The famous Zen saying asks, ‘If a tree falls in the forest with no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?’ It basically means what is out of sight, is out of mind.
B.C. environmentalists — seeking to raise awareness against logging plans in Vancouver Island’s old-growth forests — think they have a solution for the issue posed in the saying.
“If we can’t bring B.C.’s four million people to the forests, we’re going to bring the forests to the people,” activist TJ Watt of the Ancient Forest Alliance told The Province.
Watt and other activists are using drone technology to shoot compelling, high-definition videos of “Canada’s grandest old-growth” rain forest near Port Renfrew.
They say the area is endangered because in mid-September the B.C. Forest Service granted the Surrey-based Teal-Jones Group a permit for helicopter logging in one of the eight “cutblock” areas the company wants to log in the area.
Capturing drone footage is part of a new “information war,” activists say, that is reigniting a decades-old battle in Vancouver Island’s Central Walbran Valley.
This is the “birthplace” of B.C.’s eco-resistance movement, an area where activists used tactics including blockades and high-publicity arrests to win a public relations battle against Victoria and forestry companies in the 1990s. Activists won concessions that established a conservation area and spread their anti-logging protests to other areas in B.C.
Watt says his new remote-controlled, GoPro-camera-equipped drone, which costs about $1,000, allows him to shoot images of massive trees in the Walbran Valley that were previously inaccessible because of steep, “brutal terrain.”
“Drones are a new tool in our tool box because for many people these trees might as well be on the moon,” Watt said.
“They were out of sight and mind for most. But the drones let us raise environmental awareness about these remote endangered areas where companies believe they can log with little scrutiny.”
The activists say that, despite the 16,000 hectares of forest conserved in the Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park in 1993, new logging plans from Teal-Jones in the area go too far.
“This is the grandest forest in Canada, all the record-breaking trees are in this area,” said Ken Wu of the Ancient Forest Alliance.
“Over 90 per cent of these forests in southern Vancouver Island have been logged, so the conservation victories of the 1990s are just a drop in the bucket of what was originally there.”
The Teal Jones Group, which specializes in global sales of timber and lumber products, successfully applied for a logging permit in cutblock 4424, one of the eight areas that activists want to protect.
Cutblock 4424 covers an area of about three hectares, and all eight cutblocks that the company wants to log cover about 20 hectares.
In efforts to document trees that stand to be lost, last week activists with the Wilderness Committee and Sierra Club B.C. claimed to have discovered a “remarkable old-growth forest grove,” within cutblock 4424.
“We knew there were impressive old-growth trees in this area, but we were really blown away once we got in and explored,” Torrance Coste of the Wilderness Committee said.
They say the “crown jewel” of the area is a western red cedar about three metres wide at the base, and possibly about 1,000 years old.
Watt says the hope is that the government will rescind the logging permit already granted to Teal Jones, or that the company will bow to public pressure and agree to withdraw its plans to log in the area.
If that doesn’t happen soon, activists warn some of the groups involved in the Walbran Valley protection campaign are prepared to use civil disobedience. One group, including one of the original 1990s Carmanah Walbran protesters, has already set up an “observation camp” in the area.
“I think the hope is that we don’t have to go there,” Watts said, when asked if activists’ threat of “escalation” and “intense battle” could mean protesters standing in the way of Teal Jones heli-logging crews.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Forests said the 3.2-hectare cutblock already approved for heli-logging would not be clear-cut, and in the other seven potential Teal Jones cutblocks the government is considering “Old Growth Management” areas that would protect “significant trees” and some of the recreational features and hiking trails in the area.
The Teal Jones Group did not respond to requests for comments for this story. In previous reports, Teal Jones managers said more than 7,000 hectares already has been conceded to environmentalists for parkland in the area now owned by the forestry company.
http://15.157.244.121/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Central-Walbran-Ancient-Forest-4410-2_large.jpg533800TJ Watthttp://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/cropped-AFA-Logo-1000px-300x300.pngTJ Watt2015-10-05 00:00:002024-06-17 16:09:29How B.C.’s anti-logging activists are using drones to fight the ‘information war’
A remotely piloted aircraft has shone new light on an old-growth forest near Port Renfrew that has been approved for logging by the B.C. government.
The advent of technology has given photographer TJ Watt of the Ancient Forest Alliance, a grassroots environmental organization headquartered in Victoria, a wealth of insight into the scope of the Central Walbran ancient forest.
“It allows us to explore and document areas that were essentially impossible to reach before,” Watt said.
“There is a whole other world within the forest that, when you’re stuck on the ground, you don’t get a chance to view. But using the drone to fly upward in the canopy, we’re able to provide a new perspective on the scale of these massive trees.”
Watt released a video on YouTube this week to protest a recent decision by the provincial government that gives Teal-Jones Group, a Surrey-based logging company, permission to log a 32-hectare area for pulp, paper and solid wood products.
Rick Jeffery, president and CEO of Coast Forest Products, an industry association and advocate for the coastal forest industry, said there is no reason for the public to think the area captured on video will disappear entirely.
“[The Ancient Forest Alliance] is in there flying a drone around, and that’s lovely,” Jeffrey said.
“We’re in there with boots on the ground for hours and hours and days and days, spending the time to make sure that the development is consistent with the land-use plan and isn’t risking or threatening the values that our friends in the Forest Alliance are saying they are trying to protect.”
In fact, the Walbran “really isn’t at risk,” Jeffery said. “The development there will be small clearcuts that mimic the range of natural variation that you would find in an old-growth forest. Areas get blown over, slides happen and the new forest grows up in that small patch. That’s essentially what [Teal-Jones] is doing.”
Watt captured the video on a GoPro Hero 4 camera affixed to a drone aircraft flown remotely. He was able to capture in a few hours footage that would have taken him days to acquire had he hiked around on foot. That “new tool in the toolbox” will be an important asset of environmental organizations hoping to stop further logging the area, Watt said.
“Any footage of the canopy within the forest before would have had to be done with tree climbers and pulleys. It would be a really complicated process. Outside of the forest, when you’re separated from a hillside at risk of logging by a 500-foot ravine, you’re now able fly to the other side no problem and be back and packed in our vehicle in under 30 minutes.”
