The two largest tracts of ancient forest left on southern Vancouver Island, the Central Walbran Valley (500 hectares) and Edinburgh Mountain Ancient Forest (1500 hectares), both near Port Renfrew, are threatened by the Teal-Jones Group. Please take 30 seconds and send a message to BC politicians through our website at: www.BCForestMovement.com Thank you!
Near the foot of an ancient Western red cedar, a sinkhole leads to a hidden world. With a bit of wriggling, it is possible to disappear below the surface to find delicate ferns dangling from pockets in walls of limestone. The water from the underground stream that carved its way through the rock tastes soft and pure.
British Columbia’s coastline boasts the most significant karst terrain on the continent – magnificent canyons of marble and limestone caves hewn, over tens of thousands of years, by the relentless force of water. These are places where rare species thrive, and secret rivers feed forests and fish-bearing waterways.
They also help produce big, healthy trees coveted by the forest industry.
Members of Vancouver Island’s caving community have spent years documenting incidents where logging has left caves and sinkholes damaged, sometimes stuffed with industrial debris. This summer, cavers and karst specialists combed the Walbran Valley, on the southwestern edge of the island, hoping to identify sensitive spots before forestry crews arrive to harvest the giant cedars that have taken hold on a fragile karst landscape.
Emerging from the sinkhole on a wet November day, activist Mark Worthing of the Sierra Club of B.C. pointed to a tree marked with pink surveyor’s tape about 15 metres up the slope. The tape maps out the route of a proposed logging road. If the province approves logging here in cutblock 4403, this unique landscape could be drastically altered, disrupting the thin layer of soil in which new trees can begin.
“You can replant an old-growth forest, but you create an entirely different landscape. When it is an old-growth forest on karst, though, logging is the nail in the coffin,” Mr. Worthing said. Studies of logging on karst landscape on the north end of Vancouver Island show limestone slopes are painfully slow to recover – it may take centuries for the soil base to rebuild enough to sustain new growth.
To quell anti-logging demonstrations, much of the Walbran Valley was protected 20 years ago with the creation of a provincial park that includes some of the world’s largest and oldest spruce and cedar trees. But part of the valley, dubbed “the bite,” was left outside the park boundary, and it is here that logging company Teal Cedar Products Ltd., a division of the Teal Jones Group, now wants to cut the valuable old-growth trees.
Caving enthusiasts have joined a new round of environmental protests. Vancouver Island has more than 1,000 explored limestone caves and an active membership in the caving organization the B.C. Speleological Federation.
On Nov. 24, the logging company won a court injunction to end a blockade aimed at its logging operation in an adjacent cutblock. Teal Jones officials declined interview requests, but said in a statement: “We are aware of the limestone and karst geology resources in the vicinity of Block 4403 and as a result, we are planning to conduct a formal karst field assessment for this area prior to finalizing any road construction and harvesting plans.”
Charly Caproff, who is pursuing a degree in Environmental Resource Management at Simon Fraser University, has been studying the karst in the valley. Her tests on the water in cutblock 4403 suggest a huge underground system. “Nobody has really gone in and looked at the hydrological systems. Or seen what the biology is down there. You are logging and destroying something you don’t have an understanding of. It’s crazy.”
Significant karst landscapes are protected by government regulation on Vancouver Island, but a report by the independent Forest Practices Board in 2014 concluded the protection regime has large gaps. The forest industry is responsible for ensuring it does not “damage or render ineffective” important karst features, but those terms are not defined, there are no criteria for karst experts who conduct the assessments, and the province’s karst management handbook was disregarded more often than not, the report said.
The board could not prove that logging had damaged karst, but noted it is often impossible to see what is taking place below the surface. “To prove damage or rendered ineffective for many karst features would require long-term baseline data to compare features pre- and post-harvesting,” the report says. “However there is little research being done in B.C.”
