Photos: Taylor River Valley – Old-Growth Under Threat
Our exploration of the Taylor River Valley near Port Alberni in June 2020 exposed BC Timber Sales’ plans to auction off nearly 200 football fields worth of old-growth forest.
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B.C. vastly overestimates size of its old-growth forest, independent researchers say
CBC News British Columbia
June 4th, 2020
Self-published report concludes most old growth areas counted by province are small alpine or boggy forests
A team of independent researchers claim in a new report that the province’s accounting of old growth trees is vastly larger than the actual number of trees most people would consider old growth, namely coniferous giants.
The three co-authors of B.C.’s Old Growth Forest: A Last Stand for Biodiversity write that most of what is currently considered old growth are small subalpine or bog forests.
“They don’t distinguish between all the different types of old growth,” said Rachel Holt, co-author and registered professional biologist.
The B.C. government reports that of the province’s 57.2 million hectares of forest, 23 per cent is old growth or 13.2 million hectares.
“Only about one per cent of that total forest is old growth in the way that you or I, or pretty much anybody would think of as being old forest,” said Holt.
The precise number in Holt’s report is 400,000 hectares, or 0.8 per cent of the forested area in B.C.
“We don’t get a second chance at maintaining these, and there is really such a tiny proportion that remains,” she said.
At risk of logging
The report warns that, in addition to the issue of overestimating old growth forest, many of the large stands of trees that would be considered old growth are at risk of being logged — as much as 75 per cent.
“We know that if it’s not protected, then the plan is to log it, that’s why we can do that math,” Holt said of the system of forest management used in the province.
She said the main problem appears to be management of old growth areas.
“Lack of reporting and poor implementation of policy has left us with a big gap, and we’re just not doing a good job of protecting these, the legacy forest,” she said. “They’re not coming back.”
Holt says she and co-authors Karen Price and Dave Daust have years of experience working for the B.C. government on forestry issues.
They used publicly available data and sifted through it to compile what they believe is a more accurate picture of the remaining old growth forest.
Holt said they plan to submit their work to a scientific journal, but felt there was urgency behind making it public as soon as possible.
“I’m very concerned about the ongoing, kind of whittling down, the dwindling numbers of those stands,” said Holt.
Doug Donaldson, Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, said he wasn’t surprised to see the numbers presented in the new report — a draft was submitted to the independent Old Growth Strategic Review Panel that was launched in July 2019.
“That is exactly one of the reasons we commissioned … the panel,” Donaldson said of the debate over old growth forests in the province. “We’re taking this issue very seriously.”
“I respect the authors of the report,” he said, adding that the panel has received about 400 published papers and reports, as well as paying visits to 45 communities.
Donaldson said the panel has wrapped up its work and the findings will now be shared with First Nations for government-to-government discussions before the panel’s work is circulated to other groups and the public.
“We want to make sure that [old growth] is being managed properly, and we recognize the importance old forests have for biodiversity in the province,” he said. “We also recognize the importance that it provides for communities and workers who depend on harvesting.”
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Conservationists demand immediate logging moratoria in light of new research detailing dire state of BC’s old-growth forests
Take action for ancient forests! Send an instant message to the BC government today.
Victoria, BC – Conservationists with the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) are renewing their calls for the BC government to immediately halt logging in endangered old-growth forest ecosystems and intact ‘hotspots’ in the wake of an alarming new report depicting the critical state of BC’s ancient temperate forests.
The report, entitled BC’s Old Growth Forest: A Last Stand for Biodiversity, was prepared by a group of independent scientists for the BC government’s Old Growth Strategic Review panel in order to counter the NDP government’s highly misleading claim that there are 13.2 million hectares of old-growth in BC, comprising about 23% of forested areas.
By analyzing provincial forestry data, the authors found the vast majority (80 percent) of BC’s remaining 13.2 million hectares of old-growth consists of small trees, including bog and subalpine forests, while only about 3 percent (about 400,000 hectares) are comprised of forests capable of growing the big trees that, in most people’s minds, typify old-growth forests. The research also reveals that these remaining, higher productivity forests have been reduced to such an extent from their natural amount that most now face high risks to biodiversity and ecological integrity, yet the majority of them are still slated for logging.
Haddon Creek – Vancouver Island. TFL 46 – Teal-Jones
In light of these significant findings, the researchers, Ancient Forest Alliance, and other conservation groups are calling on the BC provincial government to enact immediate logging moratoria in all endangered forest types with less than 10 percent old-growth remaining; all high productivity old and mature forests; landscape units (i.e. clusters of watersheds) with less than 10 percent old-growth remaining; very old, irreplaceable forests; and remaining intact areas or old-growth ‘hotspots’ and to develop a legislated, science-based plan for the permanent protection for all endangered ancient forests.
“This research echoes what we have been witnessing first-hand here on Vancouver Island and the southern mainland for many years: that high productivity old-growth forests are critically endangered and that the BC government’s old-growth protection levels are grossly inadequate,” stated Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner TJ Watt.
“It also contradicts the Province’s highly misleading PR spin that old-growth forests are plentiful, that sufficient amounts are protected, and that it’s therefore ‘sustainable’ to continue logging them.”
“The BC government’s old-growth accounting system is problematic for several reasons,” stated Watt. “They fail to distinguish dissimilar geographic regions (e.g. the Great Bear Rainforest vs. the South Coast); they lump all forest types and productivity levels together, meaning small, stunted old-growth trees and grouped in with ancient giants; they exclude vast areas of largely cut-over private lands; and they fail to account for how much old-growth forest has already been logged since European colonization. For example, on Vancouver Island, almost 80% of original productive old-growth forests have been logged, including well over 90% of the low elevation, high-productivity stands where the largest trees grow.”
“At best, the government’s stats are unhelpful. At worst, they’re a deliberate attempt to mislead British Columbians in order to justify the continued liquidation of remaining, endangered ancient forests.”
BC’s productive old-growth forests are highly complex ecosystems that have evolved over centuries and millennia. They are integral for ensuring the protection of endangered species, climate stability, tourism, clean water, wild salmon, and the cultures of many First Nations. They have unique characteristics that are not replicated by the second-growth forests they’re replaced with and are a non-renewable resource under BC’s forest system, where forests are logged every 50-80 years, never to become old-growth again.
“It’s well past time decision-makers faced the facts: old-growth forests are in crisis. Unless things change immediately, entire ecosystems and the species they support are at risk of being lost forever,” stated Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner Andrea Inness.
“The BC government must acknowledge and accept these research findings and make bold commitments to address the escalating ecological and climate crises we’re facing in BC by protecting endangered old-growth.”
“While the Province works to develop its proposed Old Growth Strategy, it must immediately halt logging in the rarest ancient forest ecosystems as well as old-growth ‘hotspots’ of particularly high conservation and recreational value like the Central Walbran Valley near Lake Cowichan, the Nahmint Valley near Port Alberni, and Nootka Island near Tahsis.”
“It’s then critical that the BC government use its Old Growth Strategy to develop and implement new, science-based protection targets for old-growth forests to protect biodiversity, ecosystem integrity, and climate resiliency now and well into the future.”
