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Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner Andrea Inness stands atop Canada's 9th-widest Douglas-fir tree

Old growth logging intensifies in Nahmint Valley

May 28 2018/in News Coverage/by TJ Watt

Nahmint Valley, BC — Some of the largest trees in Canada are being cut west of Port Alberni as part of old-growth logging currently underway in the Nahmint Valley.

Recent harvesting includes a massive Douglas fir that was cut down earlier in May. This tree measured 31 feet in circumference and 10 feet wide, dimensions that would rank it among the country’s top 10 largest Douglas firs in the BC Big Tree registry, a public record managed by the University of British Columbia.

This discovery was reported to the Ancient Forest Alliance, an organization that works to protect old-growth forests and promote sustainable second-growth forestry practices.

AFA Executive Director Ken Wu said that an estimated one per cent of Vancouver Island’s old-growth Douglas fir trees are still standing, and compared the forestry practices in Nahmint to hunting endangered animals.

“It’s sort of like coming across a herd of elephants and slaughtering them all, they’re so rare these days, these monumental stands,” he said.

The AFA has identified two trees in the valley with dimensions that rank them among the largest of their species in Canada. These include the three-metre-wide Douglas fir that was recently cut down and what the AFA is calling “the Alberni Giant,” a Douglas fir growing deep in the Nahmint forest with a diameter of 3.7 metres (12 feet). They also found a 4.3-metre-wide (14-foot) western red cedar standing in Nahmint.

Some of these trees are thicker than those found in Cathedral Grove, which are provincially protected from harvesting. The grove’s largest tree is an 800-year-old Douglas fir measuring 2.8 metres in diameter, bringing the possibility that the Alberni Giant could be as old as 1,000 years.

“They are vitally important for endangered species and wildlife that need old-growth forest,” said Wu of the giant trees. “They provide clean water for steelhead and salmon in the Nahmint River, they store more carbon per hectare than any other type of forest on earth.”

The Nahmint trees are in 300-hectares of cutblocks that were auctioned for harvest by BC Timber Sales, a provincial agency that manages Crown land for the forestry industry. Nahmint’s largest old-growth fir trees each bring tens of thousands of dollars in marketable wood, according to information provided by the forestry contractor currently working on the cutblocks.

According to the province’s Vancouver Island Land Use Plan, the Nahmint Valley is not an area that should be seeing intensified old-growth logging. The valley falls under the Special Management category, which prioritizes “environmental, recreational and cultural/heritage values.”

“In the Nahmint landscape unit, there are 2,760 hectares of old growth management areas, ungulate winter ranges and wildlife habitat areas that protect old-growth forests,” said the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development in an email to the Ha-Shilth-Sa. “In addition, BCTS conducted a cedar assessment and specifically identified old growth cedar trees to retain from logging.”

The ministry emphasized that there are 520,000 hectares of Vancouver Island’s old-growth forests that will never be logged, comprising 55 per cent of the Island’s old growth forest that lies on Crown land.

But TJ Watt of the AFA believes that Nahmint’s largest trees are being targeted for logging. He said that the cutblocks designated for harvesting are the same parts of the Nahmint Valley that hold the largest old-growth trees.

“We looking to protect the same areas that the logging industry is looking to take,” said Watt. “It’s happening all over the Island, all of the time. Old-growth logging is not a thing of the past, it just often happens in areas that are mostly out of sight and out of mind.”

The Nahmint Valley is in the Hah=uu>i of the Hupacasath and Tseshaht First Nations. The old-growth harvesting has sparked concern from some in these First Nations, including Brenda Sayers, a Hupacasath member who has taken family members to Nahmint in the past.

“I travelled out there quite often when I first moved home. I brought my nieces and nephews to get them acquainted with different parts of our traditional territory,” she said. “I haven’t been out there in a while actually, because it breaks my heart. I don’t know that I could handle seeing the state of the way things are.”

Sayers believes the practice goes against a pledge the NDP government made during the last provincial election.

“In partnership with First Nations and communities, we will modernize land-use planning to effectively and sustainably manage B.C.’s ecosystems, rivers, lakes, watersheds, forests and old growth, while accounting for cumulative effects,” stated the NDP platform in 2017. “We will take an evidence-based scientific approach and use the ecosystem-based management of the Great Bear Rainforest as a model.”

