Plan to maintain timber supply widens land base.

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Link to online Vancovuer Sun article

The B.C. government announced plans on Tuesday to meet timber supply shortages in the B.C. Interior by reviewing current prohibitions on logging in environmentally sensitive areas and giving forest companies more power to manage the land base.

In releasing a plan titled “Beyond the Beetle,” Forests Minister Steve Thomson said the provincial government was moving toward the “next phase in our decade-long battle with the mountain pine beetle.”

But no new money has been committed to critically needed inventory work now that the beetle epidemic is winding down. The plan is the government’s response to a special legislative committee on the timber supply that tabled a report last month.

Critics called the plan vague, saying it doesn’t adequately address how much timber is actually left in B.C. forests. An update of the timber inventory is to begin in 2013, but the plan commits no new money to do the work.

Independent MLA Bob Simpson, whose Cariboo North constituency is ground zero in the beetle-damaged forest epidemic, called the plan a recipe for disaster.

“We are going down the same path as we did with the East Coast cod fishery,” Simpson said. “We are going to play with the rules, the regulations and change the tenure and access, to go and bleed the forests dry in order to keep the status quo.”

NDP forests critic Norm Macdonald said the plan was too vague on the issue of investing in an updated timber inventory. “It was clear there had to be serious investments in inventory. Over 72 per cent of the land has base data over 30 years old. You can’t expect proper forestry to be done with that sort of data.” However, Thomson said the ongoing deteriorating condition of beetle-hit forests dictated that the province delay inventory work until the infestation is over. Federal Student Loan Consolidation

“Now we can proceed,” he said. But he also acknowledged that he is restricted by budgetary constraints and that needed money has yet to be committed. Besides beginning on inventory work, the key elements of the plan include: . A commitment to move from volume-based timber tenures to area-based tenures, where forest companies would assume more management control.

. Increasing the timber inventory by including marginally economic stands that up until this point have been excluded.

. Developing a review of so-called “sensitive areas” that have been exempted from logging because of their wildlife or scenic values, and possibly reopening land-use plans.

Jens Wieting, a forest campaigner for the Sierra Club of B.C., said the province has done exactly what environmentalists feared – sacrificed other forest values to ensure a timber supply for Interior sawmills. He said the government is putting at risk not only environmental values but the forest industry’s reputation.

“To put these at risk for a short-term win is unbelievable. It is a level of ignorance that is hard to digest.”

Thomson said logging communities have asked for the review of restrictions on forest reserves. “It will be done very carefully, and only where there is consensus and agreement from the community,” he said.

The forest industry said Tuesday that it supports the government initiatives.

“We see the potential for some tangible improvements in the short-term and midterm timber supply by following the various courses of action,” said Doug Routledge of the B.C. Council of Forest Industries. “It’s a positive action plan. It provides some definitive timelines. We are a little concerned that there will be sufficient human and financial resources to accomplish what is in the action plan, but that is something that can be worked on over time.”

He said key components for the industry are the commitment to update the timber inventory and a commitment to monitor land-use plans that predate the beetle infestation. Routledge said many values may have changed as a result of the beetle. Current land-use plans leave broad areas out of bounds to logging when it is possible for wildlife conservation to be accomplished in more specific areas, he said.

Routledge said a very rough estimate shows 40 per cent more timber could be found if land-use plans were updated to optimize the allocation of resources and land.

The greatest gains in timber supply are likely to come from the inclusion of marginally economic timber stands.

The beetle is expected to knock 10 million cubic metres a year out of the timber supply. But, in Burns Lake alone, including marginal economic stands added 60 per cent of the volume back into the supply. An economic stand is one with more than 140 cubic metres of saw-logs per hectare. The new standard lowers that to 100 cubic metres.

“They are logging stands below 100 cubic metres per hectare at the moment at Williams Lake,” Routledge said.

Logging of old-growth forest mulled by B.C. government

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Link to online article

The B.C. government will examine the contentious possibility of opening old-growth forests to logging in parts of the province hardest hit by plummeting timber supplies.

It’s an idea that both proponents and opponents say would require chopping protective measures that took years to create.

The government is now constructing ground rules so that by early 2013 it can begin revisiting the designation of some sensitive areas, mainly in the north-central triangle between Burns Lake, Prince George and Quesnel.

But any decision to cut old-growth forests would be science-based and reached by consensus of all members of the community, said Forests Minister Steve Thomson.

“There may be limited opportunities to look at that, but only through a process,” he said in an interview on Tuesday.

“It’s important to recognize that this request came from the communities.”

