Add ancient forests to protected lands: activists

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Environmental advocates are calling on the province to extend the protected areas in southern Vancouver Island to two ancient forest sites threatened by logging.

The Surrey-based Teal-Jones Group has been moving forward to log and build roads into the central Walbran forest and the Edinburgh Mountain forest, which in turn will sell the pulp, paper and solid wood products from the trees.

Teal-Jones has so far applied for one of eight cutblocks in the area, and if the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations approves it, the company can begin work as early as July 13, according to TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner.

“We’re simply looking at the government, asking them to ensure the ecological values, basically protecting the forest in the central Walbran,” he said. “Hopefully it doesn’t get to the protest point.

“Hopefully it doesn’t get anywhere to the extent it was in the ’90s, with the civil disobedience.”

The two forests are a few kilometres away from the West Coast Trail and Pacific Rim National Park Reserve and located on Crown land.

That’s why the alliance, along with other groups such as the Wilderness Committee, are trying to pressure the government into expanding the protected forests to cover the threatened area, according to Watt.

“It’s one of the finest forests in Canada, if not the Earth,” he said. “If there’s any place that it makes sense, the borders already exist for the protected area already — that seems like a no brainer for including this within the protected area,” she said.

In an email from the ministry, approval times generally take 30 to 40 days and Teal- Jones is within its legal rights to log in the area environmental activists are concerned about.

“They have a government-approved forest stewardship plan in place,” the email states. “As part of the approval process, the company needed to show how public comments were incorporated in the plan.”

On Vancouver Island, only 46% of Crown forest is old growth — more than 860,000 hectares — and it’s estimated around 520,000 hectares will never be harvested, according to the province.

What will happen with the other 300,000 was not explained.

Read more: https://vancouver.24hrs.ca/2015/07/09/add-ancient-forests-to-protected-lands-activists

AFA’s "Climbing Big Lonely Doug" video on Maclean’s "Canada148"

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Maclean’s magazine has featured the Ancient Forest Alliance’s video on climbing “Big Lonely Doug”, discovered in 2014 by AFA campaigners to be the 2nd largest Douglas-fir tree in Canada – but standing alone since 2012 when Teal-Jones clearcut all the ancient trees around Big Lonely Doug. Our video is one of the 148 videos of Canada’s most incredible people, places and experiences, to celebrate Canada’s 148th birthday.

War in the Woods II ?

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In 1991, Western Canada Wilderness Committee (WC2) campaigner, Torrance Coste, was a three-year-old growing up in Lake Cowichan. Barrelling through his community at the time were logging truck loads of old-growth logs coming out of the Walbran Valley and buses of protestors coming in. “I even remember the hand-painted signs: ‘No raw log exports’ which I could just about read.” Coste adds, “Though I didn’t have a clue what they meant then, I do now.”

On one of the buses of protestors was Ken Wu, a 17-year-old first-year biology student at UBC, fresh from the prairies and new to activism. Ken was dropped into a grove of old-growth western red cedar and spruce and, according to Wu, “I lost my ecovirginity.” He returned to UBC and organized his first rally to save the old growth of Walbran. One hundred people turned up and he has continued organizing ever since, first as a campaigner for WC2 and then under his own banner of the Ancient Forest Alliance.

After years of protest in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the BC government bowed to public pressure and created Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park by purchasing back Tree Farm Licences from MacMillan Bloedel for $83.75 million. But not all the valley’s forests were saved.

Now the Walbran is poised once again to become ground zero for the latest “war in the woods”—civil disobedience in the form of peaceful blockades of logging. Environmentalists are condemning the plans of Teal Jones Group—a logging company that has held Tree Farm Licence 46 since 2004—to log in the Central Walbran Ancient Forest. The eight cutblocks proposed are in the controversial “bite” out of Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park—literally a big chunk of very high value western red cedar groves left outside the park when the boundary was drawn. The cutblocks are near hiking trails that lead to massive old trees, including the 1000-year-old Castle Giant, more than five metres across at its base. The BC government has approved Teal Jones’ Forest Stewardship Plan, although it has yet to receive plans or issue permits for the cutting.