“The province has once again failed our Indigenous people,” said Sayers. “Some people think reconciliation means renaming a street or having cross-cultural workshops to minimise racism. To me, reconciliation is the land, and the government needs to recognize First Nations as the original right holders to the land.”

Minister of Forests Doug Donaldson responded to say that working with First Nations is the first thing the province plans to do as it revises its forestry management.

“The new government is committed to modernizing the land use planning process and protecting old-growth forests is a vital component of that,” he said. “As part of Budget 2018, we committed $16 million over three years to modernizing the land use planning process and work has already begun. The first step is collaborating with Indigenous Peoples. More information about land use planning will be coming in the fall.”

In a document dated Sept. 11, 2017, BC Timber Sales listed best management practices for “legacy trees,” which are exceptionally old and unique stands in the province’s forests.

“BC Timber sales recognizes that legacy trees are often attributed with having important cultural, aesthetic and ecological value,” stated the document. “These trees, when retained, can play an important role in habitat conservation by bridging old-growth characteristics into second-growth stands. In addition, large trees are increasingly supporting the growing ecotourism economy as valuable destinations in and of themselves.”

The BCTS guidelines for the protection of legacy trees cite a minimum diameter of three metres for western red cedars and 2.1 metres for Douglas fir, well under the width of the largest old-growth trees identified by the Ancient Forest Alliance in the Nahmint Valley.

But the BCTS document noted that all legacy trees might not be protected.

“Legacy trees may need to be felled during or after primary harvesting operations if they constitute a safety hazard (or are affected by other operational factors) that cannot be addressed through pother means,” stated the document.

These other operational factors could include “impacts to cutblock design, in particular in cutblocks that rely on overhead cable harvest systems,” “known First Nations interest,” and the “local abundance of legacy trees,” according to the BCTS document.

Wu believes that what’s going on in the Nahmint Valley shows that these guidelines are not serving their conservationist purpose.

“It has enough loopholes to drive a logging truck through,” he said.

Sayers noted that logging Nahmint’s old-growth trees threatens a “sensitive and valuable ecosystem” that provides protection for elk and deer during the winter.

“I think it’s really a crime against nature,” she said. “Every tree is an individual ecosystem. We believe that they have a spirit and as old as they are, they’ve witnessed to the things that took place in our traditional territory. They have a history, they hold knowledge and they’re sacred to us.”

“I feel bad for the loggers whose job it is to mow these trees down, because they have to live with that,” added Sayers. “They’re removing something that’s been gifted to us, they’re removing that right for their children and grandchildren and future generations.”

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Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner Andrea Inness walks beside an enormous

People are furious about the destruction of these old growth giants. And you won’t believe who’s approving it.

May 28 2018/in News Coverage/by TJ Watt

Andrea Inness, a forest campaigner with Ancient Forest Alliance, and several other people went on an expedition on May 6, to the Nahmint Valley, which is about an hour outside of Port Alberni on logging roads. Once there, they were horrified to find massive, centuries-old red cedar and Douglas fir trees being cut down.

“We expected to see some logging, but we were all astonished to see how much had taken place. There were near record-breaking trees that we found that were being cut,” Inness said in an interview. “We were shocked at the scale of the logging and so dismayed to see these cedars lying on the ground.”

The B.C. government promises progress by the fall. Let’s hope that includes a move to make it a crime to cut down these majestic, centuries-old trees.

Adam Olsen, the B.C. Green Party critic for forests, said this issue could become a big problem for the government, if they don’t change their policy. More on that further down.

Inness says the group found a tree equivalent to the fifth widest Douglas Fir tree in the country and another that was equivalent to the ninth widest.

“We were just back there (on May 23) and it had been logged,” Inness said. “It was heartbreaking. It’s an absolute failure on the B.C. government’s part to protect these rare and endangered trees.”

Although size isn’t necessarily indicative of the exact age of a tree, Inness said those big trees are between 500 and 1,000 years old. And irreplaceable.

