Twenty years ago today, about 30 residents of Tofino were driving up and down the highway by Long Beach, communicating via handheld radios, tracking a helicopter carrying B.C.’s premier of the day and select media.
A local guy listening in on emergency, aviation and boat communications was transmitting the play-by-play, while the helicopter sought a quiet landing spot where the premier could make a “contained” statement about the fate of Clayoquot Sound’s forests.
Nothing that followed, however, in what was to become the Clayoquot Summer of 1993, could be construed as “contained.”
The Clayoquot land-use decision of April 13, 1993, sparked a mass protest that put Clayoquot Sound’s ancient temperate rainforests on the international map. Over a period of six months, the region became an icon for an environmental awakening.
Clayoquot symbolized all that was wrong with industrial logging and was a touchstone for people’s hope for change. It shook the province, inspired people to action and hatched a marketplace-oriented strategy that has been utilized in environmental campaigns from the farthest corner of Vancouver Island to the Great Bear Rainforest to Indonesia, the Amazon and beyond.
The conflict, in fact, began in the previous decade with a group of volunteers from the Friends of Clayoquot Sound and First Nations leaders who rose to protect their traditional territories. Reaction to the 1993 Clayoquot decision transformed the local conflict into a movement with reverberations to this day.
Clayoquot Summer ’93 was triggered because the decision left two-thirds of the region, including many intact rainforest valleys, open to industrial logging. Public outrage about this decision funnelled into the largest act of non-violent civil disobedience in Canadian history, culminating in the arrest of 856 of the 12,000-plus protesters, who were tried in mass trials and jailed.
By October 1993, when the protests wrapped up, it had spilled into years known as the “War in the Woods.” Environmental groups targeted corporate customers of B.C. wood and paper products around the world, causing the province grief and the industry millions in lumber and paper sales.
In response to the non-violent but highly energized uprising, the political ground in B.C. shifted. Clayoquot marked a renaissance in First Nations land-rights discussions, and environmental groups became powerful intermediaries, both in the wood-supply chain and in the political discourse. Importantly, the public became defiant over what they saw to be legal but wrong — the destruction of the environment — and began to stir.
Out of the controversy, the First Nations in Clayoquot Sound, who hadn’t been consulted on the land-use plan, were chosen to be first in the province’s new treaty process, and a groundbreaking pre-treaty agreement was signed.
By August, then-premier Mike Harcourt established the Clayoquot Sound Scientific Panel for Sustainable Forest Practices. The outcry against wanton clearcut logging broke through barriers, sparking the province to initiate B.C.’s first forest-practices code. The logging industry circled its wagons in an attempt to defend its tarnished reputation in the marketplace, but change was apace.
The fight for Clayoquot was a polarizing issue. Wedges were driven between communities as we grappled with the biggest issues of our day with nowhere but the public forum to play them out. And yet, we all crept, agonizingly, toward breakthroughs that British Columbians can be proud of.
What happened in Clayoquot Sound, beginning in April 1993, has had a major influence on global environmental movements, the Great Bear Rainforest campaign and even the oilsands and pipeline campaigns of today — as well as on conservation of Clayoquot’s forests.
It has been 20 years. Just over half of Clayoquot’s rainforests are now off-limits to logging. But many of the region’s intact rainforest valleys are still unprotected, and the region’s First Nations communities still struggle economically.
As the anniversaries of the Clayoquot Sound land-use decision and subsequent uprising of the Summer of ’93 are marked, we see new opportunities for conservation and human well-being growing again in Clayoquot Sound. A lasting solution may soon be at hand that honours the movements for environmental and social justice begun those 20 years ago, in the magnificent, inspiring place that is Clayoquot Sound.
There are many more stories to tell about those times. There are more in the making there now.
Valerie Langer is with ForestEthics Solutions. Eduardo Sousa is with Greenpeace. Maryjka Mychajlowycz is a member of Friends of Clayoquot Sound. Torrance Coste is a campaigner for the Wilderness Committee.
