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A male Williamson's Sapsucker clinging to a Pine Tree

Sapsucker housing crisis: endangered woodpecker ‘condos’ are being clear cut

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February 27, 2023
The Narwhal
By Sarah Cox

Almost two decades after the Williamson’s sapsucker was listed as endangered under Canada’s Species at Risk Act, the BC government continues to sanction logging in the bird’s old-growth forest critical habitat.

Biologist Les Gyug was working for BC’s environment ministry when a logging permit application caught his eye. A forestry company planned to clearcut rare old-growth larch stands in the province’s southern interior, set aside decades earlier as seed trees to allow for natural regeneration. “Rather than log them, let’s go look, and see what’s in them,” Gyug recalls saying.

He expected to find a suite of forest birds in the scattered 400-year-old western larch stands: birds like Townsend’s warblers, gaily-coloured western tanagers and brown creepers, a small songbird that spirals up tree trunks. Walking through the trees after dawn, binoculars in hand, he heard a mysterious bird drumming in staccato rhythm. “I had never heard this before. And I realized only afterwards, ‘Jeez, that was a Williamson’s sapsucker and it was in an old larch stand!’ ”

Back then, in the mid-1990s, little was known about Williamson’s sapsucker — the only one of the world’s 250 woodpecker species where the plumage of males and females is so strikingly different they were once thought to be two distinct species.

Gyug became a global expert on the bird, whose males have a lemon yellow belly and a distinctive cherry-red patch on their chin and upper throat. Females are banded in black and white, with a tawny head and a yellowish patch on their belly.

“I’ve found my niche,” Gyug says. “I could have just as happily worked on pelicans or something else. But this was a mystery bird. We didn’t have a clue how many there were. We only had a general sense of what their habitat needs were.”

Surveys conducted by Gyug and other biologists found only about 450 Williamson’s sapsucker pairs in BC, the only place in Canada where they live. Populations were dwindling. And the sapsucker’s old-growth habitat was vanishing, primarily due to logging. It all added up to an endangered listing under the federal Species at Risk Act in 2006.

But that wasn’t enough to protect the sweet-toothed bird, which migrates to BC every spring from Mexico and the southwest U.S. Nor did a BC Conservation Data Centre summary report, rating logging threats to the sapsucker as “high,” make any difference. The government-run data centre, which collects scientific data about species and ecosystems, singled out western larch logging in the woodpecker’s Okanagan-Boundary and Kootenay ranges as a particular concern.

The BC forests ministry continued to sanction logging in the sapsucker’s federally designated critical habitat — the habitat necessary for a species to breed and for populations to recover — including in western larch forests in the Okanagan-Boundary and Kootenay regions.

“Critical habitat is still being logged,” Gyug tells The Narwhal. “If we keep losing it, [the sapsucker] will never get off the endangered list … And right now, we’re just not doing enough.”

Sapsucker ‘condos’ are falling to the ground

Williamson’s sapsuckers often nest in a single old-growth western larch — a sapsucker “condo” — where they excavate holes the size of a toonie and raise three to five chicks.

Like maple syrup farmers, they tend sap trees, visiting a handful of Douglas firs, larches and pines several times daily during breeding season to tap new wells or keep existing wells flowing. Woodpeckers have barbs on their tongues to latch onto insects and grubs; the Williamson’s sapsucker has a brush-like tuft on the edge of long tongues for licking up sap.

Williamson’s sapsuckers also feed on carpenter and western thatching ants that hustle up and down tree trunks to tend aphid colonies on branch tips. The ants have a symbiotic relationship with the aphids. They protect them from predators, carry them to their nests at night and during winter and milk their antenna for sugar-rich liquid secretions called honeydew.

“You’ve got to have trees because they take ants off tree trunks; if tree trunks aren’t there, they can’t make a living,” Gyug explains. “They need the nesting trees and they need foraging habitat — you need the combination of the two in close proximity to each other.”

Gyug’s work saved the western larch seed stands from logging. Over time, he also helped secure the designation of about 150 small, scattered wildlife habitat areas for the sapsucker. But the wildlife habitat areas only represent about three per cent of the territory the sapsucker occupies in the province, leaving the majority open to logging and other disturbances.

