Save the Stoltmann Wilderness' ancient rainforests valleys. With artists, scientists, and other conservationists the call is made to protect the 260,000 hc. of wilderness, which is already being damaged by clearcuts in some places. The plans are in the works for canopy research platforms in a grove of towering Douglas fir trees, which will allow scientists to explore the tree-top worlds and find new oldgrowth dependant species.

Save ancient rainforests of the Stoltmann Valley

Wilderness Committee Educational Report Vol.16 - No.01, 1997

Charred and smoking 1996 InterFor clearcut one kilometre from Sims Creek and the Stoltmann Wilderness. Photo credit: John Clarke

Lower Mainland Parks announcement, 1996. InterFor President listens to Premier Clark give him the Stoltmann's best forests to log. Photo credit: Kerry Dawson

Join the fight and save the

ANCIENT RAINFORESTED VALLEYS of the STOLTMANN WILDERNESS

Before it's too late!

  • Glen Clark's "brown" NDP government gave 80% of the Stoltmann Wilderness to industry.
  • Wasting no time, InterFor and the clearcutters are racing to fall the best stands of ancient giant trees in the spring and summer of 1997.
  • Wilderness Committee teams up with artists, scientists and other environment groups in an all-out effort to save the Stoltmann.

    • Clark's NDP government is 'brown' as a new clearcut

    On October 28, 1996 Premier Glen Clark stood at the podium in the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre with Bob Sitter, President of International Forest Products (InterFor), standing right behind him. Even though Premier Clark was there to announce 22 new Lower Mainland parks, Sitter, the normally "faceless" (low public profile) CEO who heads B.C.'s second largest logging company, could barely conceal his smirk. Why? The new parks contained very little loggable forest. Moreover, only 20 percent of the Stoltmann Wilderness would be preserved. Much of the rest, including the tallest, oldest and most wildlife-rich ancient forests, would be given over to... you guessed it... International Forest Products to clearcut!

    Events leading up to the disastrous October 28 announcement began two and a half years earlier, in April of 1994. That's when well known West Vancouver conserva- tionist Randy Stoltmann first proposed to the B.C. government that the 260,000 hectare wilderness area located 200 km. north of Vancouver in the headwaters of the Squamish and Lillooet river systems be protected as a Tribal or Provincial Park. Randy had discovered that the cluster of pristine rainforest valleys located in the traditional territories of the Squamish and Lil'wat First Nations, was the Lower Mainland's largest remaining wildland and that it harboured the southern limit of North America's coastal grizzly bear population.

    Tragically, Randy was killed a month later in a ski- mountaineering accident. His friends in the environment movement re-named the area the Stoltmann Wilderness in his honour and vowed to preserve it. Since that time Western Canada Wilderness Committee has lead the fight to save the Stoltmann Wilderness from the clearcutters.

    A large group of Wilderness Committee members and volunteers were at the October 28 `clearcut Stoltmann' announcement. They were sickened by Clark's alliance with the forest industry and left, vowing to fight until the entire 260,000 ha. Stoltmann Wilderness gained park protection.