Conservationists Launch Petition for BC’s Endangered Mountain Caribou, Call on BC’s Politicians to Protect Ecologically Vital Forests
/in Media ReleaseConservationists have launched an on-line petition calling on BC’s politicians to commit to protecting critical lowland forests that buffer the province’s gravely endangered Mountain Caribou against predators. Clearcuts adjacent to Mountain Caribou habitat support increased moose and deer, and so bolster predator populations that also prey on caribou. See the petition at: www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/help-save-canada-s-mtn-caribou
Mountain Caribou are the world’s most southerly reindeer and Canada’s largest old-growth dependent animal. Resident almost exclusively in British Columbia, their population has declined precipitously in recent decades, from 2500 animals in 1995, to 1900 animals by 2007, to 1500 animals by 2013 (i.e., a 40% decline since the 1990s). Since 2002, they have been formally designated as Threatened in Canada. See: www.env.gov.bc.ca/wld/speciesconservation/mc/
The petition comes in response to pending plans by Canfor to undertake major logging in the Clearwater Valley adjacent to the southern boundary of Wells Gray Provincial Park. It calls for an immediate moratorium on logging in the valley through a provincial Land Use Order. It also urges the B.C. government to establish low-elevation “Caribou Matrix Management Zones” throughout the range of the Mountain Caribou. Such management zones are needed adjacent to high-elevation winter habitat, which already receives protection. Link here for maps and further details: www.wellsgrayworldheritage.ca
The petition has the backing of the Ancient Forest Alliance (www.AncientForestAlliance.org), a provincial conservation group working to protect BC’s endangered forests, and is being spearheaded by Trevor Goward, a well-known lichenologist and naturalist who makes his home in the Clearwater Valley.
“Surely it ‘s unthinkable that the BC government would endorse logging plans guaranteed to enhance wolf and cougar populations adjacent to Wells Gray, home of one of the largest remaining mountain caribou herds anywhere,” stated Goward. “Wells Gray’s southern herd has declined by about one-third in the past decade. If we can’t maintain a viable population of Mountain Caribou in a vast wilderness park like Wells Gray, then what hope is there of doing so elsewhere? This makes a mockery of B.C.’s Mountain Caribou Recovery Strategy.”
“BC’s politicians have a moral obligation to save one of BC’s most endangered and iconic large mammals by establishing a moratorium on industrial logging in the Clearwater Valley by Wells Gray Park, and to restrict logging in the lowland matrix habitat across the Mountain Caribou’s range,” stated Ken Wu, Ancient Forest Alliance executive director. “We’ve seen old-growth dependent species decline, including the Spotted Owl, Marbled Murrelet, and now the Mountain Caribou, under successive BC Liberal and NDP governments who’ve lacked the will to do what it takes to halt their slide towards extinction. Now is the time, before the upcoming election, for BC’s politicians to commit to make it right.”
On paper the BC Liberal government’s 2008 Mountain Caribou Plan looks good, promising to rebuild BC’s Mountain Caribou population from 1,700 in 2008 to 2,500 animals by 2027. This will be achieved, it claims, through a three-pronged approach comprising: first, 2.2 million hectares of mostly high-elevation forests set aside as winter habitat; second, intense predator control targeted at wolves and cougars; and third, management of mechanized backcountry winter recreation.
Actually, one government caribou recovery team argued for inclusion of a fourth prong, what they called ‘matrix habitat’: low to mid-elevation forest not necessarily occupied by mountain caribou but capable, when logged, of supporting moose and deer and hence their predators in substantial numbers. “What the recovery team was urging,” notes Goward “was a commitment by government to refrain from creating ever more clearcuts in matrix habitat. Unfortunately, this did not happen. As a consequence, the government’s plan has largely entrusted the Mountain Caribou’s future to a costly regime of predator control: a war on wolves.”
“The very idea that a workable recovery strategy could be founded on a war against predator populations largely of its own creation seems incredible. It is like hoping to raise chickens without building a chicken coop. You can blast away at predators as long as you like, but the problem never disappears. Sooner or later you lose your chickens,” Goward notes.
Wells Gray Provincial Park supports the world’s second largest populations of Mountain Caribou. However, since 2002 the park’s southern herd has declined from 325 animals to only 200 animals a few years ago. By creating more habitat for deer and moose, and hence for predators, the pending logging proposal by Canfor would further stress a herd already in serious decline.
Goward would like to see an extension to the park’s boundaries southward to help make Wells Gray ecologically self-sustaining. This has been done twice in the past: once in the mid- ‘50s, and again in the mid- ‘90s. The habitat needs of Mountain Caribou played a major role in both decisions. Protecting a small area adjacent to the park would be a significant step towards the recovery of the Wells Gray herd.
