THE RAPIDLY VANISHING RAINFORESTS OF SOUTHERN VANCOUVER ISLAND
The two maps, prepared by the Sierra Club of Western Canada and The Wilderness Society in Seattle, show the extent of ancient forests on southern Vancouver Island in 1954 and 1990. Approximately 75 percent of the forests that existed in this region in 1954 had been clearcut logged by 1990 at an average rate of 8,300 hectares per year. Continued cutting at this rate will see all unprotected ancient forests on southern Vancouver Island logged in the next 11.6 years, unless the public puts a stop to it.
Maps and information courtesy of the Sierra Club of Western Canada and The Wilderness Society.
For more information on the Vancouver Island Mapping Project contact the Sierra Club of Western Canada, 314-620 View Street, Victoria, B.C. V8W 1J6 (604) 386-5255
LOGGING COMPANIES HAVE ALMOST ELIMINATED OUR ANCIENT RAINFOREST HERITAGE!
ACT NOW TO SAVE THE LITTLE THAT'S LEFT
The West Coast Trail Rainforest wilderness proposal, shown on the map at bottom left, is a rescue plan for Pacific Rim National Park Reserve on Vancouver Island. When protected, it will help fulfil the true purpose of a national park - to preserve a perpetually sustaining example of the country's natural heritage.
This proposed protected area includes the last few river valleys and lowlands still carpeted in ancient rainforest along the West Coast Trail between Bamfield and Port Renfrew. The proposed area, 31,000 hectares, when added to the 23,000 hectares set aside in the adjacent Pacific Rim and Carmanah Pacific parks, makes a 54,000-hectare region of protected rainforest. This is approximately 6.5 percent of the Vancouver Island land base south of Alberni Inlet. In comparison, logging company MacMillan Bloedel's Tree Farm License (TFL) 44 covers 450,000 hectares, more than fourteen times the size of the entire West Coast Trail Rainforest wilderness proposal.
Rainforest stream in the Walbran Valley Randy Stoltmann
WEST COAST TRAIL THREATENED
The West Coast Trail portion of the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve is a narrow strip, only 500 to 2,000 meters wide, of mostly wind-blown scrub and stunted bog forest along the coast. Only in the Nitinat Triangle area is the park wide enough to maintain the wilderness qualities of the coast. As logging roads near the current park boundaries, they will provide easy access to the West Coast Trail. It will be impossible to control day hiker access to the now wilderness beaches along the trail. For instance at the Klanawa River, there would be easy canoe access to the coast.
Clearcut logging is advancing rapidly towards the park boundary; unless stopped soon the West Coast Trail strip will be isolated as a thin island in an increasingly clearcut landscape.
Forest Biodiversity Threatened
Ancient cedar-hemlock rainforests with some trees over 1,500 years old and five meters thick, and Sitka spruce groves with trees over 70 meters tall, are threatened by logging. The specimens protected in the existing parks provide inadequate representation of the great variability found in the ancient forest gene pool. There are even remarkable genetic differences in the life forms found in adjacent valleys like the Carmanah and Walbran.
Pacific Rim National Park Reserve and Carmanah Pacific Provincial Park need the surrounding, supporting forest ecosystems to protect them as self-sustaining, fully-functioning ecological units.
Little is known about the wildlife populations that inhabit this area. The distribution and habitat requirements of the old growth dependant plant and animal species are largely unknown.
Marbled Murrelets
Marbled murrelets are small, diving seabirds which nest on the large, moss-padded limbs of the ancient trees which grow along the west coast. They are currently listed on Canada's endangered species list as a threatened species because their nesting habitat is being destroyed by clearcut logging.
Studies conducted from WCWC's Carmanah research camp have shown that during nesting season, the ancient forests adjacent to the West Coast Trail are frequented by exceptionally high numbers of these birds. The only two marbled murrelet nests ever found in Canada were discovered in 1990 and 1991 in the Walbran Valley - an essential part of the West Coast Trail Rainforest.
About the current Walbran "Log-Around"?
On January 21, 1992, after two years of controversy, the BC government deferred logging for 18 months in part of the Walbran Valley and all of Cullite and Logan valleys. At the same time however, Fletcher Challenge was allowed to continue logging in four cutblocks elsewhere in the heart of the Walbran Valley.
Logging originally proposed for 1992, but now within the Walbran deferral area, was shifted into the adjacent South Walbran valley. Further north, the Klanawa River, Black River and Michigan Creek areas remain threatened by imminent logging. Far from preserving a large area of wilderness forest while the merits of protecting it are investigated, the current deferral decision has actually sped up logging in these other areas within WCWC's proposed West Coast Trail Rainforest wilderness area.
There are fragments of old growth forests elsewhere on southern Vancouver Island which are sufficient to supply the short-term needs of industry while the future and best use of this area is assessed by government. There is an urgent need for an expanded deferral area covering all these valleys within the West Coast Trail Rainforest area.
Easily accessible wilderness
The West Coast Trail Rainforest presents a once-only opportunity to preserve the finest remaining region of ancient forest wilderness on southern Vancouver Island. This forest is located only 100 kilometers northwest of British Columbia's capital city, Victoria. It is virtually a backyard wilderness.