“The BC government must also finance First Nations’ sustainable economic development as an alternative to old-growth logging and formally recognize and support Indigenous-led land use plans and protected areas to maintain the significant cultural values of ancient forests while supporting First Nations’ communities and wellbeing.”
‘Failure of Professional reliance’: Nahmint logging broke rules, investigation claims
Ha-Shilth-Sa
October 24, 2019
Port Alberni, BC
Logging of ancient fir trees in Nahmint Valley is expected to continue despite investigations that point to violations of old-growth protections by the government’s timber auction agency.
Logging of ancient fir trees in Nahmint Valley is expected to continue despite investigations that point to violations of old-growth protections by the government’s timber auction agency.
Why?
“That’s the way it’s always been,” said Brandy Lauder, Hupacasath First Nations councillor and natural resource manager.
Lauder doesn’t expect any great consequence from an ongoing investigation of Nahmint logging by the B.C. Forest Practices Board and wasn’t surprised to learn the results of internal investigations by the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations.
“The only way this is going to change is if (Premier John) Horgan himself gets involved and says this is going to stop,” Lauder said. “Otherwise it’s just going to carry on.”
Reports on internal investigations, one by the ministry’s Compliance and Enforcement Branch (CEB), were obtained through Freedom of Information requests from the Victoria-based conservation group Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA). After visiting Nahmint logging sites in 2018, the group lodged a series of complaints against B.C. Timber Sales, the ministry agency responsible for auctioning timber cut blocks in Crown forest.
The CEB investigation concluded the Nahmint forest stewardship plan doesn’t comply with old-growth biodiversity protections in VILUP, the Vancouver Island Land Use Plan, and warned of long-term impacts on a land base designated as a special management zone.
“Our assessment suggests that the Nahmint demonstrates failure of professional reliance at maintaining publicly agreed upon values and priorities,” the report concludes.
While there has been some consultation with First Nations over logging in the Nahmint, Tseshaht and Hupacasath have been negotiating with the province for greater authority over forest management in the valley, unceded territory 30 kilometres south of Port Alberni. Tseshaht is aiming for a cedar management strategy and share decision-making as part of talks around a reconciliation agreement. Ucluelet also considers Nahmint part of its traditional territory.
“It’s constant negotiation,” Lauder said.
While some limited protections are in place for sacred sites and cultural values, they fall far short of expectations in a valley cherished by all, one of few left unlogged until recent years.
“They’re only protecting what is non-operable,” such as steep-slope trees that would require heli-logging, Lauder said. “It’s really restrictive when they try to do this.”
According to forest ministry figures, there are 250 ancient trees protected within the Nahmint’s old-growth forest and 2,760 hectares of the valley will be left in its natural state.
Special management zones require an all-encompassing plan for biodiversity, all that needs protection in the valley, the “monumentals” as well as the trees that will grow to be monumental and the plants and animals that rely on them, Lauder explained.
In August 2018, Hupacasath council called on the provincial government to halt logging, a call echoed by environmental groups. Chief Councillor Steve Tatoosh raised concerns about unnecessary harvesting of old growth in contradiction of the NDP’s 2017 campaign promises, undermining government-to-government consultation.
Last week, Green Party MLA Adam Olsen raised the Nahmint controversy in the B.C. legislature.
“Two separate investigations appear to have found that B.C. Timber Sales are auctioning off cut blocks that are violating their own rules,” Olsen said. He raised the report’s recommendations to halt logging and put future logging plans on hold in the Nahmint. “Yet the logging of this pristine valley continues with no end in sight.”
Responding to the criticism, Forests Minister Doug Donaldson defended the government’s track record. Donaldson cited the province’s legacy tree policy, which they promised to strengthen after AFA raised public objections to old-growth logging in the Nahmint. An old-growth strategic review panel will be travelling the province to report back next year with recommendations on strategic policy, he added.
“Staff in my ministry are currently working as part of a working group with First Nations and staff from B.C. Timber Sales (BCTS) to legalize old growth management areas (OGMA) in the Nahmint Valley,” Donaldson said. “This involves using new and up-to-date information and incorporating other important values including legacy trees and large cultural trees to ensure additional protection.”
Lauder said the OMGAs in their current form don’t fully represent the biodiversity that needs to be protected. AFA contends that the Nahmint investigations confirm too much old growth forest is being logged in the valley, a practice they say extends across B.C.
“Legalizing the OGMAs would essentially allow BCTS get away with years of non-compliant logging in the Nahmint Valley,” said Andrea Inness of the Ancient Forest Alliance. “But it’s not enough to ensure that future planning is compliant with B.C.’s outdated, pro-industry laws. There is an urgent need for sweeping changes to B.C.’s forest system, starting with legislation that prioritizes biodiversity and ecological integrity over timber supply.”
FLNRO maintains the internal investigations found no violations.
“The CEB investigation did not conclude there was a violation,” a ministry spokesperson stated, responding to questions via email. “The investigation into compliance with the Forest Stewardship Plan was identified as being outside of the scope of the CEB investigation.”
Referring specifically to OMGAs, BCTS maintains that the draft Nahmint landscape unit plan achieves VILUP requirements for old-growth ecosystems, biodiversity, wildlife habitat and cultural trees valued by First Nations.
Despite the apparent contradiction and an ongoing review by the B.C. Forest Practices Board, BCTS plans to auction an additional 490,000 cubic metres of Nahmint trees next spring, overriding the government’s own protective order and the area’s special status.
“The Nahmint Valley was never intended to be logged like they are,” said Bryce Casavant, a Port Alberni resident who conducted the CEB investigation and later left the forests ministry.
The valley was specifically designated a special management zone, he said. “Those intentions of conserving that area have not been abided by.”
Non-compliance and over-harvesting are fairly regular occurrences throughout the coast, but this case was different, Casavant said. Nahmint Valley is one of only two areas in B.C. designated as special management zones in recognition of the need to preserve biodiversity and old growth. He concluded that OMGAs are out of date and inadequate for ensuring old-growth biodiversity.
Despite a decade of logging, there may still be time to properly protect the valley’s old growth in keeping with the land use plan, Casavant said. The forest practices review is scheduled for completion by year’s end.
“They don’t point fingers,” Inness said of the forest practices board. “They will do a thorough job and they will make recommendations.”
Results will be made public, Donaldson said in the legislature last week.
AFA, meanwhile, continues to call for an immediate halt to logging in the Nahmint and other old-growth “hot spots,” urging the province to modernize its land-use planning in partnership with First Nations.
What they hope not to see is more ancient giants levelled in the Nahmint Valley.
“This is unacceptable,” Inness said. “The B.C. regulatory system was already failing to protect biodiversity.”
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THE OLD GROWTH TREES ARE IN DANGER
CFAX
October 10th, 2019
The AFA’s Andrea Inness was interviewed on CFAX last week about the damning results of the Ministry of Forests investigation into BC Timber Sales’ logging of old-growth forests in Nahmint Valley. Hear her breakdown of the findings, what they mean, and how the BC government should respond.
