all sectors, including forestry, recognize “that the path we’re going down needs to change” and that B.C. forest-dependent communities — which have suffered from recent mill closures and job losses — need sustainable economies.

As such, the report recommends the government support forest sector workers and communities as they adapt to changes resulting from a new forest management system. 

“If the government does that, we can minimize the pain through this transition,” said Merkel, the former chair of the Tahltan Nation Development Corporation and the Columbia Basin Trust.

“But there is a transition coming in many areas … There are many, many areas that are going to have to do this regardless whether they implement our ideas or not. This is not a surprise.”

Did the government take immediate steps to prevent irreversible biodiversity loss?

No. The government has not followed the panel’s recommendation to immediately defer all logging in old-growth forests that are home to ecosystems at risk of irreversible biodiversity loss. 

Under Section 13 of B.C.’s Forests Act, Donaldson can defer harvesting activities for up to four years without compensating tenure holders. 

Conservation North director Michelle Connolly said areas at risk of ecological collapse include the Anzac River Valley north of Prince George, which provides critical habitat for endangered southern mountain caribou and a myriad other species, including at-risk migratory songbirds.

“The Anzac is an area of great ecological risk up here and it’s really odd that no protections have been announced for it,” Connolly said in an interview. 

Cutting permits have been issued all the way up the Anzac Valley “and they’re going after the highest productivity old-growth spruce, the areas with the biggest trees,” she said. 

Forestry giant Canfor and Coastal Gaslink, which is constructing a pipeline for the LNG Canada export project, recently teamed up to build a new road into the Anzac Valley wilderness, Connolly noted.

“The Hart [Ranges] caribou use that whole area. The road, the cut blocks, are in their core habitat.” Scientist Michelle Connolly in a burnt slash pile

Scientist Michelle Connolly said the Anzac River Valley north of Prince George is at risk of ecological collapse and has not received any protection under the NDP government’s recent announcement. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Petryshen said development deferrals omit “an incredible” drainage in the North Columbia mountains that BC Timber Sales plans to road and log. 

The Argonaut Creek drainage provides critical habitat for the endangered Columbia North caribou herd, which, at 150 animals, is the largest remaining caribou herd in the area. 

“It’s spectacular old-growth at lower elevations and then Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir and spectacular summer and winter caribou habitat, and it’s federal critical caribou habitat.” 

He said it is hypocritical to move forward with piecemeal deferrals while, on the other hand, “we’re seeing that critical caribou habitat move down the road on logging trucks on Highway 23.”

Coste said the B.C. government is limiting its future ability to ensure the survival of ecosystems by failing to follow the panel’s recommendation.

“There are hundreds of hectares of old-growth being cut down today and removed from the pool of old-growth that we could potentially protect six months, a year, two years, three years from now.” 

What does the B.C. First Nations Forestry Council say?

B.C. First Nations Forestry Council CEO Charlene Higgins said the council is disappointed the government has chosen to engage with First Nations “after the fact” and not as partners in the process, especially given the cultural significance of many old-growth areas.

“Public consultation and engagement stakeholder processes, and asking for submissions, really doesn’t recognize First Nations as governments and as rights holders,” Higgins told The Narwhal. 

“There’s been no meaningful input and engagement with First Nations.” 

Higgins said the process doesn’t reflect commitments made in B.C.’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act and the government’s commitment to work in cooperation and collaboration with Indigenous peoples on forest policy changes, legislation and practices. 

She said the council supports the nine development deferrals provided they were decided in full consultation with First Nations in whose territories the deferrals lie. (Donaldson underscored that the deferrals all have the support of local First Nations.)

“Many First Nations have their own policies around old growth and they have their own old growth areas that they recognize, and the province needs to ensure that these areas line up,” Higgins said. Logging Vancouver Island

An aerial view highlighting extensive clearcut logging of productive old-growth forests in the Klanawa Valley on southern Vancouver Island, B.C. Photo: TJ Watt / Ancient Forest Alliance

What about protections for big trees?

Donaldson’s ministry also announced that work is underway to protect up to 1,500 “exceptionally large, individual trees” under the special tree protection regulation, introduced last year by the government to protect monumental trees.

Coste called the big tree protections a “drop in the bucket.” They represent, at most, the preservation of 1,500 hectares of old-growth across the province — an area smaller than four Stanley Parks — because each monumental tree gets a one-kilometre buffer zone around it, he pointed out. 

“Big trees are important but there’s so much more to old-growth forests than just those big trees.” 

Connolly, from Conservation North, called the protection of individual trees “a joke,” saying her science-based group sees more than 1,500 trees from the interior wet belt going down Highway 97 in a single day. 

“They don’t understand what is a minimum expectation for conservation,” she said. 

Higgins, from the B.C. First Nations Forestry Council, said there has been no First Nations input into the protection of individual trees. 

“Without nations having any input into what is considered a large tree species, there’s a potential for a disconnect.” 

“Many First Nations have developed their own strategy for what they deem as culturally significant areas,” she said. “It’s been a really flawed process that really doesn’t reflect First Nations input.

But Wu said big tree protections are an important part of protecting what little remains of B.C.’s high productivity old growth. 

“The goal is, and has always been, protection of old growth ecosystems. That’s got to happen on the trees and groves level, and on the level of watersheds, landscapes and ecosystems.” Tahsis Mayor Martin Davis

Tahsis Mayor Martin Davis stands beside a giant old-growth Douglas-fir tree in the McKelvie Valley, part of a temporary deferral that will prohibit logging in this area for two years. Photo: TJ Watt / Ancient Forest Alliance

Is this really a new approach to managing old-growth?

