Fletcher Challenge clearcut logging to the Pacific Rim park boundary, Camper Creek, West Coast Trail. Forest strip along coast at right is park. Ken Lay
THE LOGGING PLANS
The map below shows areas within the West Coast Trail Rainforest wilderness area planned for logging based on MacMillan Bloedel's proposed 20-year logging plan for TFL 44 and Fletcher Challenge's approved 5-year logging plan for TFL 46 (Fletcher Challenge has no 20-year plan; if they did there would be many more proposed cutblocks shown in red). All areas in yellow have already been logged (up to the end of 1991). Areas in red are proposed for logging starting in 1992. Every voice is needed now to halt these inappropriate logging plans.
BLACK RIVER / MICHIGAN CREEK
Roadbuilding and logging has already begun around scenic Black Lake. In 1991, extensive roadbuilding occurred in preparation for clearcut logging of proposed cutblocks throughout this area of fragile bog forests and ancient cedar stands. One of these proposed cutblocks will be the first logging development in the presently undisturbed Michigan Creek valley, the only remaining major intact watershed along the West Coast Trail north of Nitinat Lake.
MacMillan Bloedel's 20-year management and working plan shows large proposed clearcuts that would fragment all the remaining tracts of ancient forest along the northern part of the West Coast Trail by the year 2000.
Click on image to enlarge
KLANAWA RIVER
In 1991 logging roads were constructed into the magnificent hemlock-amabilis fir and cedar forests of the Klanawa valley. MacMillan Bloedel is now racing to extend roads and spread clearcuts throughout this currently unfragmented rainforest. The trees are already falling - and the opportunity to save this wilderness is disappearing as you read this.
CULLITE, LOGAN AND SANDSTONE CREEKS
In 1991 Fletcher Challenge clearcut logged Block 123 at the head of Sandstone Creek. More roads and clearcuts are planned for these areas in the next five years. Cullite, Logan and Sandstone creeks are three small, pristine coastal valleys which harbour a magnificent rainforest wilderness continuous with the West Coast Trail and the Walbran Valley. Cullite and Logan creeks were included in the January 1992, 18-month logging deferral, but Sandstone Creek was excluded.
UPPER CARMANAH
Preservation of the upper half of the Carmanah Valley is the only way to guarantee protection of the world-class Sitka spruce forests located downstream within Carmanah Pacific Provincial Park. Any logging in the upper Carmanah would increase the risk of flash floods, extra sedimentation and landslides. WCWC operates its temperate rainforest research station in the Upper Carmanah.
WALBRAN VALLEY
In the summer of 1991, the Walbran became known nationally when protesters blocked construction of both MacMillan Bloedel and Fletcher Challenge logging roads in a desperate attempt to save the largest unfragmented tract of rainforest left on southern Vancouver Island. Their attempts to stop the road building failed, and by Christmas 1991, logging of four cutblocks within the proposed wilderness area had begun. In January 1992, the BC government announced an 18-month partial deferral of logging, but allowed Fletcher Challenge to continue logging in the four cutblocks in the heart of the Walbran near spectacular Fletcher Falls. Logging previously planned in the deferral area was shifted to the South Walbran valley outside the deferral area - but still within the proposed wilderness.