“It’s almost as if the government itself was condoning the slaughtering of white rhinos or the harpooning of blue whales. It’s unbelievable,” Inness said.

The government freely admits that logging is still going on in old-growth forests on Crown land in B.C., but says it is continuously reviewing practices to ensure that logging is sustainable and ecosystems are healthy.

In its election platform, the NDP promised to work with First Nations and communities to “modernize land-use planning to effectively and sustainably manage BC’s ecosystems, rivers, lakes, watersheds, forests and old growth, while accounting for cumulative effects. We will take an evidence-based scientific approach and use the ecosystem-based management of the Great Bear Rainforest as a model.”

The 6.4-million-hectare Great Bear Rainforest was created by a 2016 agreement between the B.C. government and Coastal First Nations to conserve 85 per cent of the forest and 70 per cent of the old growth.

Protecting old growth forests is a vital component of modernizing the land-use planning process, said Doug Donaldson, B.C.’s Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development Minister.

“As part of Budget 2018, we committed $16 million over three years to modernizing the land use planning process and work has already begun,” Donaldson said in a statement. “The first step is collaborating with Indigenous Peoples. More information about land use planning will be coming this fall.”

Donaldson said more than 55 per cent of Crown old growth forests on B.C.’s coast is protected and that on Vancouver Island more than 40 per cent of Crown forests are considered old growth, including 520,000 hectares that will never be logged, but that the land-use plan on the island allows for logging in certain areas and logging supports jobs in rural communities.

But still, felling these giant trees is completely legal, even on Crown land, with permits issued by BC Timber Sales, a government agency that provides the cost and price benchmarks for timber harvested from public land in British Columbia.

Arborist-conservationist Matthew Beatty atop a newly fallen western red cedar in the Nahmint Valley near Port Alberni. Photo by TJ Watt

People are furious about the loss of these trees, MLA says

“People are furious about what’s been going on,” Olsen, the B.C. Green Party critic for forests, told National Observer. “People have not responded to any other campaign more abrasively and angrily than they are this one. We’ve received over 4,000 emails on this issue all within a few days.”

Olsen said the Greens would like to see the government stop auctioning off the right to log these trees and to work on developing a sustainable second-growth logging industry. He doesn’t believe the government is getting the highest value possible for these trees and that it needs to look beyond the immediate short-term economic gains of cutting them down.

“With so much of the old growth already cut, … certainly it would be our desire to see the B.C. government taking a different approach,” Olsen said. “It is essentially extending the same unsustainable practices that the former government took to devastating habitat.”

The Ancient Forest Alliance and other B.C. environmental groups are also calling for an end to logging ancient trees.

“We are calling on the B.C. government to implement a comprehensive, science-based law to protect endangered old growth forests,” Inness said. “We want not only a policy that protects the largest trees on the coast, of which these would absolutely qualify, with buffer zones around them, but also, beyond just protecting big trees, we need to protect entire forest ecosystems.”

The environmental groups aren’t alone. The BC Chamber of Commerce said in 2016 that “many local communities economically would stand to receive a greater net benefit in revenues and jobs over the ensuing decades from the protection of key old-growth forests in their region.”

Also in 2016, the Union of British Columbia Municipalities (UBCM) passed a motion calling for the protection of old-growth forest on Vancouver Island because of its “significant economic, social and environmental value as wildlife habitat, tourism resource, carbon sink and much more.”

Even the Public and Private Workers of Canada (PPWC) has called for the protection of old-growth rainforest on Vancouver Island, for forestry companies to transition to second-growth logging and for an end to raw-log exports.

Ariane Telishewsky of the Port Alberni Watershed-Forest Alliance sits on top of a massive red cedar stump in the Nahmint Valley near Port Alberni. Photo by TJ Watt

Ancient trees play a vital role in climate change, survival of species

These ancient trees play a vital role in climate change – they can store two to three times more carbon than second-growth forests, Inness said. They are also very important for endangered and threatened species.

The Nahmint Valley is home to Roosevelt elk, black-tailed deer, cougars, wolves, and black bears, as well as species that live only in old-growth forests, like the marbled murrelet and northern goshawk. Olsen also emphasized that old-growth forests provide productive spawning areas for salmon.