No — at least not yet. 

Merkel said the panel is recommending deep structural changes that go far further than saving a few key areas, although he said that is also important.

“If that’s all we do, we won’t change the way we’re doing things.” 

“We’re talking about changing a system that started almost a century ago. We’re fundamentally turning a corner here in how that whole thing works. That’s going to take a little bit of time.” 

For example, it will take several years to figure out the pieces that need to change to align with the panel’s recommendation to make ecosystem health a priority as an overarching directive for managing old-growth, he said.  

If the government acts on the panel’s recommendations immediately, Merkel said there will be substantial changes in the short-term “and we will get incrementally better over time.” 

What happens next? 

Conservation groups want the government to implement the report’s 14 recommendations within the timeline laid out in the report, with immediate, mid-term and long-term actions taken over the next three years.

So far, the government hasn’t committed to any of the recommendations, or to the timeline.

Donaldson told reporters that managing old-growth forests while supporting workers and communities “has been a challenge in the making for more than 30 years and it won’t be solved immediately.”

“But we know that the status quo is not sustainable,” the minister said. “Obviously, it’s not good for the industry to cut it all down, there’s no plan for transition. And we know that unchecked logging in old-growth threatens crucial biodiversity values. But at the same time, putting an abrupt halt to old-growth logging would have devastating impacts on communities and workers across B.C., especially on the coast.”

As rumours swirl of a snap provincial election this fall, Donaldson said the government will provide a progress report on a “renewed old-growth strategy” in the spring of 2021. (Shortly after announcing the deferral areas, Donaldson announced he will not be seeking re-election.)

Merkel said he and Gorley have agreed not to judge the government at this point. “They haven’t outright said they aren’t going to do it,” he said regarding the recommendations. 

“Our job was to think about what needed to happen,” he said. “We needed to put it out there. Now, the world has to think: ‘Are we ready, and can we do it?’ ”

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Red Cedar: The Amazing Giving Tree

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The Tyee
September 15, 2020

Its future in doubt, no other tree has provided such abundance and identity for northwest peoples, or such habitat and carbon storage in the forest. First in a series.

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A red cedar of so-called Avatar Grove near Port Renfrew. The stand of old growth is named T’l’oqwxwat by the Pacheedaht First Nation in whose unceded territory it grows. Under pressure to protect the grove, the BC government did so in 2012. Photo by TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance.

[Editor’s note: This is the first of a series about the cedars of British Columbia, their vital role in this place’s ecologies, their endangered future, and people working on ways to save them from impending extinction.]

Western red cedar takes hold of the senses. The Big Tree Trail boardwalk in protected Wah-Nah-Jus Hilth-hoo-is (Meares Island Tribal Park), a short boat ride from Tofino in Tla-o-qui-aht territory, is built of hand-split cedar planks redolent of the tree’s sweet oil. All around is shaggy cedar bark. Branches of feathering leaves dance in the breeze like a fringe skirt, curving upward at the ends as if giving thanks to the sun.

The trail leads to a sign marking “Hanging Garden.” From the decaying trunk of a 1,500-year-old, five-and-a-half-metre-wide red cedar — one of the largest and oldest life forms on Earth — lichens cling, hemlock and alder trees sprout, sword ferns unfurl, and bats and bears make their roosts. It may be slowly dying, but this tree is full of life.

Elsewhere in British Columbia, the red cedar is not so lucky. It’s having trouble adapting to capitalism and climate change, and living out its long life in a shifting forest.

Red cedar, proclaimed the official tree of B.C. in 1988, naturally grows in cool, moist climates from Northern California to Alaska and just west of the Rocky Mountains in one of the world’s only inland temperate rainforests. The tree is known to scientists as thuja plicata, but it goes by many names: Pacific red cedar, giant cedar, canoe cedar, giant arborvitae. Not a true cedar but a woody member of the cypress family, the Latin arbor-vitae may be most accurate; it translates to “tree of life.” Indigenous terms of affection include “mother” or “grandmother cedar,” “maker of rich women,” and “long life maker.” The Nuu-chah-nulth name is huu-mis, huu signifying something long-lasting, perhaps across space and time.

While plant fossils show that a tree like red cedar has been growing around the northwest for as long as 50 million years, the species has only become widespread in the past 4,000 to 5,000 years — long after humans arrived in the region, says Richard Hebda, a paleontologist and adjunct associate professor at the University of Victoria.

Coast Salish oral history tells that before there was red cedar, there was a generous man. Whenever his people were in need, the man gave food and clothing. Recognizing the man’s good work, the Creator declared that when he died, a red cedar would grow where he was buried and continue to provide for the people. Red cedar did just that, co-evolving with First Nations and helping them build sophisticated societies of unparalleled wealth, abundance and ingenuity.

Prior to cedar, canoes and homes on the coast were often built of Sitka spruce. But once abundant, mother cedar became the tree of choice at least 3,000 years ago. “Without the environment we live in, we are not who we are,” Hebda says.

There are several likely reasons for the shift. The wood is lightweight and straight-grained, making it easy to split without a saw. Perhaps more important, mature cedars produce a natural fungicide, thujaplicin, which prevents rot in moldy northwest climates.

The largest cedar trees offered their wood for homes, totem poles and canoes. These vessels were packed with cedar tools, from paddles and nets to hooks, lures and fishing floats. Cedar’s soft inner bark supplied clothing and comfort; it was woven into tunics, mats, and blankets or shredded to make fluffy towels, diapers and sanitary pads. (Yellow cedar is also prized for its strong, dense wood and silky inner bark; see sidebar for more about B.C.’s other sacred cedar).