Conservationists attack NDP government over old-growth logging
Global News BC
Watch this Global News story, where Forests Minister Doug Donaldson manages to dodge responsibility for BC Timber Sales’ non-compliance in the Nahmint Valley.
Instead of taking ownership, this government is choosing to bury its head in the sand, silence its own Compliance and Enforcement Branch by stripping them of their authority to investigate BCTS, and look the other way while tens of thousands of endangered ancient forests are liquidated in BC every year.
The NDP government needs to do much more than protect 54 of BC’s biggest trees, starting with placing an immediate halt on logging in the Nahmint Valley and other old-growth ‘hotspots’ before BC’s last, largely intact ancient forests are gone for good.
BC Timber Sales Continues Old-Growth Logging in Nahmint Valley Despite Government Investigation Showing Nearly Two Decades of Non-Compliance
Victoria, BC – BC Timber Sales’ current and historic harvest plans for the Nahmint Valley have consistently failed to comply with the BC government’s own legally-binding land-use objectives, according to recently released reports from a Ministry of Forests investigation into old-growth logging in the Nahmint Valley near Port Alberni on Vancouver Island.
Documents obtained by the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) under a Freedom of Information request reveal that BCTS, the BC government’s own logging agency, not only misinterpreted legal objectives set out in the Vancouver Island Land Use Plan (VILUP) for the retention of old-growth forest in the Nahmint Valley, among other things, they also neglected to use readily available ecosystem data and best available science in their planning and miscalculated specific old-growth forest retention targets set out in the BC’s government’s Biodiversity Guidebook.
“The BC government is apparently failing to live up even to their own wholly inadequate standards for the protection of old-growth forests, which, after over a century of industrial logging, are endangered in large parts of BC, including on Vancouver Island,” stated Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner, Andrea Inness.
“As a result of BCTS’ non-compliance, too much old-growth has been and continues to be logged in the Nahmint Valley, even by the government’s own standards, and not enough of it has been protected to adequately represent the diversity of forest ecosystems in the valley or to avoid biodiversity loss. Sadly, though, this scenario is playing out in many parts of the province, even where logging is compliant, because BC’s old-growth forest retention targets are far too low. We’re therefore calling on the BC government to immediately prioritize the setting of new, science-based old-growth protection targets to protect what remains of BC’s ancient forests.”
The Forest Ministry’s investigation stemmed from a complaint filed by the AFA in June 2018 that raised concerns about the destructive logging of some of Canada’s biggest and oldest trees in the Nahmint Valley, located in Hupacasath and Tseshaht First Nations territory, including the felling of Canada’s ninth-widest Douglas-fir tree. The logging sparked widespread public outrage and criticism of BC Timber Sales (BCTS), the BC government’s logging agency responsible for auctioning off cutblocks in the valley.
In the 2000 Vancouver Island Summary Land Use Plan, the Nahmint Valley was identified as having particularly high biodiversity values and was thereby designated, by Ministerial Order, as a Special Management Zone in order to minimize development impacts.
“The Nahmint Valley is a unique and very special place,” stated Inness. “It was supposed to be managed differently than other forests, with emphasis placed on maintaining old-growth forests and biodiversity. These reports suggest the BC government is privileging the timber industry over biodiversity protection, recreation, wildlife and salmon habitat, and cultural heritage in the Nahmint, to the extent that they are willing to break their own rules.”
The investigation, conducted by the Forest Ministry’s Compliance and Enforcement Branch (CEB), also briefly reviewed past Forest Stewardship Plans for the Nahmint Valley and found “legacy compliance issues with timber harvesting in the Nahmint Valley” going back 18 years. As a result, and if left unresolved, the CEB asserts that “serious cumulative impacts may occur on the land base over time.”
“These findings have enormous implications,” stated Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner and photographer, TJ Watt. “If this can happen in the Nahmint Valley, then it could be happening in any or all areas where BC Timber Sales operates. We just don’t know.”
Since the Nahmint investigation, the Forests Ministry has purportedly stripped the Compliance and Enforcement Branch of its authority to investigate BC Timber Sales, meaning that, while private companies can be investigated and penalized should they violate the law, BCTS will not be held to the same standard nor be accountable to the public.
In an August 2018 letter, written in response to the CEB’s initial investigation findings, BCTS argued that logging in the Nahmint Valley cannot be non-compliant with the government’s land-use objectives since the Nahmint Valley Forest Stewardship Plan was approved by a District Manager. However, as the CEB points out in its subsequent response, District Managers do not have the authority to override legal orders or government-set objectives and FSPs cannot be used as a shield to allow non-compliant logging to occur.
“This is indicative of a corrupt system,” said Watt. “BCTS clearly feel entitled to operate above the law and believe that publicly-agreed upon values and objectives for the Nahmint Valley are far less important than catering to the timber industry, no matter what the cost to BC’s ancient forests, wildlife, and communities.”
While minor changes were made to the Nahmint Valley Operating Plan following the AFA’s complaint, the CEB’s recommendations that logging in the Nahmint Valley immediately cease, that an amended Forest Stewardship Plan be prepared demonstrating how planning would adhere to VILUP in future, and that future harvesting plans be placed on hold, were all ignored by the ministry.
Meanwhile, old-growth logging in the Nahmint Valley continued throughout the investigation and carries on today, unhindered. In fact, at the time of the investigation’s conclusion in October 2018, over 400,000 cubic metres was planned to go to public tender for harvesting. The AFA has also recently analyzed BCTS’ Multi Year Development Plan for the Nahmint Valley and identified over 600 hectares of old-growth forest to be auctioned off in coming years under the current, non-compliant Forest Stewardship Plan.
The ministry also intends to legalize draft Old Growth Management Areas (OGMAs) by spring 2020, despite the ministry’s investigation having revealed the draft OGMAs are in violation of VILUP and “do not adequately address the old-growth retention targets needed to maintain landscape biodiversity.”
“Legalizing the OGMAs would essentially allow BCTS get away with years of non-compliant logging in the Nahmint Valley,” stated Inness. “But it’s not enough to ensure that future planning is compliant with BC’s outdated, pro-industry laws. There is an urgent need for sweeping changes to BC’s forest system, starting with legislation that prioritizes biodiversity and ecological integrity over timber supply.”
The Ancient Forest Alliance is calling on the BC government to immediately halt logging in old-growth forest “hotspots” of high conservation value, including the Nahmint Valley; use its authority over BCTS to quickly phase out issuance of old-growth timber sales and implement conservation solutions on BCTS-controlled lands; and introduce an ecosystem-based management approach to forestry throughout BC, with science-based targets for old-growth forest protection.
The AFA is also calling on the Province to scale-up its efforts to modernize land-use planning in partnership with First Nations, to pair that process with funding for the sustainable economic development and diversification of First Nations economies in lieu of old-growth logging, and to support the creation of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas. Finally, the Province must help to diversify forest-based communities and support the transition to a sustainable, value-added, second-growth forest sector.