His video shows an impressive western red cedar that has been named Leaning Tower Cedar, for its similarity to Italy’s Leaning Tower of Pisa. The tree is located in the Black Diamond Grove area of the valley near Port Renfrew, a contested parcel of land that was approved for logging by the B.C. government. It is the first of eight proposed cutblocks.
Teal-Jones is legally required to manage at-risk species in wildlife habitat areas that crews come across, Jeffery said, so the plan doesn’t pose a risk to the ecosystems in the Upper Walbran or the Walbran Valley itself.
“There is absolutely nothing aggressive about these plans. We don’t just willy-nilly draw lines on a map and say we are going to go harvesting there.”
Watt is aware that video images may not change provincial government policy. However, he remains hopeful they can sway the public.
“The greatest use is to get thousands of people interested in the cause. But social media and whatnot could pressure the government, who makes the ultimate decision of whether the forest and the Walbran stand or fall.”
http://15.157.244.121/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/TJ-Watt-Drone-Walbran_large.jpg490800TJ Watthttp://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/cropped-AFA-Logo-1000px-300x300.pngTJ Watt2015-10-02 00:00:002024-06-17 16:09:31Environmental group hopes new tech will help halt old-growth logging
Conservationists use Drones as BC’s Old-Growth Forest Conflict Escalates: New Technology enables Surveillance and Aerial Video Footage in Remote areas as Logging Threat Encroaches on Canada’s Grandest Old-Growth Forest, the Central Walbran Valley
A logging permit for the first of eight proposed cutblocks in the Central Walbran Valley was issued last Friday by the BC government to Surrey-based logging company Teal-Jones. The Central Walbran is Canada’s most spectacular old-growth forest, near Port Renfrew, and one of the largest unprotected old-growth forests left on southern Vancouver Island. Conservationists prepare for an escalation in the conflict.
Port Renfrew – Conservationists are employing a new tool in the battle to protect BC’s endangered old-growth forests – remotely-piloted drones. The Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) is using a small drone equipped with a GoPro camera to monitor and document the endangered old-growth forests of the Central Walbran Valley on Vancouver Island. This has allowed the organization to capture aerial video footage of old-growth forests threatened by logging on steep, rugged terrain that otherwise would take hours to hike to. Helicopter-based logging, or heli-logging, is expected for several of the eight proposed cutblocks in the Central Walbran Valley, including the first approved Cutblock 4424 (approved last Friday by the BC Forest Service), due to the difficulty of road access in the mountains.
“Drones are a new tool in the tool box that are helping us raise the environmental awareness about remote endangered areas that are normally out of the public spotlight, where companies believe they can log with little scrutiny. Plus it allows us to get some spectacular footage of our magnificent but endangered old-growth forests from vantage points rarely seen”, stated TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance photographer and campaigner who shot the Walbran videos.
The AFA’s drone cost just over one thousand dollars and has been used by Watt half a dozen times to explore and document ancient forests since he purchased it late last year. Other conservationists are also starting to use them to help document endangered areas.
“Teal-Jones and the BC government have committed themselves to an intense battle by aggressively moving to log southern Vancouver Island’s most contentious ancient forest. The logging companies have already clearcut the vast majority of the richest and grandest old-growth forests on Vancouver Island – over 90% – and now they’re complaining that they’re running out of options. They’ve boxed themselves into a corner through their own unsustainable history of overcutting the biggest and best old-growth stands – and now they’re contending that it’s the conservationists’ fault and that they must log the last unprotected lowland ancient forests to survive. The one thing the BC government must not do is to reward unsustainable practices with more unsustainable practices – but that’s just what they’ve done by granting the first cutting permit to Teal-Jones in the Central Walbran Valley. It’s a myopic government facilitating the demise of an ecosystem for a company intent to go just about to the very end. Instead they need a quick transition or exit strategy to get completely out of our last ancient forests and into a sustainable, value-added, second-growth forest industry,” stated Ken Wu, Ancient Forest Alliance executive director.
The 500 hectare Central Walbran Valley is one of the largest contiguous tracts of unprotected old-growth forest left on southern Vancouver Island (south of Barkley Sound) where about 90% of the original, productive old-growth forests have already been logged. It is home to the Castle Grove, perhaps the most extensive and densely-packed monumental western redcedar groves in Canada. The upper reach of the Castle Grove is threatened by several of the proposed Teal-Jones cutblocks. Species at risk include Queen Charlotte Goshawks, marbled murrelets (several of which were recorded by AFA campaigners near the Castle Grove in June: www.ancientforestalliance.org/news-item.php?ID=906), screech owls, and red-legged frogs, while coho salmon and steelhead trout spawn in the rivers.
The Central Walbran is popular for hikers, campers, anglers, hunters, and mushroom pickers, and is located on public (Crown) lands in Tree Farm Licence 46 near Port Renfrew in Pacheedaht Nuu-chah-Nulth territory. About 5500 hectares of the Lower Walbran Valley were included in the Carmanah-Walbran Provincial Park in 1994, while about 7500 hectares in the Central and Upper Walbran Valleys were left unprotected.
Conservationists are escalating pressure on the BC government and the company through protests and public awareness campaigns, calling on the company to back off and the BC government to protect the two ancient forests. Teal-Jones Group is a Surrey-based company that logs and sells endangered old-growth forests – including ancient redcedar trees – for pulp, paper, and solid wood products.
Environmentalists are calling on the BC government to protect these areas from logging through expanded Old-Growth Management Areas (OGMAs), core Wildlife Habitat Areas (WHAs), and Land Use Orders (LUOs).
On BC’s southern coast (Vancouver Island and SW Mainland), satellite photos show that about 75% of the original, productive (moderate to fast growth rates, forests of commercial value) old-growth forests have been logged, including over 91% of the valley bottoms and high-productivity, lowland forests where the largest trees grow. Only 8% of the original, productive old-growth forests on BC’s southern coast are protected in parks and Old-Growth Management Areas. See maps and stats on the remaining old-growth forests on BC’s southern coast at: www.ancientforestalliance.org/old-growth-maps.php
In a recent Vancouver Sun and Province article (see www.theprovince.com/news/walbran+logging+permit+could+rekindle+woods+vancouver+island/11377140/story.html) the Teal-Jones spokesperson was quoted as claiming that “only 11,080 hectares of [the] 59,884-hectare tree farm licence…can be logged” – while failing to mention that tens of thousands of hectares have already been logged and thousands more are on low productivity sites (small trees) of little to no commercial value or inoperable conditions. In addition, the article stated that “…the company gave up more than 7,000 hectares to create the Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park”. In fact, the Carmanah-Walbran Provincial Park was established in 1994, while it wasn’t until 2004 that Teal-Jones acquired Tree Farm Licence 46 (where the park is) from TimberWest – 10 years after the park’s creation and for a price that already reflected the deduction of timber from the park. In addition, the province has stated that the 500 hectares in the Central Walbran is small compared to the 16,000 hectares within the Carmanah-Walbran Provincial Park – failing to provide the context (a common PR-spin technique) that about 670,000 hectares of about 760,000 hectares of the original, productive old-growth forests on southern Vancouver Island (south of Barkley Sound) have already been logged.