Coste believes that if it hadn’t been for early campaigners, nothing of the Carmanah/Walbran forests would have been saved for his generation. So he asked himself what his generation is going to save for the next. “We are going to revive the war in the woods. Every time there has been a presence, changes are made. There is a willingness to make the Walbran this year’s Burnaby Mountain. Of course,” he adds, “we would prefer to see this resolved by government action rather than blocking roads.”

The Sierra Club of BC is also wading in, brandishing facts and figures. In 2004, the Sierra Club produced a map of what was left of productive old growth temperate rainforest on Vancouver Island. A decade ago, 90 percent of the valley bottom forests, where the biggest trees were, had already gone. Not surprisingly, things have only become worse in the last decade. It is a finite resource. Jens Wieting, forest campaigner for Sierra Club, who has also been on this file for most of his professional career, says his frustration comes in a variety of forms. Although new conservation-oriented economic tools exist in BC, such as those being implemented in the Great Bear Rainforest which allow for 70 percent protection of the landscape, no such effort at conservation is happening on Vancouver Island. “Ten percent protection of these temperate rainforests, which have the highest sequestration rates of carbon in the world, is not enough,” notes Wieting.

The old Vancouver Island Land Use Plan, which was never properly implemented, hasn’t been updated for two decades. After being eaten away by industry, bit by bit, only 10 percent of the entire land base has been set aside in a fragmented collection of parks, Old Growth Management Areas, Wildlife Habitat Areas, and Wildlife Tree Patches. The latter, referred to as WTPs, are a specific designation protecting “a group of trees that are identified in an operational plan to provide present or future wildlife habitat.” Retention requirements in any cutblock are regulated at 10 percent. Typically these WTPs are less than two hectares wide and are frequently subjected to blowdown, yet WTPs are about the only tool being used by Teal Jones. These old designations have resulted in a patchy landscape that doesn’t serve wildlife or forest health.

The relationship between preserving carbon sinks and mitigating climate change is the other big factor missing in current government policy on Vancouver Island. A report released last year by the Sierra Club—Carbon at Risk: BC’s Unprotected Old-growth Rainforest—called for the elimination of old-growth logging on Vancouver Island. It showed that one year of logging old-growth rainforest in southwest BC was responsible for releasing approximately three million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As Wieting pointed out, “We blew BC’s entire carbon savings for a year because the BC government doesn’t have a plan to protect the rare old-growth forests of Vancouver Island and the South Coast.”

This year appears to be no exception. So long as we continue to log at the same pace on Vancouver Island, we nullify any progress on reducing provincial carbon emissions.

INSPIRED BY HIS LOVE of the ancient forest near his hometown, Torrance Coste represents the next generation of activists: well versed in biodiversity, carbon science, economic analysis, and endangered species legislation.

Many endangered species inhabit these forests, including Northern Goshawk laingi subspecies, Marbled Murrelet, Western Screech Owl kennicottii subspecies—all of which Coste says he discussed with Teal Jones representatives over the last nine months. “I guess I was naïve. I thought that they were listening to us when we asked them to at least stay out of the bite, which is only 486 hectares or 0.5 percent of their total 99,130-hectare TFL.”

Teal Jones did a “surprise” clearcut in this “bite” in 2013, an act which put ENGOs on high alert and running to company offices to discuss the situation. “When we recently got the plans for the eight cutblocks in the bite and found orange flagging tape near the famous Castle Grove, after all our conversations, we knew there was no sense in talking anymore,” Coste says. (Focus requested an interview with Teal Jones officials, but the company didn’t respond. The company website notes it complies with a Canadian Standard Association Sustainable Forest Management certification, a low bar over which the company can easily step and then claim it complies with existing government rules and policy.)

Neither Coste nor Wu were old enough to be involved in the extensive negotiations and planning in the ’90s that resulted in British Columbia leading the world by being the first to sign the landmark 1992 Earth Summit Conventions on Biodiversity, Climate Change and Desertification. The 1991 Walbran protests led to the setting up of the Wilderness Advisory Committee, the Old Growth Strategy, the Protected Areas Strategy, the Clayoquot decisions, and the Commission on Resources and Environment, which in turn led to the Vancouver Island Land Use Plan (VILUP) in 1994.