The Forest Practices Board is also undertaking its own investigation into the AFA’s complaint about old-growth logging in the Nahmint Valley. The Board has previously stated they expect their investigation will be completed by the end of the year.
Documents obtained under the AFA’s Freedom of Information request can be accessed here:
See a timeline of events and summary of the investigative findings, prepared by the AFA.
‘Indicative of a truly corrupt system’: government investigation reveals BC Timber Sales violating old-growth logging rules
The Narwhal
Judith Lavoie
October 7th, 2019
Two investigations, released under Freedom of Information laws, show a government agency ignored best practices and available data when auctioning cutblocks in the Nahmint Valley — home to some of Vancouver Island’s last remaining stands of unlogged ancient forest — where clearcutting continues to this day
Some of you may have already seen the pictures.
Vast stands of old-growth douglas firs and cedars, toppled. A grim-looking individual, perched atop a stump, staggering in size, its history harkening back to pre-colonial times, sap oozing beneath their feet.
British Columbians are near-immune to such images these days, with old-growth clearcutting a common sight and common practice. But something about the images coming out of Vancouver Island’s Nahmint Valley struck a chord.
A photo gallery posted by the Ancient Forest Alliance to Facebook in May of 2018 became a near-immediate viral sensation, being shared more than 4,800 times.
The organization, during an ancient forest expedition with the Port Alberni Watershed-Forest Alliance, found exceptionally large douglas fir, including the fifth and ninth widest ever recorded in B.C., scattered among the remains of an extensive clearcutting operation.
The groups documented old-growth cedar stumps measuring a staggering 12 feet (3.7 metres) in diameter.
Something felt wrong about the scope and scale of the logging operations in the Nahmint Valley to the expeditioners.
And they were right.
Investigations point to government agency at heart of B.C.’s old-growth logging
Following their expedition, the Ancient Forest Alliance submitted a complaint to the compliance and enforcement branch at B.C.’s Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations.
The findings of two subsequent investigations would confirm a deep-rooted suspicion that BC Timber Sales (BCTS), the government agency responsible for auctioning provincial logging permits, was thwarting protection rules and violating the principles of old-growth management plans.
The results of those investigations, obtained by the Ancient Forest Alliance through a Freedom of Information request, and reviewed by The Narwhal, show BC Timber Sales is not complying with rules designed to ensure sufficient old-growth forest is retained to avoid loss of biodiversity.
One of these investigations, conducted by a compliance and enforcement officer with the Ministry of Forests, recommended logging in the Nahmint Valley be halted, that future harvesting tenures be put on hold and that the agency should be prevented from establishing Nahmint old-growth management areas — which are created to protect old growth and achieve biodiversity targets — while problems are addressed to avoid legitimizing ongoing overcutting.
The second investigation was conducted outside the ministry and came to similar conclusions, documents released through the Freedom of Information request revealed.
Yet despite the clear and unequivocal tone of recommendations made by investigators in the summer of 2018, little change has been effected on the ground, where clearcutting in the Nahmint has continued unabated.
“None of the recommendations have been implemented,” Andrea Inness, Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner, told The Narwhal.
Compliance officer told to ‘close the investigation down’
The ministry report was conducted by senior compliance and enforcement specialist Bryce Casavant, who is no longer working for the provincial government.
“When I left government a few weeks ago, logging was continuing and there were 490,000 cubic metres scheduled to go to market by next spring,” Casavant told The Narwhal.
“Suffice it to say they are planning on extensive logging in that area despite the findings of the report,” he said.
Making the situation more frustrating, Casavant said he was told during the investigation that, in future, the compliance and enforcement branch would no longer investigate BC Timber Sales as government would not charge the organization.
“I got told at one point to close the investigation down and not to write a report and just send an internal memo and they would sort it out,” Casavant said.
BC Timber Sales, which was created in 2003 by the former BC Liberal government, manages 20 per cent of the province’s annual allowable cut, making it the biggest tenure holder in B.C.
When asked whether the compliance and enforcement branch is still able to investigate BC Timber Sales, a ministry spokeswoman, in an emailed response, said “compliance and enforcement can investigate BCTS and they can charge BCTS with infractions.”
But Casavant, who now works for Pacific Wild as a conservation policy analyst, said he was left with no doubt that investigations into the timber sales agency were not welcome.
BC Timber Sales and the law enforcement services at the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations are closely related and so, when problems arise, the answer is to come up with some fancy spin-doctoring, Casavant said.
“The problem is that there’s no true independence in the law enforcement service and forestry officers. The government will tell you that they are not related to BCTS, but in practice it’s not true. They all work out of the same office, side by side, day in and day out. They share the same deputy minister. There’s no true separation,” he said.
The timber sales agency is treated more favourably than other logging corporations, Casavant said.
“They are not treated the same as everyone else.”
The second, independent investigation found that planning for old-growth management areas appears ad hoc, “aiming to achieve the bare minimum required legally, rather than following good conservation design.”
“Our assessment suggests that the Nahmint demonstrates failure of professional reliance at maintaining publicly-agreed-upon values and priorities,” the report found.
Inness said it might be a good thing existing draft old-growth management areas in the Nahmint haven’t been legalized.
“The planning that went into the delineation of those OGMAs was flawed. When those areas were mapped, when those lines were drawn on maps, BCTS didn’t even look at ecosystem data or consider best practices,” she said.
Inness further suggested those draft areas were designed to support a bigger take for logging companies.
In addition to the two 2018 investigations, a Forest Practices Board investigation into the Nahmint is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
That investigation means the ministry cannot comment, according to a spokeswoman.
“The Forest Practices Board is currently investigating. That is all the information we can provide at this time,” ministry spokeswoman Dawn Makarowski said in an emailed response to questions from The Narwhal.
Despite investigations, old-growth logging continues in Nahmint Valley
On the ground in the Nahmint Valley — under parcels auctioned by BC Timber Sales — giant trees continue to fall, threatening habitat for species such as the marbled murrelet and northern goshawk.
The agency has plans underway to auction off more than 400,000 cubic metres of old growth and, despite a specific recommendation to pause such actions, BC Timber Sales is moving to have draft Nahmint old-growth plans legalized.
In the formal complaint, submitted to the Ministry of Forests, Ancient Forest Alliance’s Inness wrote operations in the Nahmint appear to be in violation of the official land-use plan for Vancouver Island.
The intent of the Vancouver Island Land-Use Plan, established in 2000, is to retain a critical mass of old-growth.
“After walking through various recent cutblocks planned by BC Timber Sales in the Nahmint Valley, we believe BC Timber Sales’ forest stewardship plan fails to meet the results and strategies set out in the Vancouver Island Land Use Plan … that rare and underrepresented site series and surrogates be represented and protected,” Inness wrote.
The plan identified the Nahmint Valley as a special management zone, which prioritizes “environmental, recreational and cultural/heritage sites” rather than old-growth logging, but the investigation found that, although mapping of the valley’s unique biological features exists, the best available data was not used to protect unique ecosystems, retain biodiversity or protect large diameter trees.