Martin Davis, a karst and bat specialist, last summer explored the karst in the cutblocks proposed by Teal Cedar Products. Although he did not find any that would sustain large numbers of bats over the winter, he did log a healthy bat population – unsurprising because both the karst and old growth trees offer perfect habitat for roosting and hibernation. “There should be a proper karst inventory around these blocks and in the adjacent areas,” he said in an interview. “My visit with two other cavers was not thorough, and we could have easily missed features.”
Mr. Davis is skeptical about the government’s commitment to ensure significant karst features are kept intact. He produced a detailed list for the caving community two years ago of karst sites damaged by logging. “The B.C. Speleological Federation had brought these complaints forward to the provincial government, but no action was taken at that level, despite these practises violating provincial standards,” he said.
Steve Thomson, Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, said forest companies and recreational cavers need to work together to ensure special karst features are not harmed. “We recognize there is a need for engagement and for communication with local caving community.”
He also acknowledged the province needs to do a better job of setting out its expectations, and said the protocols and the guidebook for managing karst features are being updated.
The boundaries of Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park were set in 1995 by the New Democratic Party government, when Dan Miller was the minister of forests. Mr. Miller, long retired from politics, recalls the fierce battle over logging in the Walbran – both in public and within his party’s caucus. It took painstaking negotiation to reach a compromise between environmental values and resource jobs. “Some was allocated to park, and some was part of the working forest,” he said.
With new issues – preserving the water, the bats, the soil and the rocks – emerging that were not contemplated 20 years ago, when the primary concern was the trees, he said today’s environmentalists and forest executives need to find a way to meet in that same spirit of compromise. “The rights of Teal Jones come into this picture,” he said. “The question is, is there a way to resolve the issue?”
A karst explainer
What is karst?
Karst landscapes are created by water dissolving soluble rock – usually marble, limestone or dolomite. The process can take tens of thousands of years, and Vancouver Island’s temperate rainforests boast some of the most significant karst landscapes in North America because the terrain is evolving – in geological time – at a rapid pace.
How is karst protected?
Under the Forest and Range Practices Act, the province has set out a Government Action Regulation order for karst caves, significant surface karst features and important features and elements on Vancouver Island with karst terrain of high and very high vulnerability. Forest companies are responsible for identifying these and ensuring their activities “do not damage or render ineffective” karst features.
What is the risk?
The province’s 12-year-old Karst Management Handbook notes that karst ecosystems often support unusual or rare plant and animal species, and water quality can be affected by logging activities. “The potential for karst hydrological systems to transport air, water, nutrients, soil and pollutants into and through underground environments should be carefully considered when developing and implementing management strategies for karst landscapes.”
Who decides what is significant?
The handbook says reserves should be established around “significant cave entrances; above significant caves; significant surface karst features; significant karst springs; and unique or unusual karst flora/fauna habitats.” It does not define “significant,” but calls for “experienced professionals” to determine that. The Forest Practices Board has found there are no criteria to determine whether an individual is qualified to complete a karst assessment.
Read more: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/karst/article27519264/
British Columbia’s biodiversity is under threat not just because of climate change and poorly regulated industrial activity, but also because the provincial government won’t deal with the root problem – habitat loss.
One example of how the government manages for resource extraction at the expense of wildlife can be found in the “forest enhancement program” that was announced in September.
A Ministry of Forests briefing document obtained by The Globe and Mail shows the province proposes to invest $115-million in the plan.
In effect, it’s a massive subsidy to encourage the logging of marginally valuable forest – and one of the key targets will be the last existing old growth on the coast.
“Decisions on the coast would need to include engagement due to the controversial nature of logging old growth,” states the document in a classic case of bureaucratic understatement. The logging of old growth is widely opposed in B.C. – the public surely won’t welcome a plan where taxpayers are supposed to pay for it.
The plan outlines how the forest industry will be subsidized to go after pockets of old trees “that are uneconomic to harvest” because they are sparsely scattered or are at high elevation.
Some of the costs would be recovered through timber sales, but it is a money-losing proposition. In year four, for example, the province will spend $25-million to get timber worth $6-million.
Why do something like that?
The government justifies this by saying it will keep loggers working and improve the supply of timber, which has been reduced by overcutting, a pine-beetle kill and forest fires.