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Tla-o-qui-aht master canoe carver Joe Martin in his Tofino workshop next to a traditional dugout canoe he carved out of old-growth red cedar. Photo by TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance.

Red cedar withes — vine-like appendages that swoop down from branches — were twisted into ropes so strong they could haul in 40-tonne whales. Roots were coiled into baskets tight enough to boil water. And the flat green leaves, which look like scaly braids, offered spiritual protection or calcium-rich medicine.

Babies were delivered into woven cedar cradles. Placenta was sometimes buried at the base of an old cedar to ensure long life. At the end of that life, people were laid to rest in cedar canoes and coffins, the tree embracing its people for eternity.

But industrial logging and climate change threaten to cut the tree’s future short, severing ancestral connections that spread wide and strong like roots. A central question may define red cedar’s fate: Can we learn to respect and protect the great giving tree before it’s too late?

The ‘tree of life’ and its people

Despite the forced separation from their native lands and cultures by white colonizers, many Indigenous people have maintained an intimate bond with red cedar. Tla-o-qui-aht Tribal Parks guardian and educator Gisele Maria Martin grew up with the sound of crackling cedar kindling and the smell of cedar sawdust on her father, Tla-o-qui-aht master canoe carver Joe Martin.

“I remember learning to make feathers to start fires with cedar and the tuck tuck tuck of a big log being carved with a hand adze,” Martin says.

But she’s wary of the focus on cedars’ many “uses,” which she says is a colonial frame that ignores the deep and spiritual relationship, built on care and reciprocity. “We did use cedar, of course,” Martin says. “But we also have a huge responsibility to cedar.”

Some Nations cut down whole trees for canoes and poles, but wood has been more often sourced from windfalls, or from standing trees without killing them. People were taught not to cut trees in the summer when eagles are nesting, and to avoid taking too much wood or risk being cursed by other cedars.

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BC’s forests are filled with culturally modified trees, or CMTs, that reveal the multi-millennial relationship between Indigenous peoples and red cedar. This one on Flores Island in Clayoquot Sound shows how people checked for centre rot, through a “test hole,” before cutting or falling. Photo by TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance.

Before women collect bark from a young cedar, only in spring when the sap is running, prayers are offered and songs are sung. Removing bark triggers scars to heal over, but signs of historic and modern harvests are etched in the trunks — living archaeology.

“It’s impossible to not see cedar in a very particular way when you’re Indigenous to the west coast,” says Rande Cook, an artist and carver who’s a hereditary chief of the ’Na̱mg̱is and Ma’amtagila (Kwakwaka’wakw) First Nations.

Cook grew up with his grandparents in ’Na̱mg̱is territory (Alert Bay). He remembers cedar baskets full of berries, cedar bowls of eulachon oil, and teachings about red cedar trees holding the spirits of his ancestors.

“The trees are alive, they talk to each other, they create oxygen, they protect us,” Cook says. “They are serving a great purpose for all of us on this planet.”

Red cedar in the forest

Red cedar’s home — the northwest temperate rainforest — is a globally rare ecosystem that’s critical for purifying air and water, protecting biodiversity, defending salmon, and cooling the Earth. Old-growth temperate rainforest gulps and stores more carbon in its biomass than any other terrestrial environment and is less vulnerable to fires, floods, and other natural disturbances, making it one of our best defences in the fight against global climate change. Intact ancient rainforests with large trees are our greatest shield.

You can’t separate trees from the forest, but if you could, red cedar would play an outsized role. Commonly growing alongside western hemlock, Sitka spruce, and Douglas fir, red cedar is the largest tree in Canada. Record holders reach more than 20 stories tall, 20 metres around, and 450 cubic metres in volume. If you stacked five city buses vertically, you’d have something nearing the size of the Cheewhat Giant, the king of the B.C. forest. It’s not the biggest tree in the world — that’s red cedar’s cousin, the giant sequoia — but it’s up there.

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The Cheewhat Giant is the largest known tree in Canada, comparable to more than 450 telephone poles. It was discovered within Pacific Rim Provincial Park in 1988, the same year western red cedar was declared BC’s provincial tree. Photo by TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance.

Adding to its biomass, red cedar can reproduce asexually in a process known as layering. Branches or foliage that touch damp earth can sprout roots and become new saplings. Cedars are sometimes found in clusters of three to five, like a family or close circle of friends. Red cedar growing in isolation might just develop a mutant limb or a second head. But the finest cedars, those born under an old-growth canopy with feet deep in wet soil, rise straight and tall, slowly, toward the light.

“Red cedar shows its age and beauty but never looks old,” Hebda says. “It’s like an Ent in The Lord of the Rings, just this incredible, venerable being.”

Cedar is one of the best natural carbon banks on the planet thanks to its burly biomass and slow rate of decay. It can live for more than 1,000 years and, because of its anti-rot properties, dead trees or “snags” take hundreds more years to decompose. That can mean several metric tonnes of carbon stored by a single tree.

In fact, a dead cedar left in place is arguably even more important than a live one. Downed cedar trees become “nurse logs,” their spongy bark welcoming mosses, lichens, seedlings and insects to move in. Ancient cedars often hollow out like upside-down ice-cream cones, becoming favoured hibernation dens for black bears.

From talking trees to Timber Kings

Once considered a nuisance for the logging industry to cut down, red cedar became profitable starting in the late 1960s, as primary stands in Oregon and Washington were depleted. Before that, cedar was sometimes dumped into lakes where it floated until values increased enough for companies to come salvaging. But by 1988, the tree’s commercial reputation had turned around; red cedar was declared B.C.’s provincial tree due to its increasing worth and profound significance to First Nations.