In the Boundary region, about 15 per cent of the sapsucker’s federally designated critical habitat was clear-cut from 2017 to 2022, according to wildlife biologist Jared Hobbs. Sapsucker “condos” fell to the ground. Hobbs says logging is likely taking place at the same rate, or even more extensively, in the other two areas where sapsuckers live — the east Kootenays and the Merritt-Princeton area. “In the other regions they’re logging like crazy as well.”

Hobbs recently helped document 182 cutblocks, covering more than 3,000 hectares, in federally mapped Williamson’s sapsucker critical habitat within the Boundary area (a small portion of the Okanagan-Boundary region). He found a nest tree logged — “not an uncommon occurrence” — even though the slow rot and hard shell that makes the trees desirable for the sapsucker and other cavity dwellers means they are of little or no commercial value to the forest industry.

A map of the areas where Williamson's sapsucker's primary habitats are in the southern BC interior.

The BC government continues to sanction logging in federally designated critical habitat for the Williamson’s sapsucker, including in BC’s Boundary region.

“These trees are so valuable that with every one that’s lost, you are eroding the recovery potential of the population,” Hobbs says. “It takes hundreds of years to replace that tree cut down by the timber industry. It’s cut down as garbage and left lying on the ground. And that was gold for the Williamson’s sapsucker.”

If logging in the sapsucker’s critical habitat continues, Hobbs says populations will reach a critical tipping point. He points to the northern spotted owl as a cautionary tale. Only one wild-born spotted owl remains in Canada, despite years of warnings from biologists about impending population collapse following widespread industrial logging in the owl’s old-growth rainforest habitat in southwest BC.

When a species falls below what biologists call its minimum viable population, decline quickly becomes irreversible — as in the case of spotted owls, cod on the east coast and southern mountain caribou populations in BC Individuals struggle to find mates and reproduce, while genetic diversity — necessary for good health and adaptations, including to environmental shifts wrought by climate change — is lost.

“At that point, the crash is catastrophic and irreversible,” Hobbs says. “That’s what we did to the spotted owl. And we’re about to do that with the Williamson’s sapsucker. At that point, no matter what you do, and how much in recovery dollars you throw at it, like caribou and spotted owls, you’re not going to pull it back. The challenges become insurmountable.”

Williamson’s sapsucker populations in BC are genetically valuable because they’re at the northern extent of their range and have adapted to a different environment than U.S. populations, making them essential to help the species adjust to climate change and other stressors, Hobbs says.

“These are not populations that should be dismissed, they should be cherished.”

‘Nothing happens’ to save sapsucker

For Sean Nixon, a lawyer with the environmental law charity Ecojustice, the plight of the Williamson’s sapsucker is all too familiar. Many old-growth forest-dependent species in BC are in trouble, Nixon notes. “We know the causes of the decline. Generally commercial logging is the primary threat. We know what needs to be done to save the species. But then nothing happens.”

In large part, that’s because BC has no legislation dedicated to protecting and recovering the sapsucker and 1,340 other species at risk of extinction in the province. The BC NDP campaigned on a promise to enact endangered species legislation, but quietly reneged after coming to power in 2017.

The federal Species at Risk Act automatically protects critical habitat for most at-risk species only on federal land, a scant one per cent of BC.

The Act nominally protects migratory bird nests on provincial land. But enforcement is almost impossible, Nixon observes. Nests would have to be identified in advance of logging and other destructive activities and “there aren’t federal enforcement officers in most places.”

“Generally, industry and the provincial government do very little to survey an area in advance of logging to see if it contains nests and where they are.”

Forests occupied by the Williamson’s sapsucker could be safeguarded if the federal cabinet issued an order under the Act to protect the critical habitat of migratory birds, which fall under federal jurisdiction.

But Nixon doubts an order will be forthcoming. Reluctant to tread on the jurisdictional toes of the provinces, the federal government has issued emergency orders only for two species in the 20-year history of the Act — the western chorus frog in Quebec and the greater sage-grouse in Alberta. Federal cabinet will also soon consider issuing an emergency order to protect the northern spotted owl.

The provincial government will sometimes voluntarily designate wildlife habitat areas for the Williamson’s sapsucker and other at-risk species, Nixon notes. Yet road-building and some logging are still permitted in wildlife areas.

“They’re not required to follow objective scientific advice, like the advice in the federal recovery strategy, about how big those areas need to be, where they need to be, what kinds of activities they need to prohibit,” he says. “They’re just kind of ad hoc postage stamps on the landscape.”