“They are running out of timber because of overharvesting throughout the province,” environmental activist Vicky Husband said. “This is a desperate move that’s all about keeping up the short-term timber supply, with no consideration for wildlife values. They are going after every last little bit of forest out there, with no consideration for the impact on biodiversity.”
Maintaining biodiversity in the face of growth is challenging. It calls for the best wildlife science available and requires the B.C. government to do something it’s loath to do – protect habitat.
Rather than restricting logging to save dwindling herds of mountain caribou, the government has launched a wolf cull.
Instead of setting aside old growth to protect an endangered goshawk population, the government works with the forest industry to devise a species-at-risk plan that doesn’t require a reduction in logging.
In the Peace River Valley, where the Site C dam will flood prime moose habitat, the government proposes to help the moose not through habitat improvement, but by restricting hunting.
In wildlife regulations just posted for public comment, the government proposes to shut non-native hunters out of the Peace-Moberly Tract, which covers more than 100,000 hectares.
Under the plan, First Nations would still be allowed to hunt. Indeed, it would create an exclusive hunting zone, just for natives.
The strategy is not based on wildlife management science, and it does nothing to address the loss of habitat caused by the Site C dam.
“By having some kind of political decision here you are causing a divisiveness amongst the users and that’s not healthy,” Doug Janz, a former wildlife manager for the B.C. government said in an interview. “That’s not going to get us anywhere.”
Mr. Janz, who retired in 2004 after a 32-year career, fears the Peace River approach may be applied elsewhere around the province as it tries to deal with habitat loss and declining wildlife populations.
“Even though the Peace-Moberly Tract is a local example, if the government says, ‘Oh, wherever there are these kinds of pressures, we’ll just restrict the resident hunters.’ That’s pretty scary,” Mr. Janz said.
“The problem is we’re managing for resource extraction – at the expense of wildlife,” said Jesse Zeman, a spokesman for the BC Wildlife Federation.
“There is a serious lack of investment in wildlife,” he said. “The government seems to have very little appetite to deal with biodiversity issues.”
To save caribou and goshawks, to hang on to the last groves of old-growth forest, to ensure there is moose hunting far into the future, the B.C. government has to make some tough decisions.
So far, it hasn’t been up to the task.
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Visit us at our new office space in the Central Building (620 View St, 3rd floor #306). NOVEMBER hours are Tues & Thurs 11am-5pm. DECEMBER hours (from Dec 1-23rd) are Tues/Wed/Thurs 11am-6pm (except December 23rd 11am-4pm).
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Check out what our motion-activated camera captured! This mother black bear and her cub in the endangered Lower Edinburgh Grove are seen checking out the Ancient Forest Alliance's camera and climbing up the enormous old-growth redcedar tree in an area that is threatened with logging by Teal Jones near Port Renfrew, in several clips and photos taken recently. Be sure to Send a Message to help protect this special forest at: www.BCForestMovement.com
Here's an article in the latest British Columbia Magazine about visiting the old-growth forests of the Port Renfrew region along the “Circle Route”! It also raises the plight of the old-growth forests in the Walbran Valley, Horne Mountain (above Cathedral Grove), and Mossy Maple Grove, and includes a blurb about the Ancient Forest Alliance. See image to view the article, or pick up a hardcopy of the latest issue!
Mountain Equipment Coop (MEC) Victoria: THANK YOU to the staff at MEC Victoria for voting to support the AFA through their 1% for the Planet contributions! We are extremely grateful for the continued support towards our current old-growth campaigns! See their website at www.MEC.ca
LUSH: Great thanks once again to LUSH (www.lush.ca) for their major support through their Charitable Giving Program, bolstering the AFA’s campaign for the establishment a New Protected Areas Fund in BC! We are so grateful to LUSH for their continued passion and support for the AFA’s work!
True North Goods: We are excited to be a new beneficiary of True North Goods, an outdoor goods and apparel company showing their dedication to protecting the outdoors for future generations to explore by donating a portion of all proceeds to the AFA!
