Western Canada Wilderness Committee's Vancouver Island Vision Map
with CORE's Proposed Protected Areas and Regionally Significant Lands superimposed
CORE's proposed land use plan would permit the liquidation of 93 percent of Vancouver Island's productive old growth forests. The CORE plan, if adopted by the provincial government, will only put an additional 2.7% of Vancouver Island's land and water into parks. It will increase protection of the origial temperate rainforest from 4.9% to 6.5%. It will allow over 93% of the Island's original temperate rainforest to be ultimately liquidated.
Out of the 170 original primary and secondary watersheds, over 5,000 hectares on Vancouver Island, only 9 remain pristine. Five of these watersheds are in Clayoquot Sound and four are in the greater Brooks Peninsula region. The CORE recommendations, along with the Harcourt "compromise" Clayoquot decision made last year, allows for all but three of these watersheds to be logged.
The Nasparti, the Megin and the Moyeha will be the only large intact primary and secondary watersheds remaining on Vancouver Island if the CORE plan prevails.
Click on image for detail
Southern Vancouver Island
Less than 15% of the ancient rainforest on Southern Vancouver Island remains. The CORE plan allows for another 11% of this critical forest habitat, already highly fragmented, to be logged. It will leave less than 4% of the South Island's original temperate rainforest intact. While CORE calls for protection of the Upper Carmanah Valley and lower parts of the Walbran, areas that environmentalists have made high profile, it left out the San Juan Ridge near Port Renfrew, the southernmost large fragment of old growth and critical habitat for Roosevelt elk and oldgrowth dependent species including marbled murrelets.
Regionally Significant Lands
CORE has identified 8% of Vancouver Island to be "specially managed" as Regionally Significant Lands (RSL's). Logging and mining can still occur in these areas, although forest harvesting is to take second place to other "resource values." Environmentalists have reason to be skeptical. The Tsitika Valley, the Nahmint Valley and Clayoquot Sound's Tofino Creek are all past examples of promised "special management" and more sensitive, better logging practices that never materialized. Instead, they got business as usual-regular clearcutting.
Many of the RSL's contain sensitive areas of Vancouver Island that function as critical habitat and corridors for wildlife. Many of these areas are earmarked for full protection on the WCWC Conservation Vision map. Development and resource extraction are not compatible with conservation requirements in these ecologically critical areas. In order to truly achieve sustainable development, CORE's principles of "enhanced stewardship" must be strengthened and applied to all of the land base outside the preserved areas, not just a small percentage of it.
