Canadians call for park protection
British Columbia's Carmanah Valley, located on the wild west coast of Vancouver Island, has been the centre of a wilderness versus logging controversy for well over a year. Environmentalists want to preserve the valley's rainforest by adding it to the adjacent Pacific Rim National Park. Forest Company MacMillan Bloedel (MB) Ltd. wants to log most of the valley to feed its mills in the nearby town of Port Alberni.
Carmanah is not just any valley. It is home to the tallest trees in Canada. A Sitka spruce discovered in June 1988, nicknamed the Carmanah Giant, measures in at over 95 metres (312 feet) in height, taller than a 30 storey office tower. It is the tallest known tree in Canada and the tallest known Sitka spruce in the world.
The Western Canada Wilderness Committee (WCWC), one of the most active environmental groups working to preserve Carmanah, has, over the last two summers, built 20 kilometres of hiking trail spanning the entire length of the valley. Taken to court by MB in an attempt to halt its trail building, the committee won the right to build trail in a landmark Supreme Court of B.C. decision in the summer of 1988.
The trail winds through a forest that is timeless and strong, virtually indestructible. Towering Sitka spruce that have stood for six centuries and massive red cedars over a millennium old thrust up from a rainforest floor comprised of the rotting remains of earlier generations of trees. Young Sitka spruce cluster together, seeking the sunlight on newly formed sandbars in the bends of the creek. Young hemlocks and cedars deeply shaded under the forest canopy, line the moss-covered tops of fallen logs.
Beneath the façade of strength however, lies a delicately balanced ecosystem that has built up over the centuries. Each grove of giants and young trees relies on the other parts of the forested valley to control the rate of water flow, impact of winds and number of landslides. Many people fear that clearcutting the upper watershed in this coastal region of high wind and torrential rains, would unleash an unstoppable process of erosion and windfall that would eventually topple the forest giants like a house of cards.
The environmentalists ask, "How can Canadians hope to help save tropical rainforests if we cannot preserve even the most outstanding example of our own?" They point out that all the valleys that drain the east side of Vancouver Island have been or are now being logged. Out of 80 valleys on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, only a handful have no logging and most of them are scheduled to be logged in the next few years.
Canada's ancient temperate rainforest, limited by climate to the narrow rainbelt bordering the Pacific Ocean, never covered a very large area. Today, what little remains after decades of excessive logging is disappearing fast. Industry claims that too much of Canada's coastal rainforest is tied up in parks already and that additions to the coastal park system would be disastrous to their operations and workers.
The environmentalists disagree, saying that places like Carmanah Valley contain the genetic reservoir of spare parts and detailed blueprints that future generations will need to keep the previously logged lands healthy. Environmentalists claim that a real disaster will occur if we destroy the information contained in our ancient forests, and claim that we can easily afford to set aside more forest if logging were less wasteful.
To date, B.C. has preserved an estimated 2 percent of its forest land in parks, environmentalists are calling for an additional 3 percent. Carmanah valley is less that 7,000 hectares, that's .007 percent the size of B.C. The forest industry in B.C. logs more than 200,000 hectares of ancient forest every year. At that rate all the protected rainforest in B.C.'s coastal parks, if logged, would keep the forest industry supplied for less than one year. If the B.C. forest industry only cut Carmanah wood, the valley would keep B.C. logging trucks rolling for about three weeks. The true value of these numbers is to show how tiny Carmanah Valley really is.
Canadians and international visitors are, in increasing numbers, seeking out the ancient forest of Carmanah. Over the summer of 1989 an average of 500 people per week hiked the Carmanah Valley Trails. Both the federal and provincial governments have received tens of thousands of letters and petitions calling for the valley to be added to Pacific Rim National Park.
British Columbia's provincial government will be handing down a decision on Carmanah Valley's fate, soon.