A new Sierra Club map of B.C.’s southern coastal rainforest shows why the Walbran rainforest on Vancouver Island matters, and what we stand to lose for species, carbon and beauty, if the proposed logging goes ahead.
A few weeks ago, the B.C. government issued the first of eight logging permits for the Walbran requested by logging company Teal Jones, despite a public outcry and opposition from many environmental groups.
In the last few days, activists have reported on social media about road crew and helicopter activity near cutblock 4424, indicating that Teal Jones could start logging any day.
To defend the issuing of the permit, the B.C. government has stated that a large portion of the Walbran remains protected in a park. This is correct. But to allow further logging of the remaining old-growth in this area is inexcusable considering that the Walbran is literally the last place on Southern Vancouver Island with old-growth rainforest of this type, size, and intactness.
The state of the awe-inspiring, “big tree” old-growth rainforest ecosystems on Vancouver Island reflects what author J. B. MacKinnon has described as our 10 percent world. Globally, there are now countless examples which show that we have reduced the original biological richness of our lands, oceans, ecosystems, plants and animals by about 90 percent.
The same happened to the biggest ancient trees in the rainforest valleys in the southern portion of the B.C. coast. About 90 percent of the most productive forests with the capacity to grow the largest trees have been logged and converted to young forests. Today, there remain very few old-growth areas that are big enough to support healthy populations of salmon and endangered species like the marbled murrelet.
In fact, our analysis shows that the Walbran Valley is the most urgent opportunity to increase protection of contiguous, old-growth rainforest and habitat on Vancouver Island.
We examined 155 landscape units on Vancouver Island and B.C.’s south coast (landscape units are areas of land used for long-term planning of resource management and usually 50,000 to 100,000 hectares in size).
Only three percent (five landscape units), including the Walbran, remain primarily covered by “big-tree” old-growth rainforest with the highest level of intactness (with over 70 percent old-growth). Vancouver Island is home to four of these five remaining “big tree” old growth landscape units. Three of them are mostly protected, but almost 40 percent of the Walbran landscape unit with 4,500 hectares of the remaining old-growth remains unprotected.
Our analysis focused on the remaining percentage of good and medium productivity old-growth forest, i.e. types of forests that are characterized by towering trees and high bio mass and carbon storage per hectare. Of these types of forest, combined, less than 30 percent remain as old-growth on Vancouver Island and the South Coast, and only about six percent of the original old-growth has been set aside in protected areas.
North of Vancouver Island, the Great Bear Rainforest Agreements are expected to protect the ecological integrity of one of the largest mostly intact temperate rainforest regions of the world. In Clayoquot Sound, northwest of the Walbran, the Ahousaht First Nation announced in October an end to industrial logging in their territory, which spans most of the intact rainforest valleys in this region.
But we must not allow these important refuge areas for species that depend on ancient rainforests to become isolated from other old-growth areas. With its outstanding intactness, the Walbran represents the only remaining opportunity in the southern half of the island to save a more contiguous area of productive old-growth rainforest, create connectivity and allow species like the marbled murrelet to find quality habitat between Clayoquot Sound and the Olympic Peninsula.
A larger protected area would give species that depend on this rainforest at least a fighting chance to survive, considering the level of degradation and fragmentation of rainforest on Vancouver Island. And only larger areas are resilient enough to withstand increasing climate change impacts like stronger droughts, stronger storms and other extreme weather events.
In addition, old-growth coastal rainforest store record high amounts of carbon per hectare, accumulated over thousands of years, and steadily sequester more carbon from the atmosphere. Clearcutting old-growth releases enormous amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
A recent Sierra Club B.C. report revealed that, over the past decade, B.C.’s forests as a whole have shifted to being net emitters of carbon. This contrasts starkly to their historic role capturing huge amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. While the mountain pine beetle and more wildfires have tipped the balance, our analysis shows that destructive logging practices have been, and remain, the biggest factor contributing to B.C.’s forest carbon emissions.
Lastly, B.C.’s coastal temperate old-growth forests are a global treasure and spectacularly beautiful. Parks and protected areas offer immeasurable recreational joy for visitors and tourists from near and far and support our billion dollar tourism industry.