Today, old-growth red cedar, defined by the province as being 250 years or older, is the most valuable log type, currently selling for two to five times the price of other conifers. Red cedar is made into a diverse range of products from acoustic guitars to utility poles, but it’s mostly cut into lumber, shingles, and shakes — more than 80 per cent of which is exported to the U.S.

Its long fibres are good for paper and pulp production, too. The Harmac Pacific pulp mill in Nanaimo has been churning out red cedar pulp to make the disposable blue masks and hospital gowns fighting COVID-19. The “tree of life” is literally saving lives.

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Pioneer Log Homes, based in Williams Lake, BC, works with timber companies to select red cedar logs that have unique flutes and bark seams, shown off in multi-million-dollar estates like Pioneer Ranch in central California. Photo via Pioneer Log Homes of BC.

BC’S SECOND CEDAR

Western red cedar has much in common with its sister in the cypress family: the yellow cedar, or yellow cypress. Both trees are long-lived, rot-resistant, revered members of the temperate rainforest, but yellow cedar is more rugged, rare, and lean. The heartwood is strong and dense, making it good for First Nations’ totem poles, house posts, and support beams. Yet, the inner bark is more pliable, absorbent, and anti-inflammatory than red cedar bark, so women often preferred it for baby diapers, sanitary napkins, wound dressings and fleecy nests to catch newborn infants.

In Hesquiaht oral history, three women were drying salmon on a beach when trickster raven scared them by pretending to be an owl. The women ran up the mountain in fright. Out of breath, they were transformed into the beautiful yellow cedars we often see on hillsides.

Like red cedar, yellow cedar can survive in diverse terrain. But it’s being hit hard by climate change, particularly receding snowpack that leaves its roots exposed to winter frost. Yellow cedar is, counterintuitively, freezing to death in a warming climate. Ancient yellow cedar is also being targeted by timber companies, notably on the Sunshine Coast and near the Fairy Creek watershed on southern Vancouver Island, where logging blockades broke out in August.

Bryan Reid Sr., a co-owner of Harmac Pacific, founded Pioneer Log Homes of B.C. in 1973. The company, now run by his son Bryan Reid Jr., builds and sells log homes almost entirely made of red cedar. Reid, who starred in the HGTV show Timber Kings and lives in a red cedar log home in Williams Lake, chose to base his business on the tree because of its durability against weather and termites. The wood also shrinks 30 per cent less than white woods such as spruce, fir, and pine, Reid says, making it less likely to crack.

“[Other wooden shakes would] rot or just split and blow off the roof,” Reid says, adding that red cedar wood has low density, making it a great insulator from heat, cold, and sound. “Cedar shines as being probably the most desirable fibre in the world for log homes.”

Pioneer Log Homes works with timber companies to select red cedar logs that have unique flutes, bark seams, and character for “Family Trees,” named by the Mormon family that first ordered one. These distinctive cedars, harvested down to their roots, often star as the centrepiece of a multi-million-dollar home.

“It’s like building a castle,” Reid says. “And you build it out of cedar, so you know it’s going to be there.”

The canary in the cutblock

But concern is mounting that red cedar, along with the old-growth forests that shelter them, may not always be with us. Once a prominent member of the coastal rainforest, red cedar made up 15 per cent of coastal vegetation by 2011, according to the B.C. Vegetation Resources Inventory. A recent scientific report found that less than one per cent of provincial forests contain the largest trees today.

Since becoming a high-value species in the mid-1990s, the forest industry has targeted old-growth red cedar to boost timber sales. And this may be getting worse. Representing about 20 per cent of the coastal wood supply, red cedar has comprised nearly 40 per cent of recent cuts.

Cedar struggles to reestablish after logging and is often browsed by deer, making it much less abundant in post-harvest stands than in mature and naturally regenerated forests. There’s a growing movement among First Nations, environmentalists, communities and ecologists to protect the ancient cedars and old-growth ecosystems that remain.

Adding to the assault on red cedar is climate change. It’s believed that drought stress causes leaves to turn reddish-brown and branches to drop off the crown, creating the characteristic “candelabra” or “cake fork” spikes (which also result from wind and other types of disturbance).

“They will essentially prune the less efficient parts distant to the supply of water,” Hebda says. “So the top of the tree will die, but the core of the tree lives, and can sprout and grow again.”

Climate models run by Hebda and others project that much of red cedar’s current range will be too warm and dry in the not-so-distant future. An extreme scenario shows the tree only surviving on about five per cent of Vancouver Island by 2080, as favourable climatic conditions migrate upslope, northward, and to parts of the interior predicted to get wetter.

Climate models aren’t perfect, Hebda admits, but the warnings for red cedar are clear: “It gets warm, it gets dry, you lose cedars,” he says. “It plays the canary in the coal mine when it comes to climate change.”

The same tree performs a vital function in reducing atmospheric carbon that causes climate change. It’s a paradox that Hebda muses may be understood, in some primal way, by the cedars themselves. “Some of these trees have experienced multiple cycles of climate variation in the last 1,000 years, and their connections to the past stretch back 50 million years, so they genetically know about this,” he says. “And the trees are going to be taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, saving us from ourselves.”

“Old-growth has to be saved everywhere, whether it be cedar or otherwise,” Hebda adds. “And, of course, that means respecting and preserving the deep, multi-millennial relationship between the people and these ecosystems.”