In addition, the BC government itself, in order to placate public fears about the loss of BC’s endangered old-growth forests, typically over-inflates the amount of remaining old-growth forests in its PR-spin by including hundreds of thousands of hectares of marginal, low productivity forests growing in bogs and at high elevations with smaller, stunted trees, lumped in with the productive old-growth forests, where the large trees grow (and where most logging takes place). “It’s like including your Monopoly money with your real money and then claiming to be a millionaire, so why curtail spending?” stated the Ancient Forest Alliance’s Ken Wu.
“The Walbran Valley was the birthplace of the ancient forest protest movement in Victoria decades ago. Logging there has repeatedly triggered protests, beginning in 1991 and flaring up regularly for more than a decade thereafter. Thousands of British Columbians love the ancient forests of the Castle Grove, Emerald Pool, Bridge Camp, Summer Crossing, and Fletcher Falls in the Central Walbran Valley,” stated Ken Wu, Ancient Forest Alliance executive director. “Both the province and the company will be held accountable for what happens in these areas.”
“Because of the ideal growing conditions in the region, Canada’s temperate rainforests reach their most magnificent proportions in region of the Walbran Valley. It’s Canada’s version of the American redwoods. Given this fact – and that virtually all of the unprotected ancient forests are either clearcut or fragmented by logging today on southern Vancouver Island – it should be a no-brainer that the grandest and one of the largest contiguous tracts here, the Central Walbran, should be immediately protected”, stated TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner and photographer.
Old-growth forests are vital to sustain endangered species, climate stability, tourism, clean water, wild salmon, and the cultures of many First Nations.
The Ancient Forest Alliance is calling on the BC government to implement a comprehensive science-based plan to protect BC’s endangered old-growth forests, and to also ensure a sustainable, value-added second-growth forest industry.
MORE BACKGROUND INFO
The Walbran Valley is about 13,000 hectares in size, with about 5500 hectares of the Lower Walbran Valley protected within the Carmanah-Walbran Provincial Park and about 7500 hectares of the Upper Walbran Valley remaining unprotected. The unprotected Upper Walbran Valley is divided into two “Tree Farm Licences” (TFLs): TFL 46, held by Teal Jones, and TFL 44, held by Western Forest Products, on Crown lands in the unceded territory of the Pacheedaht Nuu-Cha-Nulth people.
The Central Walbran’s old-growth western redcedar, Sitka spruce, and hemlock forests have long been proposed for protection by the environmental movement since the early 1990’s, when the valley was “ground zero” for protests by southern Vancouver Island’s environmental movement. The early Walbran protests played an important role in supporting the build-up towards the massive Clayoquot Sound protests near Tofino on Vancouver Island in 1993.
While most of the Upper Walbran Valley has been heavily fragmented by old-growth logging, two major tracts of ancient forest remain largely unlogged there: The Castle Grove (Canada’s finest ancient redcedar forest) and the greater Central Walbran Ancient Forest (currently under potential logging threat) which abuts against the boundary Carmanah/Walbran Provincial Park, spanning about 500 hectares in extent.
While small sections of the Central Walbran Ancient Forest are protected within Riparian Reserves, an Ungulate Winter Range, and Old-Growth Management Areas, the vast majority of the area is open for logging. The Central Walbran Ancient Forest is a popular and heavily used area by recreationalists, where the main boardwalk trails for hiking, riverside camping area, Emerald Pool swimming area, and the spectacular Fletcher Falls are found.
The Central Walbran Ancient Forest, Castle Grove, and adjacent unprotected forests were designated as a “Special Management Zone” (SMZ) by the BC government in 1994. The SMZ is supposed to be managed to maintain its environmental and biodiversity values – however, numerous destructive clearcuts have tattered much of the SMZ over the past 20 years.
Here are some fantastic images from part of the endangered Central Walbran Ancient Forest shot in early July by AFA's TJ Watt. The pictures were taken in the '4403' cutblock proposed by Teal-Jones (see map in gallery) just a few hundred metres from where people camp. This section of forest contains some absolutely incredible old-growth redcedar trees as well as some sensitive limestone karst features. Volunteers from the Friends of Carmanah Walbran have flagged a Witness Route into this area marked with yellow flagging tape making it easier to access now.
Please take 30 seconds to send a letter to the BC government asking them to protect the endangered Central Walbran and Edinburgh Mt Ancient Forests here: www.BCForestMovement.com Thank you!!
Surrey-based forestry company, the Teal-Jones Group, is aggressively moving forward with plans to log and build roads into Canada’s two most magnificent old-growth forests, the Central Walbran Ancient Forest (about 500 hectares) and the Edinburgh Mountain Ancient Forest (about 1500 hectares) on southern Vancouver Island. The company is planning eight new cutblocks (clearcuts) and a new road in the Central Walbran, and two new cutblocks and a new road on Edinburgh Mountain. The Walbran Valley is home to perhaps Canada’s finest stand of old-growth redcedars, the Castle Grove, while Edinburgh Mountain is where “Big Lonely Doug” (discovered last year by Ancient Forest Alliance activists to be Canada’s 2nd largest Douglas-fir tree – alas, completely surrounded by a 2012 clearcut) still stands and where the threatened “Christy Clark Grove” (ie. Lower Edinburgh Grove) is located in the Gordon River Valley.
At the end of a logging road, past expanses of clear-cut land, is the entrance to one of the largest contiguous tracts of old-growth rainforest on Vancouver Island.
The Central Walbran Valley near Port Renfrew is not protected parkland, but has incalculable ecological value, environmentalists say.