The ministry’s internal inspection found logging in the Nahmint suggests a “high likelihood of government noncompliance” with the land use plan.
Investigators concluded that there appear to be “legacy compliance issues” with timber harvesting in the Nahmint — meaning the overcutting probably dates back 18 years.
This failure to implement proper protections for the Nahmint is what led investigators to warn BC Timber Sales should not legalize new old-growth management zones until those failures have been addressed.
Yet, although there have been tweaks to the system, with small changes to cutblock locations, there is no indication that BC Timber Sales is planning to act on the investigation’s recommendations.
“It seems that eventually they will just carry on with business as usual,” TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance co-founder, told The Narwhal.
In the internal documents detailing the investigations, a BC Timber Sales response claimed the agency’s planning is “generally” consistent with best practices and stated that logging in the Nahmint Valley cannot be in violation of the land use plan because the region’s forest stewardship plan was approved by a district manager.
That defence drew outrage from Inness.
“Approved forest stewardship plans do not override legal orders or government set objectives and can’t be used as a shield to allow non-compliant logging to occur,” she said.
“This is indicative of a truly corrupt system where, according to BCTS, logging can never be in non-compliance with the law, so long as a district manager signs off on it.”
The justification has Inness worried BC Timber Sales might be out of compliance with land-use plans for other areas of Vancouver Island.
“This has broader geographic implications as other special management zones and geographic areas managed by BC Timber Sales may have been — and continue to be — similarly mismanaged,” Inness said.
“They have been way over-logging and it opens up Pandora’s box. If it is happening in the Nahmint and they have completely misinterpreted the targets here, where else is it happening?” she asked.
‘This is the way government works’
Many contentious areas controlled by BC Timber Sales have high recreational value or are close to communities, which increasingly puts it at odds with local communities and First Nations. The Nahmint Valley is in traditional territories of the Hupacasath and Tseshaht First Nations.
Brandy Lauder, Hupacasath First Nation elected councillor, said she is not surprised that BC Timber Sales is ignoring recommendations to stop logging old growth.
“I am not shocked … This is the way government works,” said Lauder, adding that she is witnessing over-logging of old growth throughout the Alberni Valley, which is affecting the movement of wildlife as habitat is lost.
“Until the province actually tells BC Timber Sales not to log, they are going to continue. It will have to come from (Premier) John Horgan. They will just keep on operating and saying they are working on it. As long as they say they are working on it, they think they can just keep on going,” she said.
Last year, Hupacasath sent an open letter calling on the provincial government to halt old-growth logging in the Nahmint and work collaboratively with the band to protect the area’s old growth and, especially, the biggest trees and monumental cedars.
The letter to the Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation called on the government to immediately extinguish all approved cutblocks in Hupacasath traditional territory and establish “best management practices for coastal legacy, monumental and old-growth trees.”
In July the province announced new protections for 54 old-growth trees listed in the B.C. Big Tree Registry, four of which are in the Alberni-Clayoquot region. But the plan drew criticism from those concerned with the scale of old-growth logging in some of the last intact zones on Vancouver Island.
In its announcement for the big tree protections, the province claimed 55 per cent of old-growth forests on Crown land in B.C.’s coastal region are protected from logging. Yet the majority of that protection exists in the Great Bear Rainforest while on Vancouver Island 1,300 hectares of new old-growth cutblocks have been approved in 2019.
Long-time environmental advocate Vicky Husband, who worked to tighten up the Vancouver Island land-use plan before it was adopted in 2000, said she always feared the plan lacked teeth.
“We got some important changes, but not nearly enough was fully protected and now the ancient forests are in fragments over most of the island,” she said
“Nahmint is very, very contentious and what BCTS is doing, with the B.C. government’s backing, is promoting logging in some of the last areas left.”
Forests are being gutted and government can be misleading about how much ancient forest is left on Vancouver Island, Husband said.
“We have protected only 5.5 per cent of the original extent of ancient, big, old tree forests on Vancouver Island and just about one per cent of the dry Douglas fir forest. Imagine how we, a so-called progressive society, have done so little to protect the amazing forest heritage that we inherited,” she said.
“I am appalled. The public must act now to save what is left and then work to restore these incredible forest ecosystems.”
Inness said it appears government agencies are either willfully ignoring or misinterpreting B.C.’s already inadequate forestry rules.
“We have such a desperate need in this province for forestry to be done differently and they can’t even follow their own laws,” she said.
Casavant said ecologically rich places like the Nahmint Valley suffer irreparable harm when the province ignores its own rules.
“In today’s society it’s completely unacceptable for government to be involved in what should be classified as unlawful activities,” he said.
“If you are in non-compliance you can’t just say, ‘well maybe there’s a problem, but we are just going to go ahead.’ If you are in non-compliance and your plan requires you to follow the legislation, it is just wrong to go ahead.”
Casavant argues there should be legislation to ensure an impartial law enforcement service can investigate BC Timber Sales’ activities and charge them when necessary.
“BCTS should be treated, instead of a branch of the ministry, as a stand-alone Crown corporation,” he said.
Having an investigative branch embedded within the ministry is “absolutely ludicrous,” he added.
“We can’t have everybody working in the same office right from the planning stage to the approval stage to the investigation when something goes wrong.”
During the summer the province asked for public feedback on the Forest and Range Practices Act, with changes expected over the next two years, but many fear changes will come too late to save the sizeable swaths of old growth needed, especially to protect biodiversity.
A report from the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre says that, in high productivity areas such as valley bottoms, less than 10 per cent of the original old growth remains.
“On Vancouver Island, only about a fifth of the original, productive old-growth rainforest remains unlogged. More than 30 per cent of what remained standing in 1993 has been destroyed in just the last 25 years,” it says.
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A Closer Look at B.C. Forestry and Tall Tree Tourism
Douglas Magazine
October 3rd, 2019
Old-growth logging and raw-log exports continue on Vancouver Island, but critics say big-tree tourism is a far more sustainable economic force for our future.
A few determined rays of sunlight pierced to the forest floor, illuminating electric green moss in pools of light. Branches, filigreed with lichen, arced above like the flying buttresses of a Gothic cathedral.
Watt was moved by the sheer beauty of these old-growth giants and also by the realization that most Vancouver Island valley bottoms, like the Walbran, located outside of existing parks and protected areas, had already been razed to stumps and replaced with relatively scraggly second growth.
Roughly 1.5 million hectares, or about 75 per cent of the original two million hectares of productive old-growth forest on Vancouver Island has been cut, according to the conservation group Ancient Forest Alliance.
“Going to the Walbran completely blew my mind. Walking through this forest with thousand-year-old trees was stunning,” says Watt, who grew up in Metchosin and was no stranger to places of natural beauty. “But we had driven through miles and miles of clear cut forest to get there.”
Four years later, he and a friend were driving up and down logging spurs in search of tall trees in the Cowichan Valley, a part of southern Vancouver Island that boosted the past fortunes of logging giants like MacMillan Bloedel.
Toward the end of a so-far-fruitless day of big-tree hunting, they neared Port Renfrew and spotted huge cedar candelabras poking above the canopy next to the Gordon River. They drove up a side road for a few kilometres, parked, then walked downhill, back toward the river, into an almost magical world.