When asked why the province allows federally designated critical habitat for the Williamson’s sapsucker to be destroyed, the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship did not respond directly. Instead, the ministry said the government has established many wildlife habitat areas for the sapsucker and best management practices are in place for timber harvesting, roads and silviculture.

The ministry also sidestepped a question asking why the province has turned a blind eye to to nest tree logging, saying trees occupied by the sapsucker are protected under the BC Wildlife Act, while the federal Migratory Birds Convention Act prevents nests from being disturbed or destroyed.

Asked what steps the government is taking to prevent further destruction of the sapsucker’s critical habitat, the ministry said the province is continuing work, in partnership with First Nations, to develop a declaration prioritizing ecosystem health and biodiversity conservation.

Biologist calls lack of action ‘disheartening’

Ecojustice says Ottawa has embraced a “dangerously narrow” interpretation of its duty to protect the critical habitat of at-risk migratory birds under the Species at Risk Act. Under that interpretation, the Act protects only nests, not any other habitat necessary for the survival and recovery of at-risk migratory birds. In the case of a secretive bird such as the at-risk marbled murrelet, which lays a single egg on a mossy branch high in an old-growth tree, nests are almost impossible to find.

“The key problem is that nests are very hard to identify from the ground for most species,” Nixon says. “The birds do a very good job of hiding them. And they’re generally quiet or they disappear as soon as people show up.”

Last year, on behalf of Sierra Club BC and the Wilderness Committee, Ecojustice announced it is suing the federal government for failing to live up to its statutory duties to protect habitat necessary for survival and recovery of migratory bird species.

If Ecojustice wins the case, scheduled to be heard in federal court this spring, Nixon says the federal government will be obliged to take steps to ensure protection of the sapsucker and other at-risk migratory birds.

A win would compel federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault to regularly recommend cabinet issue an order to protect migratory bird habitat on provincial land, including the old-growth stands where the Williamson’s sapsucker nests and feeds, according to Nixon.

“It would basically be the government stepping in and doing what the province hasn’t been willing or able to do: namely, set aside and protect and conserve the habitat that these species need to survive and recover.”

Hobbs says Williamson’s sapsuckers have an intrinsic right to live in the forest. That right is acknowledged in the preamble to the Species at Risk Act, which states, “Wildlife, in all its forms, has value in itself.”

“It’s really hard to find these old-growth patches that can sustain Williamsons’ sapsucker,” Hobbs says. You can spend days hiking around and not get into a patch that’s good enough. And then you do get to one and find that it’s just been logged. And then you find it’s in critical habitat, which the province is supposed to recognize and afford effective legal protection to.”

“Yet the BC forest ministry is approving the [cut]blocks in these habitats. It’s really disheartening.”

View the original article.

 

 

Two northern spotted owls sit side-by-side on a branch

BC extends ban on old-growth logging for two years to assist endangered spotted owl’s recovery

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March 3, 2023
CBC News 
By Winston Szeto 

The BC government says it’s extending an old-growth logging ban for part of the Fraser Canyon, located about 100 kilometres northeast of Vancouver, for another two years to help with the recovery of the endangered spotted owl.

On Friday, the province announced it had extended the suspension of old-growth logging activity in the Fraser Canyon’s Spuzzum and Utzilus watersheds — which span more than 300 square kilometres — until February 2025.

Two years ago, the BC and federal governments reached an agreement with the Spuzzum First Nation to hold off logging in the watersheds for a year while the governments continued working on a recovery plan. The agreement was later extended for another year.

The province says the two-year logging deferrals in the Spuzzum and Utzilus watersheds are part of its plan to bring back a “sustained breeding population” of the owl.

“These deferrals are an important component of a complex process that will allow us to learn as much as possible to support the reintegration of the spotted owl into its habitat,” Nathan Cullen, BC’s minister of water, land and resource stewardship said in a written statement.

Northern spotted owls are endangered species

Northern spotted owls have been defined as endangered since 1986 and are under pressure due to habitat loss. They thrive in old, mature forests and help maintain the biodiversity of those areas.

Protection of spotted owls has fuelled decades-long disputes between environmental groups and the forest industry, as their future is often tied to saving old-growth forests where the birds live.

In a joint statement last week, environmental groups Ecojustice and Wilderness Committee and the Spuzzum First Nation said they had learned that the federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault, is recommending an emergency order to protect the spotted owl from imminent threats to its survival and recovery.