The Ancient Forest Alliance is running a campaign calling on the province to protect old-growth and endangered forests, to ensure sustainable, value-added forestry jobs, to implement a sustainable rate of cut, and to end the export of raw, unprocessed logs from BC to foreign mills.
Authorized by the Ancient Forest Alliance, registered sponsor under the Election Act
Ancient Forest, Alliance, Victoria Main PO, PO Box 8459, Victoria, BC, V8W 3S1 Canada
NDP Forestry Platform Fails Ecologically and Continues the Unsustainable Status Quo of Old-Growth Depletion and Overcutting
/in Media ReleaseAncient Forest, Alliance, Victoria Main PO, PO Box 8459, Victoria, BC, V8W 3S1 Canada
NDP forest plan ‘minor deviation from unsustainable status quo’: critic
/in News CoverageThe New Democratic Party's forestry platform released this morning is a major disappointment, said Ken Wu, the executive director of the Ancient Forest Alliance environmental group.
“I'm just looking at this with rage here,” he said in an interview. “This is a minor deviation from the unsustainable status quo.”
This morning NDP leader Adrian Dix released a five point plan for forestry. It included a commitment to skills training for the industry, more emphasis on forest health, improved inventory and building markets for B.C. wood. It also talked about reducing the export of raw logs and re-instating a jobs protection commissioner.
The plan calls for $30 million in added spending on forestry in 2013-2014, building to $100 million five years from now.
“There are some aspects that are progressive, but there's not a lot of detail,” said Wu. Restricting raw log exports is positive, for example, but today's announcement didn't say how the NDP would do that, he said.
During the NDP leadership contest, Dix promised an NDP government would develop “a long-term strategy for old-growth forests,” which Wu made note of at the time.
“He has not kept his promise,” said Wu, adding the NDP could still make that commitment. “They need to do it soon. At this point I'd say the NDP just don't get it on forest conservation. They still have a chance, but this forestry platform is a flop ecologically.”
Wu said individual MLAs such as Scott Fraser in Alberni-Pacific Rim have championed the protection of old growth forests. “We need the entire NDP party to make it part of their platform to protect endangered old growth and ensure sustainable second growth forestry.”
The NDP platform says the party would take five years to double the number of seedlings planted by the government on Crown land to 50 million annually.
In a February interview, NDP forestry critic Norm Macdonald criticized the BC Liberal government for failing to meet an earlier commitment to be planting 50 million seedlings a year by 2012.
Noting at least one million hectares were already known to be not sufficiently restocked, Macdonald said, “Any competent government, and it comes down to competence, any competent government looks after its most valuable asset.”
Link to article on The Tyee website: https://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/2013/04/15/ForestStatus/
NDP’s forestry-policy plank sparks partisan ire, disappoints ecologists
/in News CoveragePRINCE GEORGE – New Democrat Leader Adrian Dix has released a multimillion dollar election plan that he believes will help grow and improve B.C.'s forest industry, but critics say the proposal makes promises that will be hard to keep.
In Prince George Monday, Dix announced the five-point forestry plan that would see $310 million invested in the industry over five years if his party wins the election in May.
The NDP leader announced his government would invest in skills training, to improve forest health, to expand global markets for B.C. lumber and to cut raw log exports, while it reinstates a jobs protection commissioner.
“Skills training is really the principle focus of our economic plan, to ensure young people have the skills they need for the jobs of the future,'' Dix said.
The B.C. Liberal Party immediately criticized the plan, saying it lacks policy details.
“After months of delay, I think British Columbians were expecting more,'' said Forest Minister Steve Thomson in a news release.
George Hoberg, a forest policy expert at the University of British Columbia, said Dix's promise to reduce raw log exports will be hard to keep.
“Raw logs are always something that politicians talk about, but it's actually very hard to deliver in terms of either policy or real change in the industry,'' Hoberg said.
“Our comparative advantage is in raw resource material or in commodities, not in more labour-intensive value-added production,''
he said.
The NDP's commitment to improve forest health includes an emphasis on increasing the province's research capacity, updating forest inventories and doubling the number of seedlings planted annually.
Hoberg said he is impressed with the plan's focus on forest health.
