Three square kilometre clearcut created by BCFP in unnamed tributary of Lost Creek, 100 km. South of the Stein Valley.
Arguments refuted
Here are the five most popular arguments put forward by those who want to log the Stein and the answers provided by wilderness supporters.
Stein logging advocates say:
Logging the Stein Valley is necessary to preserve forest industry jobs in the local communities. Without the Stein timber the Lytton and Boston Bar sawmills will have to close down throwing hundreds of people out of their jobs in these small communities.
Stein wilderness supporters respond:
The fact is that the Stein timber can only provide, at best, a short extension to the life of the logging industry in the area. The forest companies have been drastically over-harvesting the available old growth timber for decades. With or without logging the Stein, the local mills will be running out of wood in the near future if the current rate of deforestation continues.
BCPF has poor record
Modern logging, no matter how it is done, causes environmental degradation. The valley bottoms of the Stein cannot be logged while at the same time the rest of the watershed remains wilderness, as claimed by the provincial government. Although the industry says that it would practise environmentally sensitive logging in the Stein, the reality is that this is impossible using current logging methods.
The promises of good logging practices are hollow, as evidenced in logged-over valleys near the Stein. The wilderness designation of areas with non-commercial timber within the Stein watershed is nothing more than sweet talk to pacify public opinion. Let's see what modern logging, the kind currently practised by the company that wants to log the Stein, is really like.
British Columbia Forest Products (BCFP), which now promises environmental miracles in the Stein, logged Lost Creek (photo on right). Lost Creek, most appropriately named now, is located just 100 km. South of the Stein Valley. Between 1984 and 1987 BCFP logged a whole mountainside and a steep tributary valley there. This recent Lost Creek watershed clearcut is more than three square kilometres in extent.
When BCFP first proposed this logging in the upper Lost Creek drainage, it was seriously questioned and even strongly opposed by some staff of both the B.C. Forest Service and the B.C. Ministry of Environment. Concerns raised included the excessive rate of logging in a drainage already suffering flash flooding from previous BCFP logging, the logging of fire breaks (areas of standing timber usually left to prevent the rapid spread of forest fires) and the logging of steep unstable creek gullies.
Despite these concerns, the B.C. Forest Service caved in to pressure from BCFP and approved the company's logging plans with only minor revisions. As predicted, the logging of the steep creek gullies caused extensive erosion, and this massive new deforestation increased the rate of rain runoff even more. During a heavy rain in November of 1986, the creek became choked with logging debris which backed up under a bridge and washed out a logging road.
Combined with the almost complete clear-cutting of the commercial forests in this watershed over the last 25 years, the accelerated runoff causes periodic flash floods. The main channel of Lost Creek has already eroded to more than four times its original width, washing away many acres of the best tree-growing land in the lower valley. In addition, flash floods have destroyed roads and bridges and washed away recreational cabins.
Lost Creek sacrificed for enhanced profits
Despite environmental warnings, BCFP lobbied for and got some of the last remaining stands of environmentally sensitive old growth forest in Lost Creek. Placing short term corporate profits above long term stewardship of the land is standard practice in the logging industry. Lost Creek is not an isolated example. Would you trust this company with the sacred Stein?
The local forest industry is currently logging the forests surrounding the Stein at a rate of 12,000 logging truckloads per year faster than the wood is growing back, according to B.C. Forest Service statistics (based on one truck load equalling 30 cubic metres of wood).
The amount of harvestable wood in the Stein is tiny-about 70,000 truck loads. This is enough to extend the life of the two local mills by only three years at the rate they are currently processing wood, if they relied solely on this supply. In comparison, making use of slightly smaller diameter trees (12.5 cm. Instead of 17.5 cm.) would increase the wood supply in the surrounding forests by more timber than The total found in the Stein.
Since 1985, local logging companies obtained government approval to export over 14,000 logging truck loads of raw logs out of the Fraser Canyon just south of the Stein. This is equivalent to nearly one fifth the total supply found in the Stein. Instead of stockpiling the logs for use in local mills, the companies opted for quick short-term profits.
Logging the Stein will require large government subsidies. Tzxpayers will have to pay for a new bridge over the Fraser which will cost about $5 million and the logging companies will be compensated for most of their road building costs.