The AFA would like to see B.C. protect all old-growth forests and make the transition to a second-growth forest industry now, rather than when all of the non-protected old-growth forests are gone.

“We need incentives for companies to retool their mills and we also need more incentive to add value to the wood here in B.C. and at the same time, curbing raw log exports,” Inness said. “That would not only sustain the amount of forestry jobs in B.C., but possibly even increase forestry employment in the province.”

A future in which BC’s rare and beautiful old-growth forests remain intact, but with jobs to spare in its economy is a future worth fighting for. This future must include a flourishing second-growth forestry industry and a sustainable transition for First Nations. The B.C. government promises progress by the fall. Let’s hope that includes a move to make it a crime to cut down these majestic, centuries-old trees.

Link to original article: www.nationalobserver.com/2018/05/28/opinion/people-are-furious-about-destruction-these-ancient-old-growth-giants

Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner TJ Watt next to Canada's 9th-widest Douglas-fir tree

Ancient Forest Alliance calls for end to old-growth logging in Nahmint Valley

May 28 2018/in News Coverage/by TJ Watt

WATCH VIDEO NEWS COVERAGE HERE

The Nahmint Valley south of Sproat Lake near Port Alberni is a spectacular piece of Vancouver Island. The mountains are tall and so are the trees, but the conservation group Ancient Forest Alliance says too many of the tallest and oldest trees are being cut down.

The group recently became aware of logging in the area and on a recent trip saw an orange ribbon with “Falling Boundary” written it.

It was near a Douglas fir that was over three metres wide and was the 10th widest Douglas fir tree in B.C. according to the BC BigTree registry.

On a return trip a few days later, it had been cut down.

“We're standing here right beside a Douglas fir tree that was cut down just this past week, larger than the largest one at Cathedral Grove,” said TJ Watt, co-founder of Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA), on Friday. “This Douglas fir is 10 feet in diameter, there's less than one per cent of the old growth Douglas fir trees remaining today on BC's coast and this is just unacceptable.”

The group says it is not against logging at all but insists that remaining old growth trees in B.C. need to be saved.

“It's kind of like shooting the tigers in India right? They used to shoot a lot of tigers now we don't anymore,” said local Port Alberni conservationist Mike Stini. “It's about saving something that's rare and endangered.”

The Ancient Forest Alliance says it is hypocritical that Premier John Horgan who when in opposition visited Avatar Grove near Port Renfrew in efforts to save old growth trees there but now as premier, he is allowing the government agency BC Timber Sales to auction off 300 hectares of old growth forests in the Nahmint Valley to logging companies.

“And B.C. Timber Sales is meant to be implementing what they call best management practices for legacy trees. Legacy trees being those that meet certain criteria in terms of size. This would absolutely fall within that category.” said Ancient Forest Alliance's Andrea Inness.

A statement to CHEK News from the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development reads: “There are 2,760 hectares of old growth protected in the Nahmint landscape unit. Since August 2016, BCTS has awarded five timber sales totalling 319 hectares. On Vancouver Island’s public lands, there are about 520,000 hectares of old growth forests that will never be logged. Government is continuously reviewing practices to ensure healthy ecosystems and that logging is sustainable.”

Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development Doug Donaldson said: “The new government is committed to modernizing the land use planning process, and protecting old growth forests is a vital component of that. As part of Budget 2018, we committed $16 million over three years to modernizing the land use planning process and work has begun. The first step is collaborating with Indigenous Peoples. More information about land use planning will be coming this fall.”

“Over 55 per centof Crown old growth forests on B.C.’s coast are protected. On Vancouver Island, over 40 per cent of Crown forests are considered old growth, with 520,000 hectares that will never be logged. The Vancouver Island Land Use Plan designated areas for protection and areas suitable for resource development, including logging. Logging continues to support jobs in communities such as Port Alberni.” added Donaldson.

But the Ancient Forest Alliance doesn't agree.

“The B.C. government is deceptively playing with numbers by including vast areas of much smaller trees growing on high rocky mountainsides to inflate their old-growth statistics, in order to mask their logging of the very rare monumental stands of the biggest trees in the valley bottoms and low elevations – where over 90 per cent have been logged, including 99 per cent of the old-growth Douglas-firs on the coast.” said TJ Watt.