The statement said the minister has determined that logging must be prevented in the two Fraser Canyon watersheds within the Spuzzum First Nation’s territory, and that he is also calling for the protection of a further 25 square kilometres of forest habitat considered critical to the spotted owl’s survival but at a higher risk of being logged within the next year.

Forests Minister Bruce Ralston says further extending the logging deferral will support recovery efforts to increase the bird’s population.

Province’s measures not enough to save owls: advocates

Ecojustice staff lawyer Kegan Pepper-Smith says he welcomes the province’s latest move to help the endangered species, but it’s insufficient in light of Guilbeault’s recommendations.

“It’s laughable that the BC government suggests these two simple deferrals demonstrate a commitment to recovering the species, when it’s clear that [old-growth] logging continues,” Pepper-Smith said.

“Logging elsewhere is completely jeopardizing any kind of recovery of the species.”

The province says there are only three northern spotted owls known to live in the wild in BC, two of which were released by a breeding facility in Langley in August last year.

BC’s Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development says it spends $400,000 annually on spotted owls recovery programs.

TJ Watt, campaigner for BC environmental group Ancient Forest Alliance, says the province needs to spend even more to save the species.

“We’re calling for $120 million in short-term … funding that would help offset the loss of logging revenues for First Nations to accept deferral in the long-term,” Watt said.

“We’re calling for … $300 million towards conservation financing to support sustainable economic development, guardian programs and new Indigenous-protected areas.”

View the original article from CBC News.

An aerial shot of a clearcut in the Caycuse Watershed in Ditidaht Territory.

Conservationists decry lack of funding to protect old-growth forests despite major provincial budget surplus and ecological crisis in the woods

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For immediate release
Tuesday, February 28th, 2023

Still needed is short-term funding for First Nations to offset lost logging revenues from accepting logging deferrals as well as long-term conservation financing to develop sustainable economic alternatives to old-growth logging linked to the creation of new Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas.

VICTORIA (Unceded Lekwungen Territories) – Conservationists are disappointed that the BC government has failed to allocate critical funding in the 2023 provincial budget for old-growth protection despite having a major budget surplus and recently committing to creating a conservation financing mechanism to protect old-growth forests and biodiverse areas. The Ancient Forest Alliance has repeatedly called on the province to provide significant short- and long-term funding for First Nations, many of whom now have an economic dependency on the revenues of old-growth logging, to help further conservation efforts.

“Today the BC government missed an historic opportunity to use its multi-billion dollar budget surplus to help safeguard critically endangered old-growth forests and ecosystems,’” stated AFA Campaigner and Photographer, TJ Watt. “David Eby has committed to ‘accelerating’ the government’s efforts on old-growth, to protect 30% of BC by 2030, and create a conservation financing fund to protect old-growth forests and the most biodiverse areas. Allocating significant funding in this budget would have been the gas in the tank to accelerate those commitments. Instead, the conservation fund remains empty and the expectation so far is that it will be filled through private and philanthropic donations, a complete abdication of the province’s responsibilities.”

Two types of funding are still urgently needed from the province in order to help achieve the protection of old-growth forests: both short and long-term.

In the short term, at least $120 million in “solutions space” funding is needed to help offset lost logging revenues for First Nations who accept temporary logging deferrals in the most at-risk old-growth forests, as identified by the government’s independent science panel, the Technical Advisory Panel (TAP). To date, less than half of the 2.6 million hectares of the most at-risk ancient forests identified for deferral by the TAP have been secured and progress on additional priority deferrals has stalled, leaving over one million hectares of BC’s most at-risk old-growth forests without even temporary protection. The vast majority of old-growth forests in BC are located on the unceded territories of diverse First Nations communities, whose consent and support are a legal necessity for the creation of any new deferrals or protected areas.

A pink ribbon signalling a new road to be put in flies in front of an old-growth section in the Caycuse Valley on unceded Ditidaht Territory

A pink ribbon signalling a new road to be built through an old-growth forest in the Caycuse Valley on unceded Ditidaht Territory. Photo by TJ Watt – Ancient Forest Alliance.