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B.C taking new approach to preserving old-growth forests

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My Campbell River Now
September 12, 2020

The province is taking a new, holistic approach as a first step for the benefit of its old-growth forests.

This will include the protection of nine areas throughout the province, totalling almost 353,000 hectares.

In a break from the divisive practices of the past, the government plans to engage the full involvement of Indigenous leaders and organizations, labour, industry and environmental groups to work together in conserving biodiversity while supporting jobs and communities, especially on the coast and Vancouver Island. 

The actions government is taking are informed by the independent panel report, A New Future for Old Forests.

“For many years, there has been a patchwork approach to how old-growth forests are managed in our province, and this has caused a loss of biodiversity. We need to do better and find a path forward that preserves old-growth forests, while supporting forest workers,” said Doug Donaldson, Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development.

“Those who are calling for the status quo to remain are risking crucial biodiversity loss, while those who are calling for immediate moratoriums on logging are ignoring the needs of tens of thousands of workers. Our government believes in supporting workers, while addressing the needs of old-growth forests, and these values will guide our new approach.”

Initial actions government is taking in formulating an old-growth strategy include:

  • engaging the full involvement of Indigenous leaders and organizations to review the report and work with the Province on any subsequent policy or strategy development and implementation;
  • deferring old forest harvesting in nine areas throughout the province totalling 352,739 hectares as a first step, and committing to engaging, initiating or continuing discussions with Indigenous leaders;
  • beginning work to address information gaps, update inventory and improve public access to information, and bring the management of old forests into compliance with existing provincial targets and guidelines; and
  • involving industry, environmental groups, community-based organizations and local governments in discussions regarding the report recommendations and the future of old-growth forests in B.C., and the social, economic and environmental implications for communities.

The province says further work is also underway to protect up to 1,500 exceptionally large, individual trees under the Special Tree Protection Regulation. 

This builds on the government’s announcement in 2019 that it would develop a permanent approach to protecting big, iconic trees.

To learn more about British Columbia’s commitment to forest stewardship is available at https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/industry/forestry/managing-our-forest-resources

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BC Says Preserving Biodiversity Now Guides Logging Policies

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The Tyee
September 11, 2020

The province matches its much-anticipated report with new protections. But some ancient forests are still at risk.

Walbran
Left unprotected. Among the old-growth areas not granted new protections by the BC forests ministry is the Central Walbran Valley, shown here in the foreground. Forests in the background are protected within the Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park. Photo by TJ Watt, Ancient Forests Alliance.

B.C. Forests Minister Doug Donaldson today announced the deferral of old-growth logging within more than 350,000 hectares as well as the protection of up to 1,500 giant trees. The move came in response to a highly anticipated report also released today on the management of old-growth forests in the province.

Environmentalists, workers and First Nations representatives applauded the steps but say they leave out some of the most at-risk ancient forests as well as funding for implementation.

The report, titled A New Future for Old Forests, calls for a paradigm shift that prioritizes ecosystem health over the timber supply and acknowledges the many intrinsic values of mature old forests, including biodiversity, clean water, cultural resources, recreation, climate regulation and carbon storage. With the passage of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act last fall, Indigenous involvement was listed as the first recommendation.

“Not a single stick of old growth should have left Kwakiutl territory in the last 10 years,” said Kwakiutl Chief Walas Numgwis (David Knox) in a Sierra Club press release responding to the report. “Yet we’ve seen heavy industrial exploitation of the ancient forests and [been] given only crumbs in return. My hope is that we come together to create a better relationship with the forest. The work starts now and we’re ready.”

Donaldson said that the province recognizes the need for a new approach to managing B.C.’s ancient forests. “We know that the status quo is not sustainable,” he said. “Obviously, it’s no good for industry to cut it all down with no plan for transition. And we know that unchecked logging in old growth threatens crucial biodiversity.”

“Over time our understanding of forests and societal values have evolved,” Donaldson added. “We need an approach that brings together western and Indigenous knowledge and science, and one that considers perspectives from across all sectors and stakeholders.”

Nearly three-quarters of the forested land where logging will be paused is in Clayoquot Sound, which has already been phasing out logging since the famous demonstrations of the 1980s and ’90s. The second-largest swath is in the Incomappleux Valley outside Revelstoke.

About 200,000 hectares of the deferral area is believed to be old growth, according to Torrance Coste, national campaign director with the Wilderness Committee. That means less than half of the province’s most valuable old growth — estimated at about 420,000 hectares — is protected.

Old-growth forests are generally defined as those containing trees more than 250 years old on the coast and in the inland temperate rainforest, and more than 140 years old in the Interior.

But not all old-growth forests hold the same biodiversity value, Coste said, and exact boundaries of deferral areas have not been released.

“We need to see that the old growth that they’re deferring actually matters and we need more details around the plan to shift the deferrals to permanent protection,” Coste said. “We need more immediate action. The reality is, even with these deferrals, hundreds of hectares of old growth were logged today. Hundreds of hectares of old growth are going to be logged on Monday.”

Not included in the moratorium are the Central Walbran Valley or the Fairy Creek area of southern Vancouver Island, where blockades have been preventing logging of the intact watersheds and big-tree cedar-hemlock forests.

“The Walbran is one of the most important areas ecologically on the South Island,” Coste said. “The only way they can really show they’re serious is if [the government] keeps expanding, if they keep building on this, and they defer more key areas, so they won’t be lost in the meantime.”

When asked about contentious areas like the Central Walbran and Fairy Creek at a briefing Friday afternoon, Donaldson said managing old-growth forests while maintaining jobs is a challenge that won’t be solved overnight. “An immediate moratorium would be devastating to workers and forest-dependent communities,” he said.