Few young activists today can believe BC was once a world leader in forest ecology, biodiversity, climate change, and best practices for public consultation. What they see now is a bare-bones lip-service approach, the result of a gutted Forest and Range Practices Act. “Professional reliance”—whereby forestry companies have been given much of the responsibility for oversight previously conducted by government officials—and pseudo consultation have become the operating principles by which Crown forests are managed.

Masters student Sabrina Schwartz at the University of Alberta reviewed the 20-year-old VILUP in 2014 regarding its “ability to cope with past, current and future demands of its stakeholders.” She concluded: “The VILUP was a necessary government tool, to solve the intense conflicts of the ‘War in the Woods’ and to clarify the general land use management on Vancouver Island; it was, however, not able to establish a province-wide sustainability guideline, which would have left an organized, focused and fair land use and resource management on Vancouver Island.”

In less diplomatic words, the disorganized, scattered and uneven policy of the BC government is laying the province wide open to a future “war in the woods.” The BC government responded to Focus’ questions with the statement that Teal Jones is within its legal rights to log in the area. It failed to respond to questions about the role of forests in its climate action plan.

Coste is quickly finding out “you have to get out there and protest to get them to listen. Grass roots pressure has worked in the past. It is going to work again.” Coste’s sights are on the Walbran—his home patch. For Wu, “these cutblocks are the cherries on the cake, we still have to address the cake. We need a new land use plan for Vancouver Island.” For Wieting, that is a plan that is province-wide and integrates biodiversity, diversification of economic opportunities, and climate change.

(In late June, shortly after Focus went to press with this story, Teal Jones submitted an application to the Province to log one of the eight cutblocks.)

Walbran Valley war

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Here is a Global TV piece on proposed logging in the Central Walbran Valley by Teal-Jones, a Surrey-based company threatening endangered old-growth forests in several areas:

https://globalnews.ca/news/2042889/protests-will-follow-any-old-growth-logging-group/

Logging company takes heat for cutting old growth trees in the Great Bear Rainforest

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Environmentalists condemned TimberWest's cutting of old growth trees in the Great Bear Rainforest, one of the largest remaining temperate rainforests in the world.

Spanning 64,000 square kilometres along British Columbia’s Central and North Pacific Coast, the Great Bear Rainforest is the home to a rich ecosystem of whales, eagles, and the rare “spirit bear” — a white bear found nowhere else on the planet and revered by the Kitasoo, Heiltsuk and Gitxaala First Nations.

“We already have a serious deficit of old growth forests in B.C., and it's very concerning that TimberWest has increased logging in the last five years,” said Sierra Club BC forest and climate campaigner Jens Wieting. The company logged 248,188 cubic metres of timber within the Great Bear Rainforest in 2009, and 778,580 in 2011.

Although TimberWest states that it is logging well within the agreed limits, forest conservationists argue the company has been targeting a vulnerable part of the rainforest at a time when sensitive negotiations to protect old growth forest are underway.

“TimberWest targeted the most endangered ecosystems while the Great Bear Rainforest negotiations have been underway,” said ForestEthics Solutions BC Forest Campaigns Director Valerie Langer.

Langer, who was on the forefront of campaigns that forced companies to limit logging in the northern rainforest, said the logging has been detrimental to the negotiations.

“It means TimberWest undermined proposed Restoration Zones that form part of the ecosystem-based management (EBM) proposal currently near completion,” she said.

The Great Bear Rainforest is at the centre of 19 years of negotiations between the province, First Nations, environmentalists and industry. If finalized, 70 per cent of old growth trees in the area will be protected—which is the threshold scientists say is necessary for the rich ecosystem to remain intact.

TimberWest chief forester and sustainability VP Domenico Iannidinardo defended the company's logging activities, saying it was committed to preserving the old growth trees in the Great Bear Rainforest.