“You come to this area of pristine old growth and everything changes. Your mood changes. It’s — how do I put it — it gives you a feeling of well-being,” said environmentalist Saul Arbess.
“An undisturbed ancient forest like that is extraordinary.”
Arbess is one of many environmentalists mobilizing to protect a portion of the valley around Castle Grove known as “The Bite” for its bite-shaped exclusion from neighbouring Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park. The ancient western red cedars, sitka spruce and hemlock forests are home to species such as the threatened marbled murrelet.
Tonight at 7 p.m., environmentalists plan to gather at the Fernwood Community Centre to discuss next steps in their campaign to stop Surrey-based Teal-Jones Group from carrying out plans to log eight cutblocks in the 486-hectare area.
It’s a familiar battle for Arbess, with a familiar foe in the forestry industry. In the early 1990s, Arbess took part in a lengthy blockade of logging trucks in the Walbran Valley, as part of an ongoing “war in the woods” that included the massive Clayoquot Sound protests in 1993.
The conflict ended with Teal Jones surrendering 7,035 hectares of its licence to form Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park. But multiple flare-ups since then suggest negotiators didn’t quite get it right.
“We live with the mistakes of history, there’s no question about it,” Arbess said.
For representatives from Teal Jones, which employs more than 1,000 people, enough compromises have been made already.
Chief financial officer Hanif Karmally said the company has 59,884 hectares within its tree-farm licence, but almost 30 per cent is protected from harvest because of ecological considerations such as wildlife habitats or riparian areas.
Seventy-four per cent of the remaining timber-harvest land base is immature, leaving 11,080 hectares available to harvest.
“When the Carmanah-Walbran park was created, there was a conscious decision to allow old-growth logging outside of the park boundaries and Teal wishes to pursue this,” Karmally said.
“Further reductions would be extremely detrimental to Teal’s logging and sawmilling operations.”
Teal Jones had applied to begin logging one of its eight cutblocks on July 13, but all harvesting is on hold for the fire season, Karmally said.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations said the province is evaluating Teal Jones’s application.
But Teal Jones is within its legal rights to log the area, another spokesman said, with a province-approved forest-stewardship plan in place.
Torrance Coste, Vancouver Island campaigner for the Wilderness Committee environmental group, said second-growth forests can’t be considered adequate replacements for old-growth ones.
“If a tree is 1,200 or 1,400 years old, then the ecosystem around it has developed for that long, too. You can’t just replicate that when you log and replant,” he said.
Old-growth forests also serve as an important carbon sink for mitigating the effects of climate change, Coste said.
Peter Cressey, a member of Friends of Carmanah/Walbran, said he believes the best strategy for protecting the forest is bringing people to see it. Although he participated in blockades during the war in the woods, he doesn’t believe that will be necessary this time.
“Back in the ’90s, it was a small group of people labelled as treehuggers. Now it’s become more mainstream,” he said.
The Friends are creating a “witness trail” for people to take a 1.5-hour hike into the woods.
“We like the idea that you have to witness something before making a decision.”
http://15.157.244.121/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/TC_Walbran_large.jpg375563TJ Watthttp://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/cropped-AFA-Logo-1000px-300x300.pngTJ Watt2015-07-21 00:00:002024-06-17 16:09:33Environmentalists fight to save tract of old-growth Island trees
Audio Recording of the Threatened Marbled Murrelet, an Old-Growth Dependent Seabird, taken in the Endangered Central Walbran Valley
Two new recordings of the calls of a threatened, old-growth dependent seabird, the Marbled Murrelet, have been taken in the endangered Central Walbran Valley recently and were submitted last Friday to BC’s Ministry of Environment in hopes the new findings will halt logging plans in Canada’s grandest old-growth temperate rainforest.
The recordings by TJ Watt and Jackie Korn of the Ancient Forest Alliance were taken on July 4 just before 5 am in the Central Walbran Ancient Forest – just three hundred meters away from a renowned stand of endangered old-growth western redcedars, the Castle Grove, whose upper slopes are currently under threat of logging. The Surrey-based Teal-Jones Group, which logs endangered old-growth forests, including ancient western redcedars, for pulp, paper, and solid wood products, is in the midst of controversy over its plans to log eight cutblocks (clearcuts) in the heart of the Central Walbran Ancient Forest, including in the Upper Castle Grove, as well as plans to log two new cutlbocks in the nearby Edinburgh Mountain Ancient Forest (see a media release at: https://www.ancientforestalliance.org/news-item.php?ID=903)
Hear the two new audio recordings of several Marbled Murrelets in the Walbran Valley, which have been verified as authentic by a murrelet biologist (note there are multiple bird calls in the recordings, with the Marbled Murrelets’ calls figuring prominently in the mix). Download: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1mruh32i4wbx9n5/AADrpF1r15osRClMtpSl4FyXa?dl=0
“We hope that finding a species at risk in this endangered old-growth forest – a species in which government scientists state that old-growth logging is the main threat to its survival – will halt the BC government’s approval of old-growth logging permits here. This is particularly important because the rate of old-growth habitat loss of the Marbled Murrelet on western Vancouver Island has been proceeding rapidly due to logging,” stated TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner.
“While the Walbran has been known as a Marbled Murrelet breeding hotspot for decades, it should also be noted that endangered, lowland ancient forests like these are filled with numerous other species at risk. If the BC government and Teal-Jones keep moving forward to ensure old-growth logging in the Central Walbran, then they are endorsing the annihilation of these species at risk,” stated Ken Wu, Ancient Forest Alliance executive director.
In particular, conservationists are requesting that the Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations deny a cutting permit for Teal-Jones for Cutblock 4424 in the Upper Castle Grove, which so far is the only cutblock that the company had applied to cut among 8 proposed cublocks.
Birders were perplexed for over a century about the whereabouts of the nesting sites of the Marbled Murrelet in Canada, until the very first nest was located in the Central Walbran Valley by researchers from the University of Victoria in 1990 – in close proximity to where Teal-Jones’ current logging plans are.