Other areas of concern include the boreal rainforest and inland rainforest near Prince George. The latter is being targeted by the wood pellet industry, said Michelle Connolly, director of the volunteer-run community group Conservation North. A scientific study released in June found that only one per cent of provincial forests still support the largest trees today. The interior wet belt is one area where very little productive forest remains.

“The deferral map inadvertently shows where industrial forest corporations hold the power,” Connolly said. “Every type of old-growth forest in the central interior is at risk. This place is in trouble.”

Leaving the most at-risk areas available for logging in the name of First Nations consultation is disingenuous and removes economic opportunities for all communities, including Indigenous communities, Connolly added.

“Deferring logging of the most at-risk places now keeps options open, while logging those areas removes the options permanently because those forests are never coming back,” she said. “Old-growth forests are not a renewable resource.”

A commitment to work with Indigenous communities was emphasized in Friday’s announcement, but there was no clear answer on how long that will take. Coste points out that First Nations consultation should happen prior to logging, not just when suspending it.

“If you can’t set aside old growth without First Nations’ consent, then you shouldn’t be able to log it without their consent,” he said. “Every forest plan and logging plan in B.C. was set up without Indigenous consent and that doesn’t get delayed.”

582px version of Gary Fiegge
Gary Fiege, president of the Public and Private Workers of Canada, says the new report lacks key steps towards transitioning BC’s timber industry to value-added processing and halting raw log exports.

One thing missing from today’s announcement was how the province intends to support workers who could be out of a job because of declining old-growth supply. This is especially important on the coast and Vancouver Island, where half of the annual harvest is from old-growth forest, said Gary Fiege, president of the Public and Private Workers of Canada.

The report also lacks clear steps to transition the industry to second growth and added-value processing through actions like retooling mills and halting raw-log exports.

But Fiege commends the government for its commitment to First Nations and its phased approach to implementing the report’s recommendations, which will roll out over 36 months.

“The government is standing on the edge of a knife with competing interests on both sides,” Fiege said. “We have 30 years of old growth left, maybe less with biodiversity needs and the needs of the planet. This is really only a step in a long journey.”

Donaldson said the province will provide a progress report next spring.  [Tyee]

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Clayoquot Sound

B.C. moves to end divisive old growth forest policies, protects nine areas

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The Canadian Press
September 11, 2020

Meares Island in the Clayoquot Sound region, one of the areas identified for development deferral. TJ WATT-ANCIENT FOREST ALLIANCE

The British Columbia government says it’s taking a new and more all-encompassing approach to protecting the province’s old-growth forests.

Forests Minister Doug Donaldson says the government wants to break from the past _ when forestry decisions led to confrontations _ and fully involve environmental groups, Indigenous leaders, forest companies, labour organizations and communities while working together to protect forests and support jobs.

He says B.C. must do a better job of finding ways to protect forests while saving jobs.Donaldson says the province will immediately defer timber harvesting in nine old-growth areas, totalling almost 3,530 square kilometres.

In July 2019, B.C. announced a panel to conduct an independent strategic review of old-growth forests, which resulted in a report containing 14 recommendations.B.C.’s Wilderness Committee says in a statement the government’s announcement represents a significant opportunity to protect the province’s remaining old-growth forests.

For a link to a map of old–growth areas for immediate development deferral, visit: https://news.gov.bc.ca/files/Old_Growth_No1.pdf

List of old–growth areas for immediate development deferral:

1. Clayoquot Sound: 260,578 hectares. Renowned for its beauty and range of resource values, typical forests of the very wet Coastal Western Hemlock zone, with western hemlock, western red cedar, yellow cedar, balsam, berries, ferns and moss.

2. Crystalline Creek: 9,595 hectares. A tributary of the south fork of the Spillimacheen River, an intact watershed with wetland complexes and old and mature forests.

3. H’Kusam: 1,050 hectares. Prounounced kew-sum, this easily accessible area contains outstanding examples of culturally modified trees and intact stands of old–growth cedar.

4. Incomappleux Valley: 40,194 hectares. Inland rainforest with intact riparian habitats, more than 250 lichen species, lowland forests and old–growth forests estimated to be between 800 and 1,500 years old.

5. McKelvie Creek: 2,231 hectares. Intact valley of old–growth temperate rainforest and intact watershed providing rich wildlife and salmon habitat.

6. Seven Sisters: 4,510 hectares. A complete elevation sequence of forested ecosystems, with a blend of coastal, interior and northern features, habitat for many red- and blue-listed wildlife species.

7. Skagit-Silver Daisy: 5,745 hectares. Largely intact transition forest between coastal and interior types, with species representative of both, including sub-alpine fir, western and mountain hemlock, western red and yellow cedar and Douglas fir, home to wildlife including spotted owls.

8. Stockdale Creek: 11,515 hectares. Old and mature forests in an intact watershed, an important wildlife corridor with high-value grizzly bear habitat.

9. Upper Southgate River: 17,321 hectares. Coastal rainforest providing a rich habitat for wildlife and multiple species of salmon.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2020.

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Blockades halt logging road construction into untouched watershed

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Ha-Shilth-Sa
August 25, 2020

Eartha Muirhead stands with Steve Fischer at one of three blockades set up in August to block forestry access into the Fairy Creek valley. Teal-Jones has halted road building in the area. (Eric Plummer photos)

Port Renfrew, BC — Blockades are holding the line in three locations near Port Renfrew, preventing forestry activity from entering one of Vancouver Island’s few untouched watersheds.