“We've been a participant in the Great Bear Rainforest negotiations since 1996,” he said. “We've met all the requirements of sustainable harvest levels and we'll continue to do so.”

Iannidiarno said if the Great Bear Rainforest agreement is finalized, the company will have to reduce its harvest levels. He said the company was prepared to “evolve” with the times, and that it was a significant employer in remote areas of northern B.C., providing jobs to First Nations as well.

Wieting said conservation of the Great Bear Rainforest — home to grizzly bears, salmon, wolves, and birds such as the marbled murrulet and eagle — is critically important. He said if the agreement to protect 70 per cent of old growth forest in the Great Bear Rainforest is finalized, it will be an example of conservation for the rest of the world.

“This is what the world is desperately looking for — solutions that allow economic activity without undermining the environment. We're getting very close.”

He said for the agreement to be truly successful, the B.C. government will need to implement a monitoring system to ensure that logging agreements are not violated.

“There have been millions of cubic metres of over cutting in B.C. forests. The government gives companies a massive amount of flexibility with very little oversight. We will need more checks and balances to ensure the trees are protected.”

Read more: https://www.nationalobserver.com/2015/05/29/news/logging-company-takes-heat-cutting-old-growth-trees-great-bear-rainforest

Return to Sonora: TimberWest in the Great Bear Rainforest

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It was exactly 2 years ago today that I published a blog on Sonora Island – the southernmost end of the Great Bear Rainforest, within the traditional territories of Kwakwaka’wakw and Coast Salish peoples. In that blog I described the struggle the local community and environmental organizations have had to improve the logging practices of TimberWest Forest Corporation – especially their curious methods of identifying old-growth forests on the ground. I wrote that this was of particular concern as this is a region where less than 5% of many forest ecosystems remains in old growth conditions, and where the majority of ecosystems are globally endangered.

Since that original blogpost there has been good news and bad news.

First the good news: TimberWest agreed to a temporary harvest moratorium on six contentious forest blocks that I described previously in that blog, while it undertook to redefine old-growth and develop reserve designs to set aside rare old growth ecosystems. It worked closely with the local community and that is great. Peachy.

Now the bad news. That temporary moratorium on the six contentious blocks is just that temporary. And, it only constitutes a mere 0.2% of the total area of TimberWest’s tenure (in its Tree Farm License 47).

And now the really bad news. Recent analysis shows that as we move towards implementing stricter logging regulations in 2015, TimberWest has dramatically accelerated its rate of logging in the southern Great Bear Rainforest part of its tree farm license over the past five years. They have logged over one million cubic metres more (the equivalent of a million telephone poles) than they have been allocated as an average Annual Allowable Cut in the five year period (from 2010 to 2014). The company has logged more than 4,400 hectares of rainforest in this area since 2009, 11 times the area of Vancouver’s Stanley Park. This is particularly concerning given that TimberWest does not currently have a plan to reserve and restore these endangered ecosystems and the species that depend on them. Indeed, in the past 5 years, more than 50% of TimberWest’s logging has occurred in areas that were identified five years ago as priorities for landscape reserves. Not only is this not consistent with the spirit and intent of Ecosystem-Based Management (and is also contrary to what their senior executive team committed to us in a 2011 letter), but also goes against the wishes and aspirations of the region’s First Nations (the leadership of these Nations have been in dialogue with TimberWest on their rate of logging and how it precludes other activities and visions for their territories, but that has gotten them nowhere).

It is for this reason, that Greenpeace along with ForestEthics Solutions and Sierra Club BC have once again gone public with our concerns (read our Press Release here). We gave TimberWest the benefit of the doubt over the past two years to get things back on track through ongoing negotiation and engagement, only to be shocked and dismayed with our finding that their logging has accelerated considerably in the region while they have been talking with us.