“The biggest challenge that we face in forestry is renewing the forest that has been disseminated by the mountain pine beetle and the Liberals have not been particularly effective at investing resources on that,'' Hoberg said.
“The one big change that we will likely see, if the NDP is elected, is a greater commitment to government funding of inventory and silviculture,'' he said.
Hoberg was surprised at the lack of discussion of environmental issues in the NDP plan – something he said the Liberal forestry plan also lacks.
Ken Wu at the Ancient Forest Alliance called the plan “a big disappointment ecologically.''
“It essentially continues the unsustainable status quo of old growth liquidation and over cutting which has led to the collapse of ecosystems and communities,'' Wu said.
Dix campaigned for party leadership with a promise to address old growth deforestation, but he now appears to be reneging on his commitment, Wu said.
“We are hoping that the party will move forward with additional policy commitments in the lead up to the election so that Dix fulfills his promise to develop a provincial old growth plan which was his 2011 leadership bid promise,'' Wu said.
Dix said the plan was developed in consultation with forest industry businesses, union leaders and with communities.
Some of the suggestions are in line with a 2011 report created by the B.C. Government and Service Employees Union, which suggests tightening raw log exports and increasing staff levels within the B.C. forest service.
A spokesperson from the Council of Forest Industries, which represents over a dozen forest companies in the province, wasn't available for comment.
Globe and Mail online article: www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/ndps-forestry-policy-plank-sparks-partisan-ire-disappoints-ecologists/article11253131/
AFA’s Old-Growth Forestry “Report Card” for the BC Liberals, NDP, Greens, and Conservatives
/in AnnouncementsApril 15, 2013
Old-Growth Forestry “Report Card” for the BC Liberals, NDP, Greens, and Conservatives
The following is a summary on the positions of BC’s main political parties on old-growth related forest policies and some additional forest policies. The Ancient Forest Alliance is calling on BC’s political parties to commit to a science-based “Old-Growth Protection Act” with targets and timelines to end old-growth logging in endangered regions and to ensure a sustainable, value-added second-growth forest industry instead.
BC LIBERAL PARTY
The BC Liberal Party has a long anti-environmental record in regards to the management of old-growth forests and forestry jobs in most of BC.
The BC Liberal government in general has supported and defended the large scale liquidation of old-growth forests across most of BC, deregulated numerous forestry laws that protected the environment and jobs, facilitated the massive expansion of raw log exports to foreign mills, and oversaw the net demise of over 30,000 BC forestry jobs and the closure of over 70 mills in BC.
Some policies and positions they’ve undertaken:
BC NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY (NDP)
The NDP released its forestry platform today which makes no mention of old-growth protection, the environment, or sustainability. See: www.bcndp.ca/files/BG-BCNDP-130415_-_Forestry.pdf
NDP Leader Adrian Dix, during his 2011 campaign to become party leader, promised to: “Develop a long term strategy for old growth forests in the province, including protection of specific areas that are facing immediate logging plans.” (see point #4 in “Ecosystem Management”) [Original article no longer available]
Several individual NDP MLA’s have championed protecting specific old-growth forests while in Opposition, but at this time Dix and the NDP party as a whole have not followed up, developed any specifics, re-mentioned, or even officially adopted Dix’s earlier leadership promise for a province-wide old-growth plan.
On April 13, 2013, comments by the NDP’s Envirornment Critic Rob Fleming in the Times Colonist suggests the party supports scientific conservation assessments of our old-growth forests as proposed by the “Old-Growth Protection Act”. See: www.timescolonist.com/news/world/ancient-forest-alliance-calls-for-science-based-forest-plan-1.109973. This is a step forward. However, the party has not committed yet to the plan’s actual protection scheme that would end old-growth logging in endangered regions – the crux of the plan.
On raw log exports, the party has promised to “reduce” raw log exports, but no details have been given beyond “working with stakeholders”.
BC GREEN PARTY
The BC Green Party committed on April 14 to undertake a science-based old-growth plan to protect endangered old-growth forests, to recruit second-growth forests into becoming old-growth, and to increase the export tax on raw logs to support value-added manufacturing in BC. See: www.andrewjweaver.ca/bc_green_party_forestry_action_plan
The party is also calling for a reduction in the overcutting of second-growth forests and phase-out of clearcutting. See: www.greenparty.bc.ca/forestry
BC CONSERVATIVE PARTY:
The BC Conservatives have no mention in their platform or website about old-growth protection, sustainable forestry, or anything environment-related to forestry, and as such we assume at this time that they support the status quo of large scale old-growth liquidation and raw log exports.