Driven by a loosely affiliated collection of volunteers, the first blockade was established Aug. 10 to stop roads from being built into the Fairy Creek valley, a remote tributary of the San Juan River system east of Port Renfrew. A week later a second blockade was set up to prevent access by Granite Main, another route that could lead into the Fairy Creek valley.

Fairy Creek lies within Tree Farm Licence 46, a large section of Crown land that has been held by the Teal-Jones Group since 2004.

“Teal Jones started blasting a new road on the far side of Fairy Creek, it was going to come in right over the top of the ridge,” explained Jeff, a Victoria resident at the second blockade who asked that his last name not be disclosed. “The reason we have a blockade here is that this is the other logical route to get into Fairy Creek. There is very recent old-growth falling that was happening up this road.”

According to those at the site, this initial falling included large old-growth yellow cedar trees, a species that holds important spiritual value to Nuu-chah-nulth-aht. The Fairy Creek valley is within the traditional territory of the Pacheedaht, but the First Nation has yet to speak in support or opposition to harvesting in the watershed.

However, Pacheedaht elder Bill Jones isn’t reluctant to share his opposition to the forestry activity. He recalls hunting in the Fairy Creek valley as a young man, and his uncles used the area for prayer and other spiritual practices.

“I used to go up there hunting in my young manhood and they came out of the forest behind Fairy Lake mountain and surprised me,” recalled Jones. “They used to like to go into the woods for the private solitude and the peace there.”

The region is home to massive stands of yellow and red cedar, reason enough to keep harvesting away from the valley, said Jones.

“There’s a lot of yellow cedar in the Fairy Lake watershed, which is a revered and respected spiritual tree for our people, along with the red cedar,” he continued, adding that the road that Teal-Jones began to build was directed at a particularly old tree. “The road is going directly to a yellow cedar that a forester estimated to be about 1,500 to 2,500 years old. They are aiming the logging road right straight to the tree.”

Support for the blockades has been consistent over August, with a steady flow of food, provisions and volunteers to man the posts for a few days at a time. A third blockade went up Aug. 22 to ensure logging trucks don’t gain access to the valley.

Denman Island resident Eartha Muirhead accompanied Jeff at the Granite Main blockade. They are both veterans of past movements to stop the clearcutting of old-growth trees, including an arrest Muirhead sustained in Clayoquot Sound in 1993, possibly the largest movement of civil disobedience in Canadian history.

“I think that growing up in old growth forests influences how you see the world,” commented Muirhead.  “The natural world has so much wisdom. It is who we are in essence.”

She saw someone from the forestry company come to the site on Aug. 10 to check on a road building machine on the other side of the blockade. Muirhead said he looked surprised to see people there, and although they invited him to cross the line to check on the machine, he voluntarily left.

A drive up Granite Main overlooking the other side of the mountain that forms the Fairy Creek valley gives a quick indication of why so many are concerned for the untouched watershed. Large swaths of the mountainside are clearcut, with equipment still on site.

One the other side of the cutblock, two thirds of the Fairy Creek watershed is protected as a Marbled Murrelet Wildlife Habitat Area, according to the Ministry of Forests.

“Our government is committed to protecting old growth and biodiversity while supporting workers and communities,” said B.C. Forestry Minister Doug Donaldson in a statement sent to Ha-Shilth-Sa. “When it comes to this work, there have been some strides over the past 30 years, but our government wants a comprehensive science-based approach.”

Nearly three decades since the mass arrests in Clayoquot Sound, old growth logging remains an integral part of B.C.’s coastal forestry industry. Information sent to the Ha-Shilth-Sa in July 2019 from BC Timber Sales clarified that approximately half of the timber harvested from Crown land that is auctioned annually is old growth, and will be “for the foreseeable future.”

“This is what the timber supply, economic base and community employment across the coast is based on,” wrote a spokesperson for the provincial agency responsible for auctioning sections of Crown land.

The TFL 46 management plan calls to maintain an annual harvest of 367,363 cubic metres of timber, less than half – or 180,000 – of which is second growth.  

“This harvest level is sustainable for fifty years, at which point it must fall to the long-term sustainable level of 332,500 m3 /year,” states the management plan, which was drafted in 2010.

This model for a sustainable harvest has not reassured Jones.

“We have very little left, and likely within a short while it will be gone forever,” he said. “We have to save some for the future and we have to save some for the children’s future.”

The Ministry of Forests would not say if it will enforce forestry access to the Fairy Creek valley. For the time being, Teal-Jones has halted road construction as the blockades remain in place. 

Activists continue blockade of logging road on Vancouver Island to protect giant cedar

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CBC News British Columbia
August 14, 2020

T.J. Watt, an activist with the Ancient Forest Alliance, admires an old-growth yellow cedar in the Fairy Creek watershed near Port Renfrew on southern Vancouver Island. (TJ Watt)

Protesters want the B.C. government to release recent review of old-growth forests in the province

Protesters have spent nearly a week blockading a logging road near Port Renfrew in an effort to defend what they say is the last unlogged watershed on southern Vancouver Island, outside of protected parks. 

“Enough is enough,” said Saul Arbess, a spokesperson for the Friends of Carmanah Walbran, a group with a history of fighting logging in the region. “It’s time to protect these areas.”

Arbess and other protesters want the provincial government to stop Teal-Jones, a Surrey-based logging company, from building a road into the Fairy Creek watershed, home to numerous old-growth yellow cedars, including one nearly three meters in diameter, the ninth-widest known yellow cedar in the province.

Clear-cutting Fairy Creek, they say, could wreak havoc on the local environment, threatening species diversity and exacerbating flooding in the San Juan River Basin. 