The Marbled Murrelet is a species at risk that is federally listed by COSEWIC as “Threatened” and by the BC government as a “Blue-listed” species of special concern. It is a robin-sized seabird that catches small fish in the ocean and flies typically up to 50 kilometres inland to nest on the wide, mossy limbs found only in old-growth forests. The primary threat to their populations is cited by scientists to be the destruction and fragmentation of their old-growth nesting habitat by logging (“…the Marbled Murrelet is assessed as Threatened primarily because of inferred population declines due to historical and continued loss of old-growth forest nesting habitat,” – Recovery Strategy for the Marbled Murrelet in Canada, 2014) and several populations have declined over the years. See a BC Ministry of Environment backgrounder on the species at https://www.env.gov.bc.ca/wld/documents/murrelet.pdf and a recent report by the federal Marbled Murrelet Recovery Team on their habitat needs and conservation status at https://www.sararegistry.gc.ca/virtual_sara/files/plans/rs_guillemot_marbre_marbled_murrelet_0614_e.pdf
The BC government has established a limited number of Wildlife Habitat Areas (WHA’s) for the Marbled Murrelet, but with a proviso that the habitat protections for species at risk in general don’t impact the available timber supply for logging by more than 1%. In addition, these WHA’s are often established within existing provincial parks, which are already protected.
(***NOTE: News media are free to run any video footage and photos, credit to “TJ Watt” where possible. Contact us if you need higher res video or photos)
Conservationists are escalating pressure on the BC government and the company through a public awareness campaign of hikes, expeditions, protests, and letter-writing drives. Activists are calling on Teal-Jones to back off from logging the Central Walbran and Edinburgh Mountain Ancient Forests, and the BC government to protect them through expanded Old-Growth Management Areas (OGMA’s), core Wildlife Habitat Areas (WHA’s), Land Use Orders (LUO’s), and/or through a proposed new “legal tool” to protect BC’s biggest trees and grandest groves, which the Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations is currently developing.
The Walbran Valley is popular for recreationalists, including hikers, campers, anglers, hunters, and mushroom pickers, and is located on public (Crown) lands in Tree Farm Licence 46 near Port Renfrew in Pacheedaht Nuu-cha-Nulth territory.
“Teal-Jones seems to be committing to a War in the Woods by aggressively moving forward to log southern Vancouver Island’s most contentious ancient forests. The Walbran Valley was the birthplace of the ancient forest protest movement in Victoria decades ago. Logging there has repeatedly triggered protests, beginning in 1991 and flaring up regularly for more than a decade thereafter. Thousands of British Columbians love the ancient forests of the Castle Grove, Emerald Pool, Bridge Camp, Summer Crossing, and Fletcher Falls in the Central Walbran Valley,” stated Ken Wu, Ancient Forest Alliance executive director.
“Because of the ideal growing conditions in the region, Canada’s temperate rainforests reach their most magnificent proportions in the Walbran, Carmanah, and Gordon River Valleys. They’re Canada’s version of the American redwoods. Given this fact – and that virtually all of the unprotected ancient forests are either clearcut or fragmented by logging today on southern Vancouver Island – it should be a no-brainer that the two largest, contiguous tracts here, the Central Walbran and Edinburgh Mountain, should be immediately protected”, stated TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner and photographer.
The Central Walbran’s old-growth western redcedar, Sitka spruce, and hemlock forests have long been proposed for protection by the environmental movement since the early 1990’s, when the valley was “ground zero” for protests by southern Vancouver Island’s environmental movement. The early Walbran protests played an important role in supporting the build-up towards the massive Clayoquot Sound protests near Tofino on Vancouver Island in 1993.
The Castle Grove is considered by many conservationists as the finest, unprotected stand of monumental old-growth western redcedar trees in Canada. It includes a flat section (Lower Castle Grove), currently without any logging plans, and an adjacent mountainside (Upper Castle Grove) that is now under direct threat by Teal-Jones. Teal-Jones had flagged part of the Upper Castle Grove for logging in the 2012, but after a public campaign by the Ancient Forest Alliance, the Ministry of Forests reported later than year that the company was not intending to log there – unfortunately, since then, the company is now proposing to place three clearcuts in the Upper Castle Grove. See the video and the media releases from 2012:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHnG_sC4oms andhttps://www.ancientforestalliance.org/news-item.php?ID=515
Old-growth forests are vital to sustain endangered species, climate stability, tourism, clean water, wild salmon, and the cultures of many First Nations.
On BC’s southern coast, satellite photos show that at least 75% of the original, productive old-growth forests have been logged, including well over 90% of the valley bottoms where the largest trees grow.
The Ancient Forest Alliance is calling on the BC government to implement a comprehensive science-based plan to protect BC’s endangered old-growth forests, and to also ensure a sustainable, value-added second-growth forest industry.
http://15.157.244.121/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Marbled-Murrelet-Closeup.jpg479800TJ Watthttp://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/cropped-AFA-Logo-1000px-300x300.pngTJ Watt2015-07-17 00:00:002024-06-17 16:02:33Audio Recording of the Threatened Marbled Murrelet, an Old-Growth Dependent Seabird, taken in the Endangered Central Walbran Valley
Tuesday, July 21, 2015, 7-9 pm, Fernwood Community Centre, 1240 Gladstone Avenue, Victoria, BC
The old-growth forests of the Central Walbran Valley are threatened with clearcut logging. This is one of the largest intact old-growth forests left on southern Vancouver Island, but is now at risk of being logged by Teal-Jones. See beautiful images of the valley and hear a variety of speakers at this free event hosted by the Friends of Carmanah-Walbran, Wilderness Committee, and Ancient Forest Alliance.
