SAVE VANCOUVER ISLAND'S REMAINING OLD-GROWTH FORESTS!
90% of the valley-bottom ancient forests on Vancouver Island have already been logged-off. Both of the tree photos on this page are in the endangered Upper Walbran Valley. Here we see the spectacular “Mordor Tree”, a giant redcedar with a fortress-like top. Photo by TJ Watt
This gorgeous canyon in the Nahmint Valley is a great place to swim. Old-growth forests conserve water in the spongy, rotten wood of giant logs. They produce clean water for young salmon and steelhead. The Nahmint contains BC’s most extensive stand of old-growth coastal Douglas-firs in Gracie’s Grove.
It's time to end Old-Growth logging on Vancouver Island
Have you been fortunate enough to visit Vancouver Island’s famed old-growth forests in Cathedral Grove? The West Coast Trail? Carmanah Valley? Clayoquot Sound? Meares Island? Pacific Rim Park? Walbran Valley? Juan de Fuca Trail? Sombrio Beach? China Beach? Goldstream? Cape Scott?
If you’ve experienced even just a few of these special places, then you know that the old-growth forests of Vancouver Island are among the most spectacular landscapes to be found anywhere on Earth. Monumental trees reach heights rivaling a 30 story office tower and can live to be 1,800 years old!
The Island’s forests are home to wolves, cougars, black bears, elk, five species of salmon in its streams, and at-risk, old-growth associated wildlife like marbled murrelets (a seabird that nests high in the treetops), Queen Charlotte goshawks, Vaux’s swifts, Keen’s and Townsend’s long-eared bats, and numerous smaller critters unique to old-growth forest canopies.
People come from around the world to marvel at the huge trees with their moss-draped branches, making old-growth forests a fundamental pillar of Vancouver Island’s tourism economy. The old-growth forests are also of great cultural and spiritual importance to First Nations who have been sustained by them for millennia.
However, if you’ve flown over Vancouver Island or driven its backwoods roads, you know that much of the old-growth forests have been laid low by more than a century of clearcut logging. Recent satellite photos show that at least 73% of Vancouver Island’s ancient forests have already been cut down, including 90% of the valley bottom ancient forests where the biggest trees grow and the greatest variety of living things are found. Unfortunately, only 6% of Vancouver Island’s productive forests are protected in parks. Old-growth forests outside of parks are being rapidly logged-off, eliminating critical habitat for many of the Island’s endangered plants and animals.
Recently the BC government set a timetable of targets for reducing our province’s greenhouse gas emissions in order to combat climate change. That’s good news! However, old-growth forests are far better at sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than the seedlings and second-growth tree plantations that they are being replaced with after they are cut down.
It’s time for the BC government to set a timetable to phase-out the logging of Vancouver Island’s remaining old-growth forests to protect our climate and biodiversity.
The Wilderness Committee is calling on BC’s government to immediately ban logging of the Island’s most endangered old-growth forest types, and to quickly phase-out logging of the rest of Vancouver Island’s old-growth forests by 2015.
This will require the timber industry to make a complete transition into logging of second-growth forests, ideally at a slower, more sustainable rate of cut.
Save the Old-Growth.
Value Add Second- Growth.
Ban Raw Log Exports.
Here we see a giant ancient Douglas-fir snag cut down. Photo by Jeremy Sean Williams.
Other jurisdictions like New Zealand and southwestern Australia have completely banned old-growth logging in recent years.
Fortunately BC is in a position to feasibly do the same on Vancouver Island because we have an extensive supply of mature second-growth forests to log. Almost two-thirds of the logging taking place on Vancouver Island is in second-growth forests. Timber industry analysts say that the industry must continue this transition to more second-growth logging in order to remain profitable. The full transition into a second-growth logging industry is inevitable when the last of the unprotected old-growth forests have been logged-out. However, we believe the BC government must mandate that the logging industry complete this transition BEFORE it has finished off the last of our unprotected old-growth forests!
By banning raw log exports to provide for a greater wood supply to BC mills and assisting the development of manufacturing facilities of “value-added” wood products, the BC government can legislate protection for the remaining old-growth forests on Vancouver Island, while maintaining forestry employment levels. Vancouver Island’s First Nations, wildlife, tourism industry, fishing industry, timber workers, recreationists and the people of Canada will all greatly benefit. It’s a win-win solution that we can’t afford to pass up.