The stump of what is said to have been a 800-year-old red cedar that was cut down near the entrance of Carmanah-Walbran Provincial Park on Vancouver Island in 2013. (Canadian Press)

Loggers remove equipment 

In response to the blockade, which began Sunday, Teal-Jones removed machinery from the site Tuesday, after cutting trees and blasting rock to make way for the road. 

When reached earlier this week, the company told CBC News it had no comment at this time. 

Teal-Jones holds the tree farm license (TFL) that includes the watershed. Though the company has not yet applied for a cut block in Fairy Creek, activists worry that move may be imminent, pointing to the recent road construction, which they say is common practice ahead of making a cut block application. 

Swell of action to defend old growths

This week’s demonstration follows recent protests outside NDP MLA offices and a two-week-long hunger strike to raise awareness over the loss of old-growth forests across B.C. 

A study by a group of forest researchers released in April showed that only three per cent of all B.C. forests are suitable for growing very large trees like those found in Fairy Creek. 

Besides safeguarding Fairy Creek, protestors have pushed for the release of a recent government review on old-growth forest habitats in the province. The Ministry of Forests received the report on April 30 with a stipulation that it be released to the public no more than six months later. 

“Yet, they’re sitting on this to allow another full season for the [logging] companies to continue to destroy the old growth,” Arbess added, calling this moment the “11th hour” to save the province’s heritage forests.

Old-growth specimens in the Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park on southern Vancouver Island. Protesters are trying to save old-growth trees in the area that are not currently protected. (TJ Watt)

Two-thirds of watershed already protected

B.C.’s Ministry of Forests told CBC News it plans to release the review either later this summer or in the fall. 

An emailed statement from Forest Minister Doug Donaldson’s office also noted that “about two thirds” of the Fairy Creek watershed is already protected by the Marbled Murrelet Wildlife Habitat Area.

Logging in the area remains an important livelihood for some members of the local Pacheedaht First Nation, added the ministry.

According to Arbess, the Pacheedaht nation has offered neither support nor opposition to the blockade. 

Despite a long history as a logging community, Port Renfrew has recently rebranded itself as an ecotourism destination, the self-proclaimed Tall Tree Capital of Canada. 

TJ Watt, a campaigner with the Victoria-based Ancient Forest Alliance, understands why. 

“These are some of the biggest, most remarkable yellow cedars we’ve ever seen,” said Watt in a press release on Thursday. 

They’re also, Watt said, among the longest-lived life forms in the country. He hopes it stays that way.

With files from Kieran Oudshoorn

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Protesters showcase massive old yellow cedar as Port Renfrew area forest blockade continues

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The Williams Lake Tribune
August 14th, 2020

9.5-foot-wide yellow cedar measured by Ancient Forest Alliance campaigners in Fairy Creek watershed

Government and company officials continue to avoid comment as an environmental blockade near Port Renfrew reached its fifth day Friday.

Attempts by Black Press media to speak to representatives of logging company Teal Jones and area MLA and Premier John Horgan went unreturned, as protesters continued with a blockade launched Monday to stop Teal Jones Group from punching road access into the Fairy Creek watershed.

READ MORE: Battle of Fairy Creek: blockade launched to save Vancouver Island old-growth

Conservationists said they have documented a old yellow cedar tree measuring 9.5 feet in diameter in the general area. They said the tree is wider than the ninth-widest yellow cedar in Canada, as recorded in BC Big Tree Registry.

TJ Watt, a conservationist with Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) measured record-sized ancient yellow cedars at the headwaters of Fairy Creek which the protesters say is the last unlogged old-growth valley near Port Renfrew on southern Vancouver Island.

“Yellow cedars are the oldest living organisms in the country,” said Watt and added, “these trees are the last of the ancient giants.”

Although AFA conservationists were able to measure only a dozen or more of these giant trees over the weekend, Watt said that there may be much larger undocumented big trees in the valley. The group also located a number of exceptionally large western hemlocks as well.

“Unfortunately there are no rules in place to preserve big trees. The government continues to delay and stall policy to protect these trees and in the meantime logging companies cut and raze them,” said Watt

Calling it a chance encounter, Watt said that no one would have known these record sized trees existed at this place if the logging company had gotten to it first.

Teal-Jones Group recently began building roads along the ridgeline above Fairy Creek, about four kilometres up from the popular Fairy Lake recreation spot. The company also has approved permits to build roads extending down into the headwaters and on the ridgeline on the opposite side of the upper valley.

While there are currently no pending or approved cutblock applications at this time, protesters worry boundary tape found within the valley headwaters indicates that it could be part of their future plans.

These giant yellow cedars add weight to the Fairy Creek blockade and gives protesters even more of a reason to stand firm. “This is an exceptional area of biodiversity,” said Watt.

Watt is worried that building these roads opens the door to future fragmentation of Fairy Creek.

Dr.Saul Arbess, a spokesperson for the Fairy Creek protesters told Black Press Thursday that they have not received any response from either the provincial authorities nor Teal Jones.

Arbess suspects Teal Jones Group might get a court injunction. But the protesters are still holding strong and maintaining the blockade, he said.

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Chek News- Fairy Creek

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Chek News
5pm Newscast – August 13, 2020

Watch this Chek News segment about the blockade to protect the at-risk headwaters of the Fairy Creek valley near Port Renfrew in Pacheedaht territory.

Fairy Creek is the last, unlogged valley outside of a park on southern Vancouver Island, and it’s currently under threat from road construction and potential future logging by Teal Jones.