“I knew right away we had found something special,” Watt recalls about the moment he first encountered the cedars of what would soon become known as Avatar Grove.
It was remarkable given that this grove of massive trees was less than a half hour’s drive from Port Renfrew, on a road that almost anyone could manage in a low clearance, two-wheel-drive vehicle, yet likely wasn’t known by anyone other than some foresters and local Indigenous Pacheedaht people.
Avatar Grove, named for the then just-released James Cameron blockbuster movie, proved Watt’s knack for coming up with catchy and marketable names. (Recently, he was party to another big tree find near Port Renfrew, this one of moss-covered maples and Douglas firs — they called it Mossome Grove.) It triggered a feverish conservation campaign and the launch of a new non-profit, The Ancient Forest Alliance, with fellow activist Ken Wu.
“It was wild. People started visiting Avatar [Grove] by the thousands, and media coverage went viral — locally, nationally and internationally,” Watt says.
The rest is history. Avatar Grove got protected, and its international popularity eventually resulted in sleepy Port Renfrew rebranding itself as the “Tall Tree Capital of Canada.”
Thanks in large part to the tall-tree hunting efforts of Watt, fellow conservationist Ken Wu and others, more and more people, and not just tree hunters, are beginning to view big trees left standing as more economically valuable than trees that have been cut down and turned into lumber and paper. It’s also a sign of the times.
Raw Logs: What’s the Reality?
Vancouver Island’s forest sector is far from what it used to be. Local manufacturing capacity was in decline even before 2003 when Gordon Campbell’s Liberal government scrapped a provision in the Forest Act called appurtenance — the requirement that companies with tenures to harvest Crown forest, or publicly owned forest, must operate mills in communities located within the geographical area of given tenures.
In a 2018 study for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, longtime forest policy analyst and former Vancouver Sun journalist Ben Parfitt took a sweeping look at raw-log exports and mill closures. Between 2013 and 2016, approximately 26 million cubic metres of raw logs were shipped out of B.C., and old growth accounts on average for half of raw-log exports. In 2016, the volume of raw log exports jumped 6.2 per cent year-over-year, according to Parfitt’s research.
The three largest exporters of raw logs happen to be big players on Vancouver Island: Western Forest Products, Island Timberlands and TimberWest Forest Corporation. (TimberWest and Island Timberlands were affiliated in 2018 under the umbrella of Vancouver-based Mosaic Forest Management.)
In 2016, TimberWest, which owns 327,000 hectares of timberland on Vancouver Island, sent more than two million cubic metres of raw logs out of the province. As raw-log exports rise, manufacturing capacity stalls. Since 1997, roughly 100 mills have shut in B.C. Parfitt gathered numbers from BC Stats showing that the forest industry shed 22,400 jobs over the past decade, mostly in lumber and pulp and paper manufacturing. Parfitt’s math claims 3,600 of those job losses are due directly to raw-log exports.
The decline of Vancouver Island’s forest sector is writ large in Campbell River. In 2008, TimberWest shut its sawmill, putting 257 people out work, and the following year closed its sawdust, pulp and container board division, resulting in another 440 job losses. Then, in 2010, Catalyst Paper closed its Elk Falls paper mill and axed 350 workers from its payroll.
Today Campbell River, a city that’s proximate to some of the planet’s most productive temperate conifer forests, watches as barge and shiploads of raw logs sail past its shuttered mills destined for the Lower Mainland booms, many of them eventually shipped to offshore mills.
Parfitt says this decline has taken on an obscene twist at the Harmac Pacific pulp mill near Nanaimo where a dearth of fibre, a by-product of the sawmilling sector that was once plentiful on Vancouver Island, has forced the company to chip raw logs to feed its operations.
So what gives? Parfitt says the reasons are complex. The removal of appurtenance had an impact. Downward shifting global demand for newsprint and paper is partly to blame. However, many of the big companies like TimberWest have made conscious business decisions not to reinvest in modern coastal mills and instead go for the low value, easy dollar from raw-log exports. Though domestic buyers are supposed to have the right of first refusal to buy B.C. logs, exports continue to climb.
The B.C. government recently announced changes to the Forest Act that will give the province more control over forest tenures, and Premier John Horgan has even hinted at bringing back appurtenance.
Speaking at the annual Truck Loggers Association last January, Horgan noted that “employment on the coast has declined by about 40 per cent.
“Lumber production has dropped by 45 per cent, pulp production by 50 per cent,” Horgan said. “At the same time, log exports from Crown land have increased by nearly tenfold.”
But Parfitt believes a return to a local manufacturing regulation that died more than 15 years ago is a long shot and says the industry would likely fight it. He says he hasn’t heard anything substantive coming out of Victoria that will stem the tide of raw-log exports, curtail the cutting of increasingly rare Island old growth or stimulate investment in modern local mills, measures environmental groups like the Ancient Forest Alliance and the Wilderness Committee have been calling for in recent years. Pam Agnew is spokesperson for Vancouver-based Mosaic Forest Management, the firm that assumed management of timberlands owned by both TimberWest and Island Timberlands following an agreement struck in 2018. She is clear about the direction of these Island timber companies.
“We don’t manufacture. We sell logs to mills,” Agnew says.
According to Parfitt, there’s also a socio-demographic shift at play in once raw-resource-dependent communities that has resulted in forestry jobs and policy dropping from its position as public issue number 1 like it was back in the 1980s and early 1990s when the War in the Woods raged in Clayoquot Sound.
“Many people are moving to Vancouver Island to retire or for other lifestyle attributes like recreation,” Parfitt says. “The last thing they want is a new mill to open up in town.”
Forestry is Still a Factor
Still, all things considered, forestry hasn’t faded from Vancouver Island’s balance sheet. There are currently 140 wood-processing operations, employing 4,000 people and generating more than $1.7 billion in annual revenues, according to the Vancouver Island Economic Alliance (VIEA).
At a June 20 Island Wood Industry Forum sponsored by VIEA, the hot topics were improving access to fibre and stimulating value-added manufacturing, with specific focus on pressure-treated lumber, glulam and cross-laminated timber and wood-fibre insulation.
In April, as part of its forest-industry rejuvenation efforts, VIEA announced a $100,000 Waste Wood Recovery Project that will explore ways to better sort waste wood and make more of it available to manufacturers. The message from VIEA is that despite the transformation of Port Renfrew from resource to tall-tree tourism, there are still many Vancouver Island workers who derive a living directly or indirectly from forestry.
It’s bread and butter for Paul Beltgens, an industry veteran whose family founded Paulcan and Jemico Enterprises in Chemainus in the mid 1980s, specializing in the milling of both softwoods and local hardwoods, like maple and alder.
The exodus of manufacturing jobs in the form of raw-log exports angers Beltgens, who has worked in the forest sector since he was a teenager on the MacMillan Bloedel payroll.
“The bottom line is, I don’t like to see logs exported,” says Beltgens, from his Chemainus operation, which employs roughly 40 people when it’s going full throttle.