In fact, about the only thing mention of forestry in their platform is a statement that “the BC Liberals have shown little enthusiasm for the development of British Columbia’s abundant natural resources.”
NEW Old-Growth Protection Act! SEND a MESSAGE to the NDP-Government-in-Waiting
/in Take Action**Please FORWARD far and wide!**ACTION ALERT! April 14, 2013
Proposed BC “Old-Growth Protection Act”
LETTERS NEEDED NOW to the NDP Government-in-Waiting!
There are only TWO days left until the official 28 day campaign period begins (ie. when the “writ drops”) in the lead-up to the May 14 BC Election.
NOW is the MOST important time for YOU to SPEAK UP for our Ancient Forests and Sustainable Forestry Jobs!
A proposed BC “Old-Growth Protection Act” has just been released by the Environmental Law Centre at the University of Victoria. The science-based plan would incorporate timelines to immediately end or quickly phase-out old-growth logging in endangered regions of BC. See more info on the proposed act at:
CTV News Clip: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wb09Z0-4rmE
Media Release: https://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/old-growth-protection-act-needed-to-preserve-bcs-natural-heritage/
The BC Liberals are in all likelihood going to lose power in May. This is a necessity, given their long, unapologetic, anti-environmental history of large-scale old-growth forest liquidation, massive overcutting, environmental deregulation, and overseeing the demise of tens of thousands of BC forestry jobs while tens of millions of raw logs were exported to foreign mills. It’s important to remember this while at the ballot box on May 14.
Now, with an NDP government in all likelihood about to take power, we are asking that the NDP COMMIT to the key tenets of the proposed Old-Growth Protection Act and to not continue the disastrous, unsustainable status quo in BC’s forests. [SEE “Where Do the Parties Currently Stand” down BELOW]
**** PLEASE take just a couple MINUTES to WRITE a QUICK EMAIL to the NDP! ****
Let BC NDP Leader Adrian Dix (adrian.dix@bcndp.ca), NDP Forestry Critic Norm MacDonald (norm.macdonald.mla@leg.bc.ca), NDP Environment Critic Rob Fleming (rob.fleming@bcndp.ca), and your own NDP Candidate (find at: https://www.bcndp.ca/team) know that you expect them to:
* Be sure to include your full mailing address so they know which riding you live in and that you’re a real person.
* Be sure to let them know if you are a member of the NDP party!!
*** NOTE: In addition, you can SEND a MESSAGE (but also please write your own email, above, which is most effective) to the BC NDP and also Premier Christy Clark through our website: www.BCForestMovement.com (IMPORTANT: If you’ve used this website before, note that it sends a DIFFERENT message now with important changes, and YES, you can and should send this NEW message).
**********************************************
WHERE DO THE PARTIES CURRENTLY STAND on OLD-GROWTH PROTECTION?
The BC Liberals have not changed their unscientific, anti-environmental stance that old-growth forests are not endangered and that they’ve managed them well. They will likely lose power, and deserve to, unless they radically change their stance.
The BC Green Party recently committed to the key parts of the Old-Growth Protection Act. See: [Original article no longer available]
The NDP seem to support scientific conservation assessments for our old-growth forests, as indicated by yesterday’s comments of the NDP’s Environment Critic Rob Fleming about the Old-Growth Protection Act (see: www.timescolonist.com/news/world/ancient-forest-alliance-calls-for-science-based-forest-plan-1.109973). This is a recent step forward. However, they have not committed yet to the plan’s actual protection scheme that would end old-growth logging in endangered regions – this is the central part of the plan.