Many are shocked to see the sea of clearcuts they must traverse to access the remaining larger, less developed rainforest wilderness areas on Vancouver Island. The Walbran with its unique intact ecological rainforest values is one of the fantastic areas people on Vancouver Island care about and want to see fully protected.
Sierra Club and Wilderness Committee activists explored the area slated for logging in September and found monumental cedars, massive Sitka spruce, hemlock, amabalis fir, and Douglas fir trees. They named the area Black Diamond Grove for its steep slope. The crown jewel of the Black Diamond Grove is the Leaning Tower Cedar, a cedar approximately three metres wide at its base and probably as old as 1,000 years.
With so little left, how can our society allow logging the last of the endangered old-growth on the Island, instead of protecting it for our children, for example my friend Leonie (11 years). She wrote a letter to the Times Colonist and asked the B.C. government to protect the endangered rainforest in the Walbran. I am standing with Leonie: we should protect all of the Walbran.
Sierra Club B.C. is calling for a provincial government action plan to protect and restore B.C.’s forests in light of climate change impacts. Protection of rare and endangered old-growth rainforest ecosystems on Vancouver Island and the south coast is particularly urgent, because once cut, old-growth as we know it will not grow back. B.C.’s forest industry must shift to harvesting sustainable levels of second growth forest and value-added manufacturing. The transition will not be easy, but in a 10-percent world, denial is no viable option. The logging permit for the Walbran should be our wake-up call.
See this clip on CTV News about a rally at the Ministry of Forests for the Central Walbran Valley, thanks to the Friends of Carmanah Walbran: https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=747533&binId=1.1180928&playlistPageNum=1
A march and rally for sustainable BC forestry garnered a crowd of upwards of 100 at Charles Hoey Park Friday afternoon.
The event, organized by the Pulp, Paper, and Woodworkers of Canada Public and the Ancient Forest Alliance, and attended by folks from up and down the Island, had a message for the provincial government: exported logs equals exported jobs and that’s not acceptable.
“If you’re going to cut a tree down and give it to somebody else, leave the goddamn thing in the ground,” PPWC president Arnie Bercov told the group. “Leave it in the ground. Let it get bigger. Let your kids take it.”
He said it’s not that far away from election time and the province better take notice.
“It’s hugely important that we make these changes and that we stand up for ourselves,” Bercov said, noting the protestors want the return of local mills and jobs to the industry.
“We are going to make sure that our kids don’t have to go up to Fort Mac or the oil fields…they should be able to get a job here, learn a trade, raise a family and do all the things that most of us got to do. We’re not asking for the world, we’re saying give us fair treatment, give the environment fair treatment, give the workers fair treatment,” Bercov added.
“We’re not going to lose this fight, you guys. We are not going to lose this fight. If we have to build every goddamn sawmill ourselves in this province, we’re going to do it.”
Ancient Forest Alliance executive director Ken Wu explained it was the BC Liberals that took sawmills away from the workers in the first place.
“In 2004, at a critical juncture, as the majority of the prime old growth forests were logged out and huge areas of second growth forest matured, the BC Liberal government removed the local milling requirement that would have required that the licensees for the Crown lands would have had to convert their old growth mills to handle second growth logs,” Wu said. “But, at that critical time they removed the requirement through the so-called Forestry Revitalization Act, then came a wave of mill closures across the province to the tune of 100 mills in the last decade here.”
Wu said in 20 years the number employed in forestry has been slashed in half, from 100,000 to about 50,000.
“There’s been no incentives and regulations by the government, no leadership by the government to ensure that there’s a sustainable value-added second growth industry even though literally 90 per cent of the forests on Vancouver Island are second growth,” Wu said.
“We are here because we have common ground on an urgent issue. We believe that we can have a sustainable forest industry, protect our last remnants of old growth forest and ensure a sustainable second growth forest industry that maintains employment levels in the industry if there was government leadership.”
[Cowichan Valley News article no longer available]