“We used to be a leader in the world, and now our big forest companies are owned by pension plans.”
Beltgens currently pays $90 per cubic metre for raw logs (roughly one telephone pole’s worth of wood). He sells products across the world, including in Mexico, China and Vietnam. He’s also made a side career over the past few decades managing the installation of sawmills in countries such as Russia, Bolivia, New Guinea and Costa Rica, built in part from machinery and infrastructure cannibalized from mothballed B.C. mills.
A New Vision
There is a bright spot in Vancouver Island’s forest economy currently shining on Port Alberni. In 2017, San Group, a diverse Langley-based forest products manufacturer, with operations around the world, bought Coulson Forest Products’ specialty cedar mill in Port Alberni. Now the company is nearing completion of a new $70 million processing facility that will have a finger-joining, lamination and small-log line capable of milling logs with three-inch diameter tops.
The San Group plant will add more than 130 high-paying jobs to the local economy. Port Alberni hasn’t seen this kind of investment in the local forest products sector in decades. (Since the economic boom days in the 80s and 90s, sawmill production has dropped more than 20 per cent, and pulp and paper is down close to 60 per cent.)
While many coastal operators double down on log exports or churning out dimension lumber, the San Group is focusing on value-added products and technology geared toward smaller second growth.
“When you butcher an animal, you try to use every part of the animal,” says company president Kamal Sanghera. “We’re trying to use every part of the log instead of selling two-by-fours and two-by-sixes. We don’t go with the grain, we go against it.”
The San Group sells to 26 countries around the world, and instead of milling a product and trying to force it down the market’s throat, Sanghera says first they ask their customers what they want. Consequently, the San Group plans to produce a wide range of products from its Port Alberni plant, from window components and fascia to soffit material, bevel and channel siding.
“We’re developing markets and technology to add value,” Sanghera says. “As a Canadian, I feel we should be developing something to bring manufacturing jobs back to Canada.”
Sanghera calls the exodus of logs from B.C. a “travesty,” and San Group is proof positive that entrepreneurial spirit can still breathe new life into forestry.
That’s music to the Port Alberni economy.
“There hasn’t been a lot of good news in the forest sector around here since I came to Port Alberni six years ago,” says Bill Collette, CEO of the Port Alberni Chamber of Commerce. “The San Group is moving fast, and they will have a significant positive impact.”
While Port Alberni experiences a mini-forest economy renaissance, Port Renfrew is headed in a different direction.
Changing Times
Back in the early 2000s, if you had asked Watt if he could ever see himself sitting on a chamber of commerce board, he probably would have laughed in your face. Times change. Today, he’s on the board of the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce, an indication that this once logging- and fishing-dependent community is looking at forests through a different lens.
Between the Avatar Grove, Big Lonely Doug, Red Creek Fir, San Juan Spruce and the Jurassic Grove, Port Renfrew is enjoying a mini-tourism boom. The community has become a poster child for tall-tree tourism. However, old-growth logging in the Nahmint Valley southwest of Port Alberni continues to put Vancouver Island forest practices in the cross hairs of conservationists and on the agendas of coastal communities.
Though the Port Renfrew chamber hasn’t quantified the economic impact, president Dan Hager says anecdotal evidence and conversations with tourists over coffee at Tommy’s Diner suggests it’s significant, alongside sport fishing.
“We’re getting people from Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the United States who are coming here for the trees. For many of them, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Hager says.
And many chambers of commerce on the Island are voicing support for old-growth forest protection. Fifteen Vancouver Island and Gulf Island chambers of commerce met with provincial officials on July 30 to urge stronger protection of “old-growth rainforest to the economic benefit of tourism-based communities,’ among a half-dozen other coast-specific concerns.
Previous to that, in 2015, the Port Renfrew chamber called for the halt of controversial logging in the Walbran. Hager, born and raised in Saskatchewan, doesn’t consider himself a “tree hugger.” He’s more of a pragmatist, willing to look at trees in a different light.
“We went against the grain when we said as a community that forestry is not the only way to get value out of tall trees,” Hager says. “It’s like bear viewing versus bear hunting. If you leave these trees standing, people will come again and again. Cut them down, and you’ll make some stuff, but the forest will never be the same.”
This article is from the October/November 2019 issue of Douglas.
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The old-growth logging showdown
Times Colonist
September 1, 2019
B.C. Timber Sales has become a lightning rod for controversy, with many expressing dismay over the NDP’s ‘business as usual’ approach to forestry
The expanse of ragged stumps, stretching up a steep slope beside Schmidt Creek, on northeast Vancouver Island, serves as a graphic example of controversies over old-growth clearcuts approved by B.C. Timber Sales and a growing push-back from those who want better protection for intact forests.
The clearcut, above the world-famous Robson Bight orca-rubbing beaches, has drawn the ire of conservation groups, whale biologists and First Nations, provoking questions about how B.C. Timber Sales is assessing parcels of old growth for auction
B.C. Timber Sales, which was created in 2003 by the Liberal government, manages 20 per cent of the province’s annual allowable cut, making it the biggest tenure holder in B.C. This year, the government agency plans to auction off about 600 hectares more old-growth forest on Vancouver Island, an area about 1.5 times the size of Stanley Park. The agency has plans to auction off another 8,800 hectares in future years.
Old-growth trees are at least 250 years old and are prized by timber companies. As they become increasingly rare, B.C. Timber Sales is auctioning off parcels close to communities or recreation areas, meaning conflict is more likely, said Jens Wieting, Sierra Club B.C.’s forest and climate campaigner.
“They are running out of places to find timber where they can log without conflict, so they end up pursuing what I call extreme old-growth logging,” Wieting said.
Floods, droughts and fires are also shining a spotlight on the impacts of climate change, made worse by logging.
“These forests provide clean water, clean air and carbon storage,” Wieting said.
The mandate for B.C. Timber Sales puts the standalone agency in a straitjacket, Wieting said.
“Auction 20 per cent of B.C. volume no matter what. So, instead of using B.C. Timber Sales to develop and implement best practices in the midst of climate and species emergencies, they behave like a machine designed with a single purpose: find the fibre,” he said.
That is not how B.C. Timber Sales sees its mandate and, in an emailed response to questions, a spokesperson said forestry practices are rooted in the precautionary principle and failing to auction off 20 per cent of the allowable annual cut would “put the integrity of the timber pricing system at risk.”
‘This is being done by the government of B.C.’
Still, there is no doubt that many recent logging decisions made by B.C. Timber Sales have provoked community outrage.
In addition to the Schmidt Creek logging, controversies include clearcut logging in the Skagit Doughnut Hole, beside Manning Park, which brought protests from the U.S and accusations that B.C. was breaking an international treaty; plans to log the old growth adjacent to Juan de Fuca Provincial Park, a proposal that was put on hold to allow consultations with the operator of a nearby eco-lodge; and clearcut logging in the Nahmint Valley, west of Port Alberni, where one of the biggest Douglas fir trees in Canada was felled, despite objections from conservation groups.