In mid-March, a Global TV piece aired about old-growth forests and the NDP’s forestry platform. Nowhere was old-growth protection mentioned as being part of the NDP’s forest policies (rather, their main policy was to “plant more trees”) and the Council Of Forest Industry (COFI) president commented that there was nothing of concern to the timber companies with the NDP’s forest policies. Let’s hope the party’s forest policies have evolved since! See: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOz232HDx3Y
NDP Leader Adrian Dix, during his 2011 campaign to become party leader, promised to: “Develop a long term strategy for old growth forests in the Province, including protection of specific areas that are facing immediate logging plans.” While several NDP MLA’s have championed protecting specific old-growth forests while in Opposition, at this time Dix and the NDP party as a whole have not followed up, developed any specifics, re-mentioned, or even officially adopted Dix’s earlier leadership promise for a province-wide old-growth plan. DIX MUST BE MADE to KEEP HIS PROMISE. See Dix’s 2011 promise (#4 Ecosystem Management) at: [Original article no longer available]
See the Ancient Forest Alliance’s new Youtube Clip on Saving BC’s Endangered Forests and Forestry Jobs at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6YTizBF-jE
Authorized by the Ancient Forest Alliance, registered sponsor under the Election Act
Ancient Forest, Alliance, Victoria Main PO, PO Box 8459, Victoria, BC, V8W 3S1 Canada
Ancient Forest Alliance calls for science-based forest plan
/in News Coverage*Note: The Green Party has adopted the key recommendations of the Environmental Law Clinic’s proposed Old-Growth Protection Act. It appears that the NDP support the scientific assessment component of the proposal, however they have not yet committed to the calls for protection and fully ending old-growth logging in endangered regions.
______________
Up-to-date science and legislation without massive loopholes is needed to protect B.C.’s remaining old-growth forests, says the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Clinic.
The proposed Old-Growth Protection Act was produced by the clinic at the request of the Ancient Forest Alliance. The group’s executive director, Ken Wu, hopes it will spur the government to action.
“It’s time for a new, science-based plan,” he said.
An industry transition to second-growth trees is inevitable as the last unprotected old-growth stands are logged, Wu said.
“We simply want the B.C. government to ensure the transition is completed sooner, while these ancient forests still stand.”
The proposal, which is similar to a plan released Friday by the Green Party of B.C., is based on immediately stopping old-growth logging in critically endangered forests and phasing out old-growth logging where there’s a high risk to biodiversity and the ecosystem.
Major elements of the plan include appointing a science panel to carry out inventories and forest risk assessments, establishing different harvest rates for old-growth and second-growth, and legally designating old-growth reserves so there are consistent, enforceable rules.
Calvin Sandborn, the clinic’s legal director, said the plan is practical, science-based and politically doable.
“We wanted something that would fix the flaws in the current system, and the flaws are numerous,” he said.
Protection now offered by old-growth management areas is limited, Sandborn said.
Boundaries are adjusted to move protected areas away from valuable old-growth stands, logging is conducted under the guise of protecting forest health, small, stunted old-growth trees are protected, rather than big stands, and areas protected under forest rules can still be harvested by the oil and gas industry, Sandborn said.
If science and current mapping were used to establish which areas should be protected, much of the political heat would disappear, especially as protecting ancient trees produces more jobs over the long term than cutting them down, he said.
“These trees are our equivalent of the ancient cathedrals of Europe,” he said.
Forests Minister Steve Thomson could not be reached Friday.
NDP environment critic Rob Fleming said the proposed legislation “speaks to the urgency of the issue.”
“The idea of a science panel to assess the inventory of old growth on the Island is a good one, and I think it’s supportable,” he said. “It echoes an earlier call from the Forest Practices Board.”
The Green party is also calling for more science-based assessments and a provincial inventory of remaining old-growth forests.
“Given the scarcity of remaining productive old growth in much of our province, it is clear that we need to head in a new science-based direction to manage our forests,” said Green leader Jane Sterk.
The party also wants to see incentives for companies to retool mills so they can handle second-growth trees, and emergency protection for endangered ecosystems, such as the eastern Vancouver Island coastal Douglas fir zone.
Comment: 1993’s Clayoquot Summer was a game-changer
/in News CoverageTwenty years ago today, about 30 residents of Tofino were driving up and down the highway by Long Beach, communicating via handheld radios, tracking a helicopter carrying B.C.’s premier of the day and select media.
A local guy listening in on emergency, aviation and boat communications was transmitting the play-by-play, while the helicopter sought a quiet landing spot where the premier could make a “contained” statement about the fate of Clayoquot Sound’s forests.
Nothing that followed, however, in what was to become the Clayoquot Summer of 1993, could be construed as “contained.”