To emphasize our concern, yesterday we deployed our ship Esperanza to send TimberWest a strong message that their recent practices of logging as if ‘there is no tomorrow’ is entirely unacceptable given the groundbreaking and solution-oriented system of Ecosystem-Based Management that we all have worked tirelessly over the last two decades to implement. Our ship was at Sonora Island where TimberWest operates when we dropped our banner. We had a delegation of representatives from various coastal First Nations. Their drumming and singing added to the poignancy and increased my determination to be part of the collaborative effort to succeed in protecting and restoring the area to the towering old growth forests that once blanketed this region of the Great Bear Rainforest.

And so this I promise you, reader: it will not take another two years of talking and logging before you hear from me again on TimberWest. Stay tuned…

[Greenpeace blog no longer available]

Old-growth logging in Walbran could trigger protests: group

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A B.C. forest company’s plan to log centuries-old cedar trees in southern Vancouver Island’s Walbran Valley cuts into the heart of one of Canada’s most ecologically sensitive forests, says an environmental group.

Wilderness Committee spokesman Torrance Coste said that forest company Teal Jones is courting conflict with environmental groups in its bid to harvest almost 500 hectares of old-growth forest in eight land parcels.

The Walbran Valley’s old-growth forest near Lake Cowichan, about 100 kilometres northwest of Victoria, has been the site of past blockades and arrests over logging.

“We don’t want to see that happen again,” Coste said on Monday. “It’s 2015 — we shouldn’t be having to change logging policy by blockading roads anymore. We want to stop that far before that stage.”

The eight proposed harvest areas surround a protected area in Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park, known as the Castle Grove, which holds an untouched stand of cedar trees, he said.

“[Teal Jones has] access to vast stands of forests that they could manage in a sustainable way,” said Coste. “They’ve chosen to move into the heart of one of the most sensitive old-growth areas left in Canada. They are not going to be able to get away with that.”

He said the company has a tree-farm licence on southern Vancouver Island giving it access to almost 100,000 hectares of Crown land, but Teal Jones has chosen to focus on the eight small, valuable parcels of forest.

“This is worth far more as a cultural and tourism resource than it is as standing timber, but not to this company,” said Coste. “This is their latest, most grievous move and it really crosses the line in the sand for us.”

Coste said Teal Jones has been marking zones where it wants to cut, and he called on the B.C. government to deny the company permits to cut the trees.

“We’re asking them to stay out of 0.5 per cent of the land they have access to,” he said. “They have 20 other areas to harvest that aren’t going to court the level of controversy, the level of conflict, that moving into the central Walbran will.”

A Teal Jones official said the company was consulting with its officials before making a statement.

The Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Ministry said in a statement that Teal Jones is within its legal rights to log in the area the Wilderness Committee is expressing concerns over.

The statement said Teal Jones has a government-approved forest stewardship plan in place.

The B.C. government established the 16,000-hectare Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park in 1991, but pristine forests close to the park were not protected.

The ministry statement said Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park protects many old-growth groves, including some more than 800 years old.

Read more: https://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/old-growth-logging-in-walbran-could-trigger-protests-group-1.1962233

B.C. forest wake-up call: Heavy carbon losses hit 10 year mark

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VICTORIA, B.C. ─ For a full decade, B.C. forests have been releasing dramatically more carbon into the atmosphere than they have absorbed out of the atmosphere.

B.C.’s forests emitted 256 million tonnes of carbon dioxide during the period 2003 – 2012. In contrast, B.C.’s forests absorbed 441 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from 1993 to 2002.This is the key finding of a Sierra Club BC analysis of B.C. government forest carbon emissions data.

Including forest emissions in B.C.’s officially reported emissions results in a massive shift in overall provincial emissions from 188 million tonnes for 1993 to 2002, to 894 million tonnes of carbon dioxide for 2003 to 2012.

Net emissions from provincial forests are the result of logging (after accounting for carbon stored in wood products), wild fires, slash-burning and the reduced carbon sequestration capacity of B.C.’s forests due to the Mountain Pine Beetle outbreak.

The 2003-2012 emissions from B.C. forests are equivalent to four times the official annual greenhouse gas emissions of the province, primarily from burning fossil fuels (63 million tonnes in 2013).Despite their magnitude, forest emissions are not counted as part of the official greenhouse gas emissions of the province.