http://15.157.244.121/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Walbran-at-Risk.jpg600400TJ Watthttp://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/cropped-AFA-Logo-1000px-300x300.pngTJ Watt2015-07-17 00:00:002024-06-17 16:02:35Public Information and Community Forum to Save the Walbran Valley
Port Renfrew – Surrey-based forestry company, the Teal-Jones Group, is aggressively moving forward with plans to log and build roads into Canada’s two most magnificent old-growth forests, the Central Walbran Ancient Forest (about 500 hectares) and the Edinburgh Mountain Ancient Forest (about 1500 hectares) on southern Vancouver Island. The company is planning eight new cutblocks (clearcuts) and a new road in the Central Walbran, and two new cutblocks and a new road on Edinburgh Mountain. The Walbran Valley is home to perhaps Canada’s finest stand of old-growth redcedars, the Castle Grove, while Edinburgh Mountain is where “Big Lonely Doug” (discovered last year by Ancient Forest Alliance activists to be Canada’s 2nd largest Douglas-fir tree – alas, completely surrounded by a 2012 clearcut) still stands and where the threatened “Christy Clark Grove” (ie. Lower Edinburgh Grove) is located in the Gordon River Valley. Maclean’s Magazine recently featured the Ancient Forest Alliance’s video of tree-climbers at Edinburgh Mountain scaling Big Lonely Doug among a series of videos featuring “Canada’s greatest people, places, and experiences”
(***NOTE: News media are free to run any video footage and photos, credit to “TJ Watt” where possible. Contact us if you need higher res video or photos)
Conservationists are escalating pressure on the BC government and the company through a public awareness campaign of hikes, expeditions, protests, and letter-writing drives, calling on the company to back off and the BC government to protect the two ancient forests. Teal-Jones Group is a Surrey-based company that logs and sells endangered old-growth forests – including ancient redcedar trees – for pulp, paper, and solid wood products.
Both the Central Walbran Valley and Edinburgh Mountain are just a few kilometers from the world-famous West Coast Trail of Pacific Rim National Park Reserve. Both areas are home to Canada’s most magnificent old-growth temperate rainforests of giant western redcedar, Douglas-fir, Sitka spruce, and hemlock trees. Species at risk include Queen Charlotte Goshawks, marbled murrelets, screech owls, and red-legged frogs in the forest, while coho salmon and steelhead trout spawn in the rivers. The areas are popular for recreationalists, including hikers, campers, anglers, hunters, and mushroom pickers, and are located on public (Crown) lands in Tree Farm Licence 46 near Port Renfrew in Pacheedaht Nuu-cha-Nulth territory.
The Ancient Forest Alliance is calling on the BC government to protect these areas from logging through expanded Old-Growth Management Areas (OGMA’s), core Wildlife Habitat Areas (WHA’s), Land Use Orders (LUO’s), and/or through a proposed new “legal tool” to protect BC’s biggest trees and grandest groves, which the Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations is currently developing. The organization is also calling on the BC government to implement a comprehensive science-based plan to protect all of BC’s remaining endangered old-growth forests, and to also ensure a sustainable, value-added second-growth forest industry.
“Teal-Jones seems to be committing to a War in the Woods by aggressively moving forward to log southern Vancouver Island’s most contentious ancient forests. The Walbran Valley was the birthplace of the ancient forest protest movement in Victoria decades ago. Logging there has repeatedly triggered protests, beginning in 1991 and flaring up regularly for more than a decade thereafter. Thousands of British Columbians love the ancient forests of the Castle Grove, Emerald Pool, Bridge Camp, Summer Crossing, and Fletcher Falls in the Central Walbran Valley,” stated Ken Wu, Ancient Forest Alliance executive director. “Similarly, the Gordon River Valley region where the threatened Edinburgh Mountain Ancient Forest is located has been in the international spotlight because of the nearby Avatar Grove, a popular, now-protected ancient forest just across the valley, and Big Lonely Doug, Canada’s 2nd largest Douglas-fir, which towers by itself in a now-destroyed part of the Edinburgh Mountain Ancient Forest. Both the province and the company will be held accountable for what happens in these areas.”
“Because of the ideal growing conditions in the region, Canada’s temperate rainforests reach their most magnificent proportions in the Walbran, Carmanah, and Gordon River Valleys. They’re Canada’s version of the American redwoods. Given this fact – and that virtually all of the unprotected ancient forests are either clearcut or fragmented by logging today on southern Vancouver Island – it should be a no-brainer that the two largest, contiguous tracts here, the Central Walbran and Edinburgh Mountain, should be immediately protected”, stated TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner and photographer.
Of the eight cutblocks that Teal-Jones is proposing to log in the Central Walbran Valley, the company recently applied on June 23 to the Forest Service to start logging one of them near the Upper Castle Grove, Cutblock 4424. Whether the Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations grants the permit is to be seen. The Castle Grove is perhaps the most extensive stand of densely-packed monumental old-growth redcedars in Canada, and possibly the world.
At the same time, the company is planning a new logging road and two cutblocks in the Edinburgh Mountain Ancient Forest, just a few kilometers away from the Walbran Valley. The old-growth forests of Edinburgh Mountain are significantly more extensive than those of the Central Walbran Valley, making it the largest, primarily intact tract of unprotected old-growth forest left on southern Vancouver Island (south of Bamfield). The proposed new road by Teal-Jones would pierce hundreds of metres into the heart of the Edinburgh Mountain Ancient Forest and would even traverse an Old-Growth Management Area (OGMA).
The Edinburgh Grove, the most spectacular part of the Edinburgh Mountain Ancient Forest on its southwestern side, has also been nicknamed the “Christy Clark Grove” after British Columbia’s premier as a strategy to put her on the spot and in the spotlight to protect it. More than half of the Edinburgh Mountain Ancient Forest is open for logging, while other parts are protected as a “core” Wildlife Habitat Area (the “buffer” zone can still be logged, and has already been logged in several areas) for the endangered Queen Charlotte Goshawk, as an Ungulate Winter Range, and as Old-Growth Management Areas. See an original article about the Christy Clark Grove at https://www.canada.com/story.html?id=5d72d50a-b7b7-4787-b772-323929e0d98cCanada’s 2nd largest Douglas-fir tree, “Big Lonely Doug”, was once part of the Edinburgh Grove until its surrounding neighbours were clearcut in a 2012 cutblock – see https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/canadas-loneliest-tree-around-1000-years-old-still-waiting-on-help/article19064507/.
The Central Walbran’s old-growth western redcedar, Sitka spruce, and hemlock forests have long been proposed for protection by the environmental movement since the early 1990’s, when the valley was “ground zero” for protests by southern Vancouver Island’s environmental movement. The early Walbran protests played an important role in supporting the build-up towards the massive Clayoquot Sound protests near Tofino on Vancouver Island in 1993.