In short, logging the Stein will not prevent the inevitable timber shortages and related job losses in the Fraser Canyon. The solutions lie instead in lowering the harvest rates to a sustainable level, increasing the efficiency of the mills to make better u se of the wood that is cut, doing a better job of reforestation, and diversifying the local economy by encouraging the manufacture of value-added products and wilderness tourism.
Stein logging advocates say:
Only 9,500 hectares or nine percent of the Stein watershed will be affecte by logging. The rest, 91 percent will remain wilderness.
Stein wilderness supporters respond:
The nine percent scheduled to be logged includes all of the rich valley bottoms of the Stein watershed. Valley bottoms are the lifeblood of natural ecosystems. They provide winter habitat for the unglates, and are, biologically speaking, the richest part of a watershed. Building a road down the main valley and into almost every side valley of the Stein to remove the low elevation forest will destroy 100 percent of wilderness character of the watershed.
The idea of building a logging, road up the "Lower Stein Wilderness" - the lower canyon - with its steep rock walls and narrow valley bottom and calling it a wilderness is using the term "wilderness" as Orwellian news speak. It is blatantly misleading.
Stein logging advocates say:
Timber stands in the Stein are under heavy insect attack. Approval of development is needed now to allow salvage operations to recover the dead trees before they rot, and to prevent further spread of the infestation.
Stein wilderness supporters respond:
The recent beetle infestation in the Stein was part of a completely natural cycle. It peaked years ago and is now declining. The killed trees have been dead for too long to be salvageable, and the management plan for the Stein (published by B.C. Forest Service) states that "no specific program has been planned at the present time for sanitation or salvage." The current five year logging plans do not in any way target beetle-killed pine forests for salvage.
The Stein Valley has had a continuous succession of forest cover for nearly 10,000 years, ever since the last ice sheets melted. Along with forest fires, natural cycles of insect population swings occurred throughout this time and served to enhance the overall diversity and stability of the forest ecosystems. The Stein is the last undisturbed biological unit of its kind in southwest B.C., and as such provides us with our last opportunity to study an entire transitional zone watershed in its wilderness state. Every other valley provides the opportunity to study what effect the heavy hand of industrial exploitation has had on nature.
Stein logging advocates say:
We must share the Stein. British Columbians believe in multiple use and integrated resource management. The present plan for logging is the best compromise in a hard situation.
Stein wilderness supporters respond:
There is ample proof in all the surrounding valleys that have already been shared, that some uses of the forest are mutually exclusive. Logging in the Stein is totally incompatible with wilderness preservation, just as road construction will harm both archeological sites and wildlife habitat. Road construction and logging means that the rich valley bottom loses its trees, wildlife is hunted like never before and archeological sites get vandalized. True wilderness and logging cannot take place side by side. It defies definition.
Grizzly and black bear, cougar, wolves, coyote, moose and many other species have shared the Stein with countless generations of the Lytton and Mt. Currie native people. The fact that the valley is already being shared is easily forgotten in today's world.
The rights and wishes of the natives who consider the area essential to their culture must be respected. Demanding that they share the last small piece of what was once a very large pie is morally wrong. The whole pie must be shared by leaving one whole piece, the last piece, as an ecologically protected area and for native heritage preservation.
Stein logging advocates say:
The approximately six percent of B.C.'s land base that is protected under park and ecological reserve status is more than adequate. B.C. neither needs nor can afford any new large parks or protected wilderness areas in places where economic timber or mineral deposits exist.
Stein wilderness supporters respond:
B.C.'s record of wilderness preservation is poor when compared to other places around the world with outstanding natural features. In New Zealand, the home of the owners of BCFP, 17.1 percent of the wild original forest is protected. Alberta protects 9.1 percent of its land base, Washington State protects 11.3 percent, Idaho protects 9.7 percent, California protects 10 percent, and Alaska protects 37.9 percent.
In comparison B.C. protects less than six percent. The newly created "recreation areas" that some count as protected areas, are misleading because both mining and logging are allowed, sometimes in the middle of provincial parks.
According to studies done by the provincial parks ministry, less than half of the existing unique landscapes in B.C. are protected in parks. This province has a ways to go to live up to its world wilderness preservation responsibilities and its "super natural" image. Considering that B.C.'s total land area is 952,000 square kilometres and that the total land area in the Stein is 1,100 square kilometres, preservation of the Stein would preserve roughly one tenth of one percent more of B.C.'s total land base.