While B.C.’s forest carbon loss has been made worse by the Mountain Pine Beetle outbreak and a number of serious wildfire years, the biggest factor remains poor forest management. In particular, destructive logging practices like clear-cutting, especially of old-growth rainforest, and slash-burning are huge contributors to the carbon emissions from B.C. forests.

“B.C. forest management is making climate change worse, an alarming situation when our forests should instead be our best ally in the fight against climate change, like forests in many other parts of the world,” said Sierra Club Campaigner Jens Wieting. “Unless the B.C. government wakes up and takes far-reaching action to increase conservation and improve forest management, our provincial forests will continue to contribute to climate change instead of slowing it down.”

Sierra Club BC is calling on the B.C. government to make forest health a priority, instead of LNG exports. Sierra Club BC is calling on the B.C. government to phase out subsidies to fossil fuels($1 billion in 2012/13 and 2013/14)and instead make $1 billion available to develop and implement a 5-year forest action plan to restore the health of B.C.’s forests in order to absorb carbon from the atmosphere and support long-term forest jobs.

Core elements of the plan should be restoring government capacity for forest stewardship, increasing forest conservation, improving forest management, adjusting the annual cut to a sustainable level and creating more jobs per cubic metre. Shifting fossil fuel subsidies to forestry should be a key strategy in B.C.’s climate action plan 2.0.

“Restoring B.C.’s forests so that we are banking carbon rather than withdrawing it is necessary not just for our climate but also for water quality, salmon habitat and forest jobs,” said Wieting. “It won’t be easy but it is possible, if the provincial government shifts subsidies and support from fossil fuels to forestry and other climate solutions. We can create jobs that will reduce emissions, instead of increasing them, slow climate change down instead of speeding it up and support communities, the economy and forests instead of putting them at risk.”

Read more: https://www.sierraclub.bc.ca/media-centre/press-releases/b.c.-forest-wake-up-call-heavy-carbon-losses-hit-10-year-mark

Protestors occupy cut block

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Opponents to Island Timberlands’ harvest in Lot 450 are chalking up a victory after a blockade of forestry equipment has resulted in a temporary halt to logging.

Nine women decided to take direct action and block a feller buncher parked in a cut block of the company’s private managed forest land in Lot 450 early Tuesday morning, May 19. Their action pushed the forestry company to withdraw the machinery and move it out of the area.

The women issued a media statement later in the day.

“After Powell River residents discovered trees marked for cutting with active bird nests in them, a group of women decided to protect trees containing nests,” the statement read. “The group is positioning themselves between the feller buncher and the trees effectively stopping Island Timberlands’ plan to continue clear-cutting.”

The women, as well as those standing on the picket line where Joyce Avenue and the pole line intersect, are asking Island Timberlands to halt logging until the end of nesting season and publicly release a cut plan that ensures nests and riparian zones around McFall, McGuffie and Wys Creek are respected.

“The community is not against logging but wants to see the precious urban forest which is home to hundreds of species including birds, bears, and cougars selectively logged in a way that preserves its ecological integrity,” the statement read.

Independent journalist Courtney Harrop, who embedded herself at the blockade, helped the group document the 24-hour protest with photos and video.

They met at the Island Timberlands’ feller buncher at 6 am and waited to see if an operator would be coming to start work that morning. Harrop said that the operator was quite surprised to see the women standing around the machine with their banner.

After it was clear that the women were not leaving, the operator left and the RCMP arrived to inform the women that the police had received a complaint, Harrop said. The police came in to talk with the women and advised them that they are on private land and they should not do anything which damages Island Timberlands’ property, she added. Police left without making any arrests.

An operations manager from the forestry company arrived to speak with the protestors, but left after realizing that their blockade would continue.

“Throughout the day there was a lot of community support,” Harrop said, adding that food and water was brought to the site.

Some of the protesters decided to hold the space overnight and camp out there. They were greeted by more supporters the next morning, Harrop added.

The forest company manager returned Wednesday morning to tell the group that the company would be loading logs they had already cut and requested that the feller buncher be allowed to be removed from the area, Harrop said.