The Clayoquot land-use decision of April 13, 1993, sparked a mass protest that put Clayoquot Sound’s ancient temperate rainforests on the international map. Over a period of six months, the region became an icon for an environmental awakening.
Clayoquot symbolized all that was wrong with industrial logging and was a touchstone for people’s hope for change. It shook the province, inspired people to action and hatched a marketplace-oriented strategy that has been utilized in environmental campaigns from the farthest corner of Vancouver Island to the Great Bear Rainforest to Indonesia, the Amazon and beyond.
The conflict, in fact, began in the previous decade with a group of volunteers from the Friends of Clayoquot Sound and First Nations leaders who rose to protect their traditional territories. Reaction to the 1993 Clayoquot decision transformed the local conflict into a movement with reverberations to this day.
Clayoquot Summer ’93 was triggered because the decision left two-thirds of the region, including many intact rainforest valleys, open to industrial logging. Public outrage about this decision funnelled into the largest act of non-violent civil disobedience in Canadian history, culminating in the arrest of 856 of the 12,000-plus protesters, who were tried in mass trials and jailed.
By October 1993, when the protests wrapped up, it had spilled into years known as the “War in the Woods.” Environmental groups targeted corporate customers of B.C. wood and paper products around the world, causing the province grief and the industry millions in lumber and paper sales.
In response to the non-violent but highly energized uprising, the political ground in B.C. shifted. Clayoquot marked a renaissance in First Nations land-rights discussions, and environmental groups became powerful intermediaries, both in the wood-supply chain and in the political discourse. Importantly, the public became defiant over what they saw to be legal but wrong — the destruction of the environment — and began to stir.
Out of the controversy, the First Nations in Clayoquot Sound, who hadn’t been consulted on the land-use plan, were chosen to be first in the province’s new treaty process, and a groundbreaking pre-treaty agreement was signed.
By August, then-premier Mike Harcourt established the Clayoquot Sound Scientific Panel for Sustainable Forest Practices. The outcry against wanton clearcut logging broke through barriers, sparking the province to initiate B.C.’s first forest-practices code. The logging industry circled its wagons in an attempt to defend its tarnished reputation in the marketplace, but change was apace.
The fight for Clayoquot was a polarizing issue. Wedges were driven between communities as we grappled with the biggest issues of our day with nowhere but the public forum to play them out. And yet, we all crept, agonizingly, toward breakthroughs that British Columbians can be proud of.
What happened in Clayoquot Sound, beginning in April 1993, has had a major influence on global environmental movements, the Great Bear Rainforest campaign and even the oilsands and pipeline campaigns of today — as well as on conservation of Clayoquot’s forests.
It has been 20 years. Just over half of Clayoquot’s rainforests are now off-limits to logging. But many of the region’s intact rainforest valleys are still unprotected, and the region’s First Nations communities still struggle economically.
As the anniversaries of the Clayoquot Sound land-use decision and subsequent uprising of the Summer of ’93 are marked, we see new opportunities for conservation and human well-being growing again in Clayoquot Sound. A lasting solution may soon be at hand that honours the movements for environmental and social justice begun those 20 years ago, in the magnificent, inspiring place that is Clayoquot Sound.
There are many more stories to tell about those times. There are more in the making there now.
Valerie Langer is with ForestEthics Solutions. Eduardo Sousa is with Greenpeace. Maryjka Mychajlowycz is a member of Friends of Clayoquot Sound. Torrance Coste is a campaigner for the Wilderness Committee.
CTV – Environmental Law Centre Proposes BC Old-Growth Act
/in News CoverageCTV News – The Environmental Law Centre of the University of Victoria is proposing a science-based Old Growth Protection Act for British Columbia with timelines to immediately protect critically endangered old-growth forests and to quickly phase out old growth logging in highly endangered forests. Direct Link to video: https://youtu.be/wb09Z0-4rmE
See the full press release and report here: www.staging.ancientforestalliance.org/news-item.php?ID=624
Old Growth Protection Proposal by the Environmental Law Centre of the University of Victoria
/in Media ReleaseThe UVic Environmental Law Centre is proposing a science-based Old Growth Protection Act for British Columbia with timelines to immediately protect critically endangered old-growth forests and to quickly phase out old-growth logging in highly endangered forests.
See the details of the report.
Here’s a link to the Environmental Law Centre’s website.