“The fact that this is being done by the government of B.C. should make everyone’s blood boil,” said Torrance Coste, Vancouver Island campaigner for the Wilderness Committee.
At the Schmidt Creek site, the immediate fear is that landslides and silt will harm the beaches where threatened northern resident killer whales rub themselves on the smooth pebbles.
“When you take that much wood and forest off a hillside, it’s a physical certainty that there will be earth erosion either from a major rainfall or from cumulative erosion,” said Mark Worthing, a Sierra Club B.C. climate and conservation campaigner, who visits Schmidt Creek regularly and dives in the water around the rubbing beaches.
When Worthing visited Schmidt Creek in June, he was horrified to see the aftermath of logging, which had been carried out by Lamare Group of Port McNeill. The timber rights had been bought at auction last year from B.C. Timber Sales by Super-Cut Lumber Industries of Langley for more than $13 million.
“It was like a punch in the gut. They are just hammering this poor little valley,” Worthing said.
Orca researcher Paul Spong, whose OrcaLab research station is on nearby Hanson Island, believes the logging will inevitably affect the rubbing beaches, which he describes as a massage parlour for whales, and he fears the cultural activity, passed down through generations of whales, could be disrupted.
There are already changes to the beaches and observers say whales are visiting for shorter periods of time.
‘It’s business as usual’
It is difficult to understand why B.C. Timber Sales would approve logging in the area, especially as the Robson Bight Ecological Reserve was created in 1982 largely to protect the rubbing beaches, Spong said.
“We are very concerned because it is so central to the whales. … It’s outrageous that they are logging old-growth trees on steep slopes. I think they should just be left alone. It’s just common sense when you’re coming to the last of the old growth,” Spong said.
“I totally expected an NDP government to do things differently and, with respect to forestry and logging old growth, they are not doing things differently. It’s business as usual. It’s beyond disappointing.”
In an emailed statement, B.C. Timber Sales said the beaches were examined in 2016 by a regional geomorphologist who concluded that “carefully planned harvesting in Schmidt Creek is unlikely to affect the rubbing beaches.”
Initial observations suggest the beaches are eroding due to wave action, likely because of sea-level rise and severe storms, and there is no evidence of sediment affecting the beaches, the statement said.
While opponents of the clearcutting say silt will inevitably wash down on to the beach, B.C. Timber Sales said the logging is taking place in a side valley on slopes that are not directly above the beaches and that the Ecological Reserve includes 467 upland hectares, which protect the orca habitat.
The thorny question of Indigenous consent
Then there is the complicated question of Indigenous consent, with critics claiming that logging companies and B.C. Timber Sales are picking and choosing which Indigenous groups to consult.
Chief Rande Cook, known as Makwala, who heads the Ma’amtagila First Nation, said Schmidt Creek is in Tlowitsis-Ma’amtagila territory and he was devastated by the logging.
“I have never seen so many yellow cedar logs and there were some culturally modified trees that were cut down,” said Cook, who was not consulted about the logging plans.
There are long-standing differences of opinion between the Tlowitsis and Ma’amtagila people, Cook said.
“These people only want to consult with the First Nations they know they can get a pro-business outcome with,” he said.
In a statement, B.C. Timber Sales says the area had an archaeological overview assessment, a member of the Tlowtsis First Nation took part in field work during preliminary field reconnaissance and no culturally modified trees or areas with archaeological potential were identified.
The statement also says B.C. Timber Sales has adopted strategies to protect suitable red and yellow cedar for cultural purposes and to protect the province’s biggest trees, meaning more than 300 cedar and 66 legacy trees have been protected from harvesting.
Jobs, jobs, jobs
Jobs and money are at the heart of many of the decisions and B.C. Timber Sales says “approximately 8,000 people are directly and another 10,000 people are indirectly employed as a result of BCTS’s auction of timber, as well, the net revenue generated from these auctions are returned to the government so as to support many of the programs the government offers the citizens of B.C. Curtailing BCTS operations would have significant impacts on all British Columbians.”
More than twice the number of British Columbians work in tourism as in forestry and, on the streets, there are demonstrations demanding that the province halt old-growth logging, backed by a petition organized by Sierra Club B.C. and Leadnow, signed by 20,000 people. A letter last year from 223 international scientists urged the province to take immediate action to protect B.C.’s temperate rainforest, and the B.C. Green Party is among the groups asking for a moratorium on old-growth logging on Vancouver Island.
Sonia Furstenau, Green Party house leader, finds it disappointing that old-growth logging is continuing at the same rate as under the previous Liberal government.
“While there seems to be an acknowledgement that the world and conditions have changed very quickly, the practices aren’t [changing],” Furstenau said.
She would like to see community forests form the basis of future forest policy. That would allow decisions to be made with input from residents and First Nations so the community is not undermined by decisions made at the provincial level, Furstenau said.
Climate change also needs to be factored into all decisions, she added.
“We can’t just continue with business as usual and then see what happens. We know what’s going to happen,” she said.
The B.C. government has asked for input to improve the Forest and Range Practices Act and the University of Victoria Environmental Law Centre, in a report for Sierra Club B.C., is calling for the same level of protection used in the Great Bear Rainforest to be used as a model for all the province’s forests — something the NDP included in its election promises.
The report also asks for more Indigenous input with agreements incorporating traditional ecological knowledge in all decisions.
“The B.C government should partner with the federal government to enable Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas and contribute to the international and national commitment to protect 17 per cent of the land by 2020,” it says.
Many are puzzled that logging practices have not changed under the NDP. TJ Watt, co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance, believes one difficulty is that there have been few staff changes within the Forests Ministry.
“I think the NDP is being given the same information around the incorrect idea that old-growth forests aren’t endangered and there’s nothing to worry about … when, in fact, we know that is not the case,” he said.
Furstenau agrees there has been little change within the ministry. “It’s very hard to change course in a radical or transformative way when you are still getting advice from the same people,” she said.
Estimates of the remaining old growth in B.C and the amount that is protected differ wildly, mainly depending on how old growth is defined.
The Environmental Law Centre report says that, across the province, in high-productivity areas such as valley bottoms, less than 10 per cent of the original old growth remains and an even smaller amount is formally protected.
“On Vancouver Island, only about a fifth of the original productive old-growth rainforest remains unlogged. More than 30 per cent of what remained standing in 1993 has been destroyed in just the last 25 years,” it says.
Many of the contentious areas are on Vancouver Island, and Forests Minister Donaldson has said that 50 per cent of old growth on Vancouver Island, or more than 520,000 hectares, is protected. But Wieting counters that Donaldson is referring to half the remaining old growth — therefore, the more old growth that is logged, the higher the percentage of protected forest.
Watt said provincial figures include low-productivity forests that grow at high elevation or in bogs.
“Almost 80 per cent of the original productive old-growth forest and over 90 per cent of the low-elevation, high-productivity stands where the largest trees grow has already been logged,” Watt said.
This article first appeared in The Narwhal, an award-winning online magazine focused on the natural world (thenarwhal.ca)
See the piece the Times Colonist here