Forestry Union President Calls on NDP to Protect BC Forests & Forestry Jobs

Feb 8 2018/in News Coverage/by TJ Watt

Doug Donaldson understands better than most how neglected B.C.’s forests are, and how that neglect is mirrored in troubling job losses and missed employment opportunities in rural towns and First Nations communities.

As B.C.’s forests minister, he is also the MLA for the vast Stikine riding where Highway 37 is a gateway to old-growth forests that have been logged for decades with one goal in mind: to strip them of their trees and send virtually every log out of the province, in raw, unprocessed form.

Donaldson’s riding is also home to a mothballed pulp mill, idled sawmills and troublingly few value-added mills, including one — Kyahwood Forest Products — that is First Nation-owned, employs mostly First Nation people from the small community of Moricetown and that ought to be the norm in B.C., not the exception.

Donaldson knows all of this. He also knows that just 10 days after Premier John Horgan named him to cabinet, the Somass sawmill in Port Alberni closed, ending good-paying jobs for 80 people at a mill whose history traces to the 1930s.

Western Forest Products, which put those people out of work, is B.C.’s biggest coastal forest company and a major exporter of raw, unprocessed, old-growth logs.

Donaldson and his NDP colleagues were silent on Somass’s closure. In contrast, just months earlier, Horgan travelled to a recently closed sawmill in Merritt, where against a backdrop of a large sign reading, Closed by Christy Clark, he lashed out at the Liberals for failing to help a “community in distress.”

Well the time for posturing is over. Horgan is premier. He and his forests minister, whose file now includes “rural development,” must act. It’s up to them to lead on the forestry and rural-revitalization files.

Were it not for the efforts of my union, at least one other sawmill in the same riding that includes Port Alberni would be down by now. We see no signs of action from the government. What is its plan, if any?

During the last term of the Liberal government, more raw logs left B.C. than at any other four-year span in the province’s history. In 2016 alone, enough unprocessed logs left the province to frame 134,000 homes. More troubling, we see that de facto log exports are regularly occurring in the Interior of the province, where “have” regions become the sources of logs for the “have-nots.” The Merritt mill closure was partly caught up in that ugly reality.

Perpetuating the status quo translates into a wholesale assault on our coast’s diminished forests, rural communities and First Nations, a reality that Scott Fraser, Port Alberni’s MLA and Minister of Indigenous Affairs and Reconciliation, understands better than most.

Donaldson, Fraser and all their cabinet colleagues have signed mandate letters that explicitly commit them to implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

I’ve read that document. I see what’s happening on First Nation lands. I know that we can and we must do better as an industry and as a society by bringing First Nations into true partnerships with resource industries. But I’m starting to seriously wonder whether the same can be said of this government.

It’s time for bold action by government, driven by a vision of what is socially, economically and ecologically just. Here’s what my union believes is possible and that’ll have the ultimate support of many First Nations, environmental organizations and some forest companies:

More old-growth forests protected. An end to raw-log exports. Increased forest-industry employment based on getting greater value from every log we cut, rather than shipping it off in unprocessed form. New, First Nation-area-based tenures that anchor new joint ventures where First Nations are majority partners.

By staying silent on mill closures and allowing raw-log exports to continue unchecked, our government is allowing our pockets to be fleeced.

Last year, Horgan tried to exploit the Merritt mill closure to his political advantage. Today, the buck stops with him, Donaldson, Fraser and the rest of the NDP cabinet.

Staying silent in the face of more mill closures, more forest depletion and continued failure to reconcile with First Nations isn’t an option.

Arnold Bercov is president of the Public and Private Workers of Canada.

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Opinion: Status quo a non-starter in B.C.’s forest industry

Jan 28 2018/in News Coverage/by TJ Watt

Arnie Bercov - President of the PPWC. Photo: TJ Watt

Vancouver Sun Op-Ed by Arnie Bercov: Doug Donaldson understands better than most how neglected B.C.’s forests are, and how that neglect is mirrored in troubling job losses and missed employment opportunities in rural towns and First Nations communities.