The move comes as part of a larger strategy the government released on Tuesday aimed at boosting timber supply over the next five to 20 years. The list of actions comes in direct response to a special committee report that warned in August that measures must be taken to stave off an impending, dramatic drop in wood supply.

Pine beetle devastation

The plan is the final phase in the provincial government’s decade-long response to the infestation of the mountain pine beetle, which has decimated forests across the province.

The August report predicted the beetle would chew up to 70 per cent of the central Interior’s marketable timber by 2021 if nothing changes.

But environmental advocates say opening protected forests to logging would roll back years of “hard fought” legislation.

“This is blood sweat and tears, multi-stakeholder processes, consensus building. They took years, these land-use plans, to establish,” said Valerie Langer, director of Forest Ethics Solutions.

“It’s very frightening to all those people who put years of their life as volunteers into this.”

Potential pilot projects could eventually take place in Burns Lake and Quesnel, with the highest priority areas being assessed this coming spring and summer, Thomson said.

Doug Routledge, vice-president forestry with the Council of Forest Industries, welcomed the government’s “tangible” plans.

“Cautiously and well-informed,” Routledge said of the proposed changes. “We’re not unhappy to see that the question about relaxing or deferring other constraints on the working forest land-base is still on the table.”

He explained the wood they’re looking to harvest would not include the most vulnerable areas, such as that protected as a critical habitat.

‘Crisis will be even worse’

Ben Parfitt, a resource policy analyst with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, has also followed the committee’s work closely.

He believes opening up an old-growth area is unrealistic, and suggested the biggest environmental threat was a part of the plan that will create new opportunities for logging by identifying marginally economic forests.

“We have a significant problem on our hands that is going to extend well beyond five to 20 years,” Parfitt said. “If the government chooses to try and address this problem by freeing up more trees to log today, I believe the crisis will be even worse than what it is now.”

But Thomson said the government believes the “greatest opportunity” to beef up timber supply lies in identifying those stands.

Forests Minister Steve Thomson

NDP Sets Fire to Libs’ Forest Industry Fix

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Link to The Tyee online article

The British Columbia government says it is acting on a series of recommendations to help the province’s forest industry in the wake of the mountain pine beetle epidemic. Critics say it’s a weak response to the issue that shows the government hasn’t learned from the collapse of other natural resource industries.

“The action plan represents the next phase in our decade-long battle against the mountain pine beetle,” said Steve Thomson, the minister of forests, lands and natural resource operations, talking to reporters on a conference call.

The 16-page plan is a response to an August report from the legislature’s special committee on timber supply that held hearings throughout the province last spring and into the early summer.

It sets out nine actions it describes as “sustained” and 11 that it characterizes as “new.” As the plan puts it, “The key elements of the action plan focus on reforestation, forest inventory, fuel management and intensive and innovative silviculture.”

The plan includes a promise of legislation to move to area-based licenses from volume-based, and to create licenses to allow companies to harvest wood that is not sawlog quality but that could be burned for energy.

Thomson said there is $100 million in the 2013-2014 budget for reforestation, and the ministry will seek further funding through the budget process to pay for the rest of the plan.

He defended the decision in the past to drop doing forest inventory and planning for reforestation during the worst of the beetle epidemic. “The rapidly changing situation in our forests dictated that we hold off on updating our inventory and reforestation plans until it stabilized, and now we can proceed,” he said.

Beetle like a hurricane

John Rustad, who is the parliamentary secretary for forestry and who chaired the timber supply committee, compared it to coping with other natural disasters. “If you’re planning to do some work on your house, and there’s a hurricane approaching, you’re not going to undertake the work on your house until you’ve seen what happened with the hurricane,” he said. “The same thing is what happened with the mountain pine beetle epidemic.”

However, the New Democratic Party’s forestry critic, Norm Macdonald, said it was “ridiculous” to stop doing inventory during the worst of the crisis.

The auditor general, the forest practices board and the Association of B.C. Forest Professionals have all criticized the government’s failure to keep forest inventory up to date, he said.

“They were making cut determinations based on data that’s 30 years old,” he said. “They’re setting cuts. Forestry doesn’t stop.”

The government has taken a hands-off approach to the industry and is responsible for the consequences, said Macdonald. “They’re trying to rationalize what they’ve done, which is to step away from the responsibility to manage the forests properly.”

In general, the plan offers little to help the forest industry, he said. “It is a predictably weak response from this government that’s shown no interest in looking after the land over the last 10 years,” he said. “It’s basically business as usual … There’s no new money. As far as I can see, it’s just not there.”

Jobs today, consequences later

If there’s going to be a shift to area-based tenures, which would set the number of hectares to be harvested each year and give the industry flexibility on how much volume it harvests each year, it needs to be done very carefully and with an eye on the public benefit, said Macdonald.