“The province should use its massive budget surplus or unallocated funds at a later date to provide short-term funding to help offset lost logging revenues when asking First Nations, who have the final say on whether they want to defer logging or not in the most at-risk old-growth forests. The point of temporary logging deferrals is to ‘stop the bleed’ while long-term land use plans can be developed and the province — the one responsible for creating the ecological wounds in the first place — must use its vast resources to make the path to protecting old-growth as painless as possible,” stated Watt. “Without deferrals, many areas remain in a “talk and log” situation where, day by day, we continue to lose the best of the big-tree, ancient, and rare old-growth forests. $120 million in “solution space” funding would help to ensure that First Nations communities aren’t forced to choose between setting aside at-risk old growth and generating revenue for their communities. With billions of dollars in surplus money, there’s never been a better time for the province to fully fund all avenues of old-growth protection. Why haven’t they done so?”

In the long term, at least $300 million in conservation financing is needed from the province to support First Nations’ sustainable economic development, stewardship jobs, and creation of new Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) linked to protecting the most at-risk old-growth forests and ecosystems. This can include new land-use planning, guardians programs, and the development of sustainable economic alternatives to old-growth logging such as tourism, clean energy, sustainable seafood harvesting, non-timber forest products, and a value-added, second-growth forestry. Support for forestry workers and contractors, as well as legally defined compensation for major licensees, would be above and beyond this total.

The federal government has significant funding available to support environmental protection as well. $2.3 billion has been committed to help Canada achieve its international commitments to protect 25% of lands and waters by 2025 and 30% by 2030 (a goal to which BC has also committed) and of this, several hundred million dollars are available for the expansion of protected areas in BC, with $55 million specifically allocated to old growth in BC so far. The BC government must commit to providing matching funding and formalize the long-awaited BC-Canada Nature Agreement, which remains under negotiation, and would allow the federal funds to flow into BC.

Also missing from the budget is any investment into a much-needed “Provincial Land Acquisition Fund” which would help the province to purchase privately held lands of high conservation, scenic, cultural, and recreational value that are under threat from logging or development. The Ancient Forest Alliance has called for such a fund for more than a decade, which would start with an initial investment of $70 million, to be increased by $10 million a year until the fund reaches $100 million. The fund would fill a crucial gap in BC’s current conservation policies by allowing for the acquisition and permanent protection of endangered old-growth forests and other threatened ecosystems across the province that otherwise have no form of legislated protection.

A positive note was the allocation of $21 million over three years in funding for the development of eight new Forest Landscape Planning projects. Landscape planning work includes First Nations as well as a variety of stakeholders and is part of the pathway towards permanent protection for old-growth forests. However, conservationists stress that without significant conservation financing, future land-use plans will not go far enough when it comes to protecting BC’s rarest and most productive forest ecosystems. Conservationists also argue that the implementation of logging deferrals is the essential prerequisite for fulsome and comprehensive land-use planning, as it alone ensures that those ecologically critical forests will not be lost while planning is underway. Additionally, $101 million was committed to help preserve and enhance outdoor recreational opportunities in BC Parks and outdoor recreation sites and trails.

“David Eby promised to accelerate the protection of old-growth forests as well as protect 30% of lands in BC by 2030. That would be a major step forward for conservation, but it won’t happen for free,” stated Watt. “You wouldn’t promise a paradigm shift in health care or expect to build major new infrastructure without the money to back it up. The province should be using its multi-billion dollar surplus to help solve the decades-long battle to protect old-growth forests once and for all. It must also match and accept the hundreds of millions in funding available from the federal government to support Indigenous-led conservation efforts, including protecting old-growth forests. Every day there’s a delay, we further lose our chance to protect these irreplaceable ecosystems.”

Ancient Forest Alliance photographer TJ Watt stands beside an old-growth redcedar tree before and after logging in the Caycuse watershed in Ditidaht territory on Vancouver Island, BC.

Ancient Forest Alliance photographer TJ Watt stands beside an old-growth redcedar tree before and after logging in the Caycuse watershed in Ditidaht territory on Vancouver Island, BC.

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Background info:

Conservation financing is an approach that was successfully used on BC’s Central and North Coasts, where $120 million was committed by the provincial and federal governments and conservation groups to support First Nations business development and economic alternatives to old-growth logging. The result was a globally significant conservation achievement, with 80% of what is now known as the Great Bear Rainforest being reserved from logging.

This funding helps to supplant the lost revenues and jobs from forgoing old-growth logging through the creation of alternatives such as eco-tourism, sustainable aquaculture, non-timber forest products, renewable energy, and even sustainable second-growth logging. It can also provide funds needed for First Nations’ guardian and stewardship programs.