“As a measure of good faith and to show that the people are reasonable and willing to negotiate, the group decided to let the machine get taken out,” she said.

The manager told the group of protestors that the company would halt logging until they had the assessment from their own biologist.

Harrop said she did not know when they expected that report, but she said that people “are not taking their eyes off Island Timberlands.”

Harrop’s video can be seen online.

[Peak article no longer available] 

Ancient Forest Alliance

VIDEO: Powell River residents shocked as logging company moves to cut treasured trees

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View VIDEO at: https://www.vancouverobserver.com/opinion/powell-river-residents-shocked-logging-company-moves-log-treasured-trees

*******

I found out that Island Timberlands (I.T.) was set to begin logging in Powell River the same way that the local residents found out—on April 22, on Earth Day.

I.T. issued a press release and the Powell River Peak relayed the news to the public that the forestry company was going to start harvesting their timber assets within Powell River.

On the map included with the article, the cut-blocks were outlined in colored lines indicating the different classes of ownership involved. Island Timberlands owns the timber rights for several parcels of land within the City of Powell River. In some cases they don’t actually own the land, but hold one-time timber rights. In other areas they own the land fee simple.

Island Timberlands is the second-largest private landowner in British Columbia (next to TimberWest), with over 230,000 hectares of private forest lands on the coast of B.C., including on Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands, and the Sunshine Coast. Weyerhaeuser, and before that, Macmillan-Bloedel formerly owned these lands. Much of their land base on Vancouver Island dates back to the E&N Railway grants of the 1880s.

Many in the Powell River community were dismayed, to say the least, at the news that the forest that stands in the center of their community would be gone in four months. Before they even had time to process what was about to happen, the sounds of chainsaws fired up in the distance and trees could be heard falling.

A few days after Island Timberlands announced its plans, the mayor of Powell River announced the purchase of one section of Island Timberlands’ lands adjacent to Millennium Park for $1.2 million. It seems they thought that this would appease the community and I.T. would be free to clear-cut the rest. They were mistaken.

Despite a long heritage as a forestry town, a strong contingent of residents exist who are staunchly opposed to the logging of Lot 450 and want to see it protected. A rally on Saturday, May 9 brought a diverse range of voices who came out to speak against this logging in their community, including people from within the forest industry. But they have few legal options available to them to stop the logging.

The Private Managed Forest Lands Act governs logging on private lands, and the Private Managed Forestlands Council (PMFLC) oversees this sector of the industry. The PMFLC is a five-person board consisting of two government representatives, two industry representatives, and a fifth the other four board members appoint.

That means that the government that made this law — which many environmental groups see as deeply flawed — and the companies supposedly regulated by the law, jointly oversee alleged violations. But few cases reach the point of a penalty and the maximum fines are negligible.

Seeing little hope in pursuing Island Timberlands under the Private Managed Forest Lands Act, activists in the Powell River community have shifted their focus to the Wildlife Protection Act, which also governs Island Timberlands’ logging activities.

One provision of the Wildlife Act is that it prevents logging companies from cutting trees where certain birds nest, such as eagles, falcons, hawks, herons, and ravens. Luckily for the people of Powell River, it happens to be the early days of nesting season, so they are getting out into the woods to find active birds’ nests.

With the help of an environmental consultant who has been hired to assist with the field check, volunteers have been combing the woods in search of any nesting birds that are in the path of I.T.’s logging operations. So far 15 nests have been discovered and more are being documented every day.

At the time writing, Island Timberlands has been notified of 15 nests that have been documented with GPS in the areas they are currently slated to harvest. One raven’s nest was directly in the path of I.T.’s current logging operations.

The company “voluntarily” stopped cutting in that area and have moved elsewhere on their land.

The community is continuing to search for nests that may impede Island Timberlands’ operations, which they hope will buy them some time to start a conversation over how and where forestry is done in Powell River.

Island Timberlands did not respond to the Vancouver Observer’s requests for comment at the time of publishing.

Read more: https://www.vancouverobserver.com/opinion/powell-river-residents-shocked-logging-company-moves-log-treasured-trees