CHRONOLOGY
LONG BATTLE TO SAVE WILDERNESS ALONG THE 'SHIPWRECK COAST'
The efforts of the last 25 years are only the latest chapter in the battle for adequate wilderness protection along the West Coast Trail. Below are a few highlights in the natural and cultural history of a region renowned for its seafaring natives and shipwrecked mariners.
From 10,000 years BP - Following the retreat of the last ice age, the processes of forest succession and evolution in the temperate rainforest along the present day West Coast Trail proceeded largely undisturbed by humans. Native Indians used the resources on a sustainable basis leaving the natural ecosystem intact.
1890 - West Coast Lifesaving Trail and telegraph line constructed to help mariners shipwrecked along the rugged, fog-shrouded coast reach civilization.
1926 - The 61,000-hectare Bamfield-Nitinat Recreation Reserve established along the northern part of the West Coast Trail (nearly three times the size of today's parks in the area).
1947 - The 20-year-old Bamfield-Nitinat Recreation Reserve was abolished and timber rights handed over to the logging industry.
1960s - Historic West Coast Lifesaving Trail re-cleared by conservationists and hikers.
1970 - Pacific Rim National Park Reserve established with provisional boundaries for the West Coast Trail which were inadequate to protect the integrity of the trail and the biodiversity of the surrounding rainforest.
1972 - Provincial government agrees to include the Nitinat Triangle in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve after a 2-year campaign led by the Sierra Club of Western Canada.
1985 - IWA president Jack Munro leads unsuccessful, forest industry lobby to allow logging in the Nitinat Triangle area of Pacific Rim National Park Reserve.
1986 - Provincial Wilderness Advisory Committee recommends Pacific Rim National Park Reserve be finalized with only minor boundary revisions.
1988 - WCWC launches nation-wide campaign to preserve the entire Carmanah Valley adjacent to the West Coast Trail.
1990 - The 3,592-hectare Carmanah Pacific Provincial Park established. Upper Carmanah Valley logging deferred pending further study to determine if logging could occur without impacting the park downstream.
-First Canadian marbled murrelet nest found in Walbran Valley.
-WCWC takes federal and provincial governments to BC Supreme Court demanding an Environmental Assessment Review Process over the possible effects of proposed Walbran logging on the threatened marbled murrelet nesting habitat. Case lost. WCWC appeal pending release of Reasons for Judgement.
1991 - Many concerned citizens blockade logging roads in the Walbran Valley.
1992 - Provincial government defers logging for 18 months in part of the Walbran Valley and all of Logan and Cullite valleys. Commission on Resources and Environment (CORE) struck to study and recommend land use changes on Vancouver Island.
-WCWC releases West Coast Trail Rainforest proposal.