Old-growth forests are vital to support endangered species, First Nations cultures, the climate, clean water, wild salmon, and tourism. Under BC’s current system of forestry, second-growth tree plantations are typically re-logged every 50–60 years, never to become old-growth again.

A photo of the Incomappleux Valley, east of Revelstoke.

Rare swath of BC rainforest set aside for permanent protection

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January 26, 2023
The Vancouver Sun
By Derrick Penner
Photo by Paul Zizka

Nestled in the Selkirk Mountains the Incomappleux Valley is a rare 1,000-year-old Interior temperate rainforest

The province has committed to protecting the still-intact swaths of rare interior temperate rainforest in the Incomappleux Valley east of Revelstoke in a deal brokered by the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

The agreement, unveiled by Premier David Eby and Environment Minister George Heyman in Victoria Wednesday, calls for 750 square kilometres of the valley to be protected, 580 sq km outright as an official conservancy, 170 sq km as a restricted development zone.

The valley, nestled in the Selkirk Mountains 29 km east of Revelstoke, bears scars from logging in its lower portion, but its upper reaches that border Glacier National Park include pristine, 1,000-year-old stands of western red cedar and hemlock that are home to species at risk wildlife, including grizzly bears and mountain caribou.

“Incomappleux is one of the greatest treasures,” Eby said. “It’s home to old-growth cedar and hemlock trees that are four metres in diameter,” which the 6-foot-5 premier joked is “two of me sideways.”

And it’s home to 250 species, including rare lichens and rare bats. Eby characterized the conservancy as “one of the most significant protected areas established in the province in a decade.”

Conservation groups, including the Valhalla Wilderness Society, have campaigned for decades to protect the Incomappleux and raised the issue with Environment Minister George Heyman “continually almost since Day 1 of me holding this office,” he said.

Incomappleux Valley was one of nine old-growth zones identified for immediate deferral under the province’s old growth strategic review and former forest minister Doug Donaldson set aside 440 sq km to be considered for more formal protection.

The Nature Conservancy of Canada stepped into the discussions in 2018, recognizing it could play a role as a “facilitator and collaborator (to) bring together industry and governments and Nations,” according to Nancy Newhouse, the organization’s BC vice-president.

The conservancy is well known for brokering the purchase of private land for preservation, but Newhouse said it also works with companies on preserving connected ecosystems on public land.

In this instance, the conservation group raised $4 million via the Nature Canada fund from Environment and Climate Change Canada, mining company Teck Resources and two private foundations, the Wyss Foundation based in Washington, D.C. and Seattle-headquartered Wilburforce Foundation.

And the lumber company Interfor relinquished its cutting rights within the valley under timber licenses in exchange for a payment under terms of the deal.

Newhouse described the initiative as “a very important project in terms of the alignment with the global biodiversity framework,” under which Canada has committed to conserving 30 per cent of its lands as a means to protect biodiversity.

From the perspective of regional First Nations, the establishment of the conservancy means “we’re entering maybe into what should be just a stepping stone to improving what is actually happening,” in their traditional territories, said Kukpi7, James Toma of the Skw’lax te Secwépemcúlecw Nation.

However, while large parts of the Incomappleux with significant ecological values are being protected, much of the valley “is completely logged,” said forest ecologist Rachel Holt.

Holt, who sat on former Premier John Horgan’s old-growth expert panel, said groups have fought to preserve those high-value areas of Incomappleux for a long time, “which should have been, without question,” under existing policy.

“Nevertheless, a large conservancy is a positive step that will allow restoration of those ecosystems to occur,” Holt said. “That’s all good.”

As a first step, Holt said protecting the Incomappleux was a relatively easy decision because there was a rockfall about a decade ago that cut off road access to much of the valley “so it was not about to be logged.”

She added that the Incomappleux is bordered by other landscapes that are of equally high value as habitat where she hoped existing policy could also be used to scale back logging.

“What we have to do now is move these concepts forward and make some of the harder decisions,” Holt said.

Across the province, “all the valley bottoms, all the different low-elevation ecosystems are very under-represented in our protected areas,” Holt said.

“And that’s where the hard decisions are going to be in protecting ancient old growth that is absolutely irrecoverable,” Holt said.

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