The Castle Grove is considered by many conservationists as the finest, unprotected stand of monumental old-growth western redcedar trees in Canada. It includes a flat section (Lower Castle Grove), currently without any logging plans, and an adjacent mountainside (Upper Castle Grove) that is now under direct threat by Teal-Jones. Teal-Jones had flagged part of the Upper Castle Grove for logging in the 2012, but after a public campaign by the Ancient Forest Alliance, the Ministry of Forests reported later than year that the company was not intending to log there – unfortunately, since then, the company is now proposing to place three clearcuts in the Upper Castle Grove. See the video and the media releases from 2012: https://www.youtube.com/>watch?v=lHnG_sC4oms and https://16.52.162.165/news-item.php?ID=515
A portion of the Edinburgh Mountain Ancient Forest was perhaps the most spectacular old-growth redcedar grove in the world, more densely packed with a greater number of monumental ancient redcedars (13 to 16 feet wide) than perhaps any other cedar grove – until it was clearcut in 2010. The logging of this grove triggered a Forest Practices Board investigation that recommended that the province undertake a new legal tool to protect the province’s biggest trees and grandest groves – which the province is still in the process of developing.
Old-growth forests are vital to sustain endangered species, climate stability, tourism, clean water, wild salmon, and the cultures of many First Nations.
On BC’s southern coast, satellite photos show that at least 75% of the original,productive old-growth forests have been logged, including well over 90% of the valley bottoms where the largest trees grow.
MORE BACKGROUND INFOThe Walbran Valley is about 13,000 hectares in size, with about 5500 hectares of the Lower Walbran Valley protected within the Carmanah-Walbran Provincial Park and about 7500 hectares of the Upper Walbran Valley remaining unprotected. The unprotected Upper Walbran Valley is divided into two “Tree Farm Licences” (TFL’s): TFL 46, held by Teal Jones, and TFL 44, held by Western Forest Products, on Crown lands in the unceded territory of the Pacheedaht Nuu-Cha-Nulth people.
While most of the Upper Walbran Valley has been heavily fragmented by old-growth logging, two major tracts of ancient forest remain largely unlogged there: The Castle Grove (Canada’s finest ancient redcedar forest) and the greater Central Walbran Ancient Forest (currently under potential logging threat) which abuts against the boundary Carmanah/Walbran Provincial Park, spanning about 500 hectares in extent.
While small sections of the Central Walbran Ancient Forest are protected within Riparian Reserves, an Ungulate Winter Range, and Old-Growth Management Areas, the vast majority of the area is open for logging. The Central Walbran Ancient Forest is a popular and heavily used area by recreationalists, where the main boardwalk trails for hiking, riverside camping area, Emerald Pool swimming area, and the spectacular Fletcher Falls are found.
The Central Walbran Ancient Forest, Castle Grove, and adjacent unprotected forests were designated as a “Special Management Zone” (SMZ) by the BC government in 1994. The SMZ is supposed to be managed to maintain its environmental and biodiversity values – however, numerous destructive clearcuts have tattered much of the SMZ over the past 20 years.
Edinburgh Mountain includes about 1500 hectares of intact ancient forest, none of which are included in legislated protected areas. About 60% or more of its ancient forests are open for logging, while about 40% are in forest reserves which prohibit logging (ie. within Old-Growth Management Areas and an Ungulate Winter Range). In addition, all of the Grove is included within a 2100 hectare Wildlife Habitat Area, which still legally allows clearcut logging in almost 90% of the designation itself (ie. in the “buffer”, not the small “core” area). In 2010 and 2012 some of the very largest trees in Canada – some 13 to 16 feet in diameter – were logged within the Wildlife Habitat Area on Edinburgh Mountain. The Lower Edinburgh Grove on its southwestern side has some high concentrations of giant Douglas-firs and western redcedars. The grove once included “Big Lonely Doug”, Canada’s 2nd largest Douglas-fir tree, until the forests surrounding the tree were logged in 2012, and while it still includes the “Gnarly Clark”, a massive redcedar with some giant burls, “General Clark”, a huge, straight redcedar, and the “Clark Giant”, a near record-size Douglas-fir that, at over 30 feet in circumference! The Clark Giant is currently in a forest reserve that is off-limits to logging, but stands close to an area that could be clearcut.
In order to placate public fears about the loss of BC’s endangered old-growth forests, the BC government’s PR-spin typically over-inflates the amount of remaining old-growth forests by including hundreds of thousands of hectares of marginal, low productivity forests growing in bogs and at high elevations with smaller, stunted trees, lumped in with the productive old-growth forests, where the large trees grow (and where most logging takes place). “It’s like including your Monopoly money with your real money and then claiming to be a millionaire, so why curtail spending?” stated the Ancient Forest Alliance’s Ken Wu.
http://15.157.244.121/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Central-Walbran-Ancient-Forest-2015.jpg533800TJ Watthttp://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/cropped-AFA-Logo-1000px-300x300.pngTJ Watt2015-07-09 00:00:002024-06-17 17:03:11Canada’s Two Grandest Old-Growth Forests Under Logging Threat by the Teal-Jones Group!
In 1991, Western Canada Wilderness Committee (WC2) campaigner, Torrance Coste, was a three-year-old growing up in Lake Cowichan. Barrelling through his community at the time were logging truck loads of old-growth logs coming out of the Walbran Valley and buses of protestors coming in. “I even remember the hand-painted signs: ‘No raw log exports’ which I could just about read.” Coste adds, “Though I didn’t have a clue what they meant then, I do now.”
On one of the buses of protestors was Ken Wu, a 17-year-old first-year biology student at UBC, fresh from the prairies and new to activism. Ken was dropped into a grove of old-growth western red cedar and spruce and, according to Wu, “I lost my ecovirginity.” He returned to UBC and organized his first rally to save the old growth of Walbran. One hundred people turned up and he has continued organizing ever since, first as a campaigner for WC2 and then under his own banner of the Ancient Forest Alliance.
After years of protest in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the BC government bowed to public pressure and created Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park by purchasing back Tree Farm Licences from MacMillan Bloedel for $83.75 million. But not all the valley’s forests were saved.
Now the Walbran is poised once again to become ground zero for the latest “war in the woods”—civil disobedience in the form of peaceful blockades of logging. Environmentalists are condemning the plans of Teal Jones Group—a logging company that has held Tree Farm Licence 46 since 2004—to log in the Central Walbran Ancient Forest. The eight cutblocks proposed are in the controversial “bite” out of Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park—literally a big chunk of very high value western red cedar groves left outside the park when the boundary was drawn. The cutblocks are near hiking trails that lead to massive old trees, including the 1000-year-old Castle Giant, more than five metres across at its base. The BC government has approved Teal Jones’ Forest Stewardship Plan, although it has yet to receive plans or issue permits for the cutting.
