Scientific support increases for preserving Clayoquot's magnificent ancient rainforests
Looking down the pristine Clayoquot Valley from a vantage point beside the Witness Trail.
Coastal temperate rainforests have always been a rare eco-type on Earth. After the last ice age they covered only 0.2 percent of Earth's land area. Today 90% of these wild forests are gone. The 10 percent that is left - one quarter of it in BC - is disappearing at an accelerating rate. One of the largest contiguous tracts of ancient temperate rainforest left on the planet is found in Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island. Its "crowning glory" is, at the same time, its nemesis... the huge trees with strong wood that make the best lumber in the world.
This 262,000 hectare region has become a global flash point in the effort to define and put into practice the murky concept of "sustainable development". Who owns and controls the resources? How much of the natural, wild ecosystem must be preserved? What types of activities are compatible with the conservation of biodiversity? What methods of resource "harvesting" will keep them sustainable?
The BC government claimed it could "sustain development" through its April '93 decision to allow logging in over two-thirds of Clayoquot's ancient forest. Dr. Brent Ingram of U.B.C's Faculty of Forestry issued a report in February of 1994 concluding that this decision is not based in science and will result in the loss of biodiversity. Developments that sacrifice biodiversity are not sustainable over time. Science and the traditional knowledge of First Nations will help to change the government's shortsighted Clayoquot decision. The Nuu-chah-nulth Central Region's Interim Measures Agreement, ratified with the provincial government this spring, along with the recommendations of the Scientific Panel for Clayoquot Sound present a new vision for Clayoquot Sound (see articles p. 3). But will the spirit of these documents be implemented with their vision intact?
Ancient redcedars growing in lower Clayoquot River Valley.
The Wilderness Committee believes that these brave new steps towards sustainability are hampered by the fact that the logging rights to almost all the forest resource in Clayoquot are vested in two big forest companies. The government has given them the right to cut unsustainable amounts of timber- 600,000 cubic metres of wood-15,000 logging trucks worth- annually in Clayoquot Sound.
Conservation biologists tell us that to conserve biodiversity we need to protect large wilderness areas. All of the remaining still-wild valleys and islands must be protected. If we hope to hand on Earth's natural bounty to sustain future generations, compromise is not the answer. There is too little left.
Last year, more than 850 people were arrested in Clayoquot Sound for defying court orders outlawing the blockading of logging roads. It was the largest expression of civil disobedience in Canadian history. So far, the efforts of conservationists, both legal and illegal, have been in vain. But the fight to achieve truly sustainable development in Clayoquot Sound continues.
