Clayoquot Sound: Leading the Way
The largest remaining tracts of old-growth forests on Vancouver Island are in Clayoquot Sound, a 260,000 hectare region surrounding the west coast village of Tofino. Because of its rugged terrain and remoteness the logging industry was slow to get a foothold here. Consequently over 70% of its old-growth forests are still intact.
Sydney Inlet and Pretty Girl Valley in Clayoquot Sound north of Tofino is an old-growth paradise. Many of Clayoquot’s intact valleys and islands still require legislated protection. Photo by Adrian Dorst
The aboriginal owners of the territory are the Clayoquot tribes of the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations. They, in cooperation with environmental groups, have worked hard over the years to resist clearcutting in special areas like Meares Island.
In early 1993, some 12,000 people led by the Friends of Clayoquot Sound took part in protests to oppose MacMillan Bloedel’s logging operations in the area. Almost 900 people were arrested for peacefully blocking the way of the logging trucks, which made it the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history.
MacMillan Bloedel eventually abandoned its plans to log Clayoquot Sound’s pristine valleys and went on to give over the company’s logging rights to the Nuu-chah-nulth controlled logging company, Iisaak Forest Resources.
In 1998, the Clayoquot Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between the Nuu-chah-nulth’s Clayoquot Chiefs, Iisaak Forest Resources, and 4 environmental groups – Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and the Wilderness Committee. The agreement declared that all of Clayoquot Sound’s remaining pristine valleys and islands are eehmis (Nuu-chah-nulth for very special places) which are to be off-limits to logging. Iisaak’s logging, it was agreed, would occur in already fragmented areas, eventually transitioning away from logging old-growth to logging second-growth forests.
Clayoquot Sound continues to be at the forefront of old-growth forest conservation efforts on Vancouver Island. To keep Clayoquot Sound moving towards sustainability the BC government needs to legislate protection for the Nuu-chah-nulth’s eehmis areas by enshrining First Nations land-use planning outcomes in law and provide economic development funds – as the provincial government recently did in the Great Bear Rainforest on BC’s mainland coast. This will help the Nuu-chah-nulth people develop forest-friendly businesses and local employment opportunities.
It’s worth noting that since the signing of the MOU by the First Nations and environmental groups back in 1998, Clayoquot Sound has been designated a UN Biosphere Reserve and has become one of Canada’s premier eco-tourism destinations, generating an estimated $100 million in tourism revenues each year.