Coste believes that if it hadn’t been for early campaigners, nothing of the Carmanah/Walbran forests would have been saved for his generation. So he asked himself what his generation is going to save for the next. “We are going to revive the war in the woods. Every time there has been a presence, changes are made. There is a willingness to make the Walbran this year’s Burnaby Mountain. Of course,” he adds, “we would prefer to see this resolved by government action rather than blocking roads.”
The Sierra Club of BC is also wading in, brandishing facts and figures. In 2004, the Sierra Club produced a map of what was left of productive old growth temperate rainforest on Vancouver Island. A decade ago, 90 percent of the valley bottom forests, where the biggest trees were, had already gone. Not surprisingly, things have only become worse in the last decade. It is a finite resource. Jens Wieting, forest campaigner for Sierra Club, who has also been on this file for most of his professional career, says his frustration comes in a variety of forms. Although new conservation-oriented economic tools exist in BC, such as those being implemented in the Great Bear Rainforest which allow for 70 percent protection of the landscape, no such effort at conservation is happening on Vancouver Island. “Ten percent protection of these temperate rainforests, which have the highest sequestration rates of carbon in the world, is not enough,” notes Wieting.
The old Vancouver Island Land Use Plan, which was never properly implemented, hasn’t been updated for two decades. After being eaten away by industry, bit by bit, only 10 percent of the entire land base has been set aside in a fragmented collection of parks, Old Growth Management Areas, Wildlife Habitat Areas, and Wildlife Tree Patches. The latter, referred to as WTPs, are a specific designation protecting “a group of trees that are identified in an operational plan to provide present or future wildlife habitat.” Retention requirements in any cutblock are regulated at 10 percent. Typically these WTPs are less than two hectares wide and are frequently subjected to blowdown, yet WTPs are about the only tool being used by Teal Jones. These old designations have resulted in a patchy landscape that doesn’t serve wildlife or forest health.
The relationship between preserving carbon sinks and mitigating climate change is the other big factor missing in current government policy on Vancouver Island. A report released last year by the Sierra Club—Carbon at Risk: BC’s Unprotected Old-growth Rainforest—called for the elimination of old-growth logging on Vancouver Island. It showed that one year of logging old-growth rainforest in southwest BC was responsible for releasing approximately three million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As Wieting pointed out, “We blew BC’s entire carbon savings for a year because the BC government doesn’t have a plan to protect the rare old-growth forests of Vancouver Island and the South Coast.”
This year appears to be no exception. So long as we continue to log at the same pace on Vancouver Island, we nullify any progress on reducing provincial carbon emissions.
INSPIRED BY HIS LOVE of the ancient forest near his hometown, Torrance Coste represents the next generation of activists: well versed in biodiversity, carbon science, economic analysis, and endangered species legislation.
Many endangered species inhabit these forests, including Northern Goshawk laingi subspecies, Marbled Murrelet, Western Screech Owl kennicottii subspecies—all of which Coste says he discussed with Teal Jones representatives over the last nine months. “I guess I was naïve. I thought that they were listening to us when we asked them to at least stay out of the bite, which is only 486 hectares or 0.5 percent of their total 99,130-hectare TFL.”
Teal Jones did a “surprise” clearcut in this “bite” in 2013, an act which put ENGOs on high alert and running to company offices to discuss the situation. “When we recently got the plans for the eight cutblocks in the bite and found orange flagging tape near the famous Castle Grove, after all our conversations, we knew there was no sense in talking anymore,” Coste says. (Focus requested an interview with Teal Jones officials, but the company didn’t respond. The company website notes it complies with a Canadian Standard Association Sustainable Forest Management certification, a low bar over which the company can easily step and then claim it complies with existing government rules and policy.)
Neither Coste nor Wu were old enough to be involved in the extensive negotiations and planning in the ’90s that resulted in British Columbia leading the world by being the first to sign the landmark 1992 Earth Summit Conventions on Biodiversity, Climate Change and Desertification. The 1991 Walbran protests led to the setting up of the Wilderness Advisory Committee, the Old Growth Strategy, the Protected Areas Strategy, the Clayoquot decisions, and the Commission on Resources and Environment, which in turn led to the Vancouver Island Land Use Plan (VILUP) in 1994.
Few young activists today can believe BC was once a world leader in forest ecology, biodiversity, climate change, and best practices for public consultation. What they see now is a bare-bones lip-service approach, the result of a gutted Forest and Range Practices Act. “Professional reliance”—whereby forestry companies have been given much of the responsibility for oversight previously conducted by government officials—and pseudo consultation have become the operating principles by which Crown forests are managed.
Masters student Sabrina Schwartz at the University of Alberta reviewed the 20-year-old VILUP in 2014 regarding its “ability to cope with past, current and future demands of its stakeholders.” She concluded: “The VILUP was a necessary government tool, to solve the intense conflicts of the ‘War in the Woods’ and to clarify the general land use management on Vancouver Island; it was, however, not able to establish a province-wide sustainability guideline, which would have left an organized, focused and fair land use and resource management on Vancouver Island.”
In less diplomatic words, the disorganized, scattered and uneven policy of the BC government is laying the province wide open to a future “war in the woods.” The BC government responded to Focus’ questions with the statement that Teal Jones is within its legal rights to log in the area. It failed to respond to questions about the role of forests in its climate action plan.
Coste is quickly finding out “you have to get out there and protest to get them to listen. Grass roots pressure has worked in the past. It is going to work again.” Coste’s sights are on the Walbran—his home patch. For Wu, “these cutblocks are the cherries on the cake, we still have to address the cake. We need a new land use plan for Vancouver Island.” For Wieting, that is a plan that is province-wide and integrates biodiversity, diversification of economic opportunities, and climate change.
(In late June, shortly after Focus went to press with this story, Teal Jones submitted an application to the Province to log one of the eight cutblocks.)
http://15.157.244.121/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/VanSun_JackieWalbran_large.jpg533800TJ Watthttp://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/cropped-AFA-Logo-1000px-300x300.pngTJ Watt2015-07-07 00:00:002024-06-17 16:10:03War in the Woods II ?