“It’s a complicated thing to do properly,” he said. While the switch might help, he said, “There really isn’t the proof you necessarily get benefits.”

The government is trying to keep the status quo in the forest industry, even though it’s obvious the province’s forests cannot keep the industry going at the rate it has in the past, said Bob Simpson, the MLA for Cariboo North and a former forest company executive.

“You’ve got an eleventh hour panicked response to something the government’s had a long time to prepare for,” he said. “We’ve seen this movie play out since humanity settled down in one location and wiped out the natural resources around them. It always ends badly.”

Simpson compares the state of B.C.’s forest industry to what happened with the Atlantic cod fishery two decades ago. Despite warnings from non-government scientists, the stocks were allowed to be exploited at an unsustainable rate to feed processing plants in places that identified as fishing communities all along the coast, he said.

“None of those communities can describe themselves as fishing communities anymore,” he said. “That’s what we’re doing here.”

The government should allow cut level to come down and let the industry “rationalize” so there isn’t so much overcapacity for milling, he said. “What the government’s doing is preventing any rationalization whatsoever.”

Fully depleting the resource might delay going over the cliff, but it will make that cliff even bigger when the time comes, he said. “We’re always extinguishing the resources for today’s jobs and today’s economy, and eventually you lose those two as well.”

The government would be wiser to put its efforts into climate change adaptation and mitigation, he said, as well as helping communities that have been dependent on forestry to transition into other ways of surviving.

AFA's Hannah Carpendale stands amongst the giant Douglas-fir tree's of the unprotected Kosilah Ancient Forest near Shawnigan Lake.

Rock music video to support old-growth forest conservation in BC

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The Vancouver Island based Artist Response Team (ART) is proud to announce the release of its newest song and video in support of ancient forests in BC and the Ancient Forest Alliance. The song was written and performed by Holly Arntzen and Kevin Wright of ART and features world-class guitarist David Sinclair (Sarah McLachlan, kd lang). They perform under the band name, The Wilds.

The MR. DOUGLAS video, was shot mostly in the Koksilah Ancient Forest, an unprotected grove of old growth Douglas Fir and cedar trees located west of Shawnigan Lake on Vancouver Island.

The song was inspired by a trip to the BC Forest Discovery Centre in Duncan where there is a cross-section of a 1300-year-old fir tree that blew down in a storm in the 1960s. The tree rings are marked to correspond with events down through history that the tree lived through; the publishing of the first book in China in 868 AD, the arrival of the Vikings in North America in 1000, the rise of Ghengis Khan in 1206, and Columbus’ first journey to the New World in 1492. The song is a walk through history.

There is less than 1% of the original coastal old growth Douglas Fir forests left in BC, and we are still cutting them down. A recent story in the Victoria Times Colonist documents the struggle going on to reap the economic windfall from highly valuable old growth on the one hand… and on the other hand, preserve the last remnants of old growth ecosystems for future generations, the protection of drinking water, and conservation of habitats.

WATCH MR. DOUGLAS on YouTube: https://youtu.be/aKH54msZ0AY

British Columbia Magazine: Ancient cedars saved

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In an ethereal valley near Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island, more than 100 remarkable Douglas-fir and red cedar trees have held their ground for centuries. Members of the Victoria-based Ancient Forest Alliance came upon the gnarled titans – some over 60 metres tall and more than four metres in diameter – in December 2009. Soon after, they learned the area was slated for harvest and launched a campaign to save “Avatar Grove.” Earlier this year, the provincial government expanded an existing old-growth management area, where logging and mining is prohibited, to 59.4 hectares, encompassing the grove in its entirety.

Avatar Grove has “some of the most bizarre and beautiful giant cedars known,” says Ken Wu of AFA. “It’s definitely a place of superlatives.”

Local Port Alberni Activist

Land swaps could protect watersheds, official says

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Read the Times Colonist article here

Logging on hillsides such as McLaughlin Ridge inevitably affects the water supply of surrounding communities and the province should do more to help protect watersheds, says the chairman of the AlberniClayoquot Regional District.

Glenn Wong is planning to ask Forests Minister Steve Thomson about the possibility of swapping Crown land for private managed forest lands at the Union of B.C. Municipalities meeting in Victoria next week. If the proposal were accepted, forestry companies could cut in Crown land areas instead of in the watershed.

“I know that what you do in the hills has an impact on water quality,” he said. “We have two water improvement districts and the [Port Alberni] water supply, and we don’t have much of a say in what is happening in our watersheds.”

Smaller communities such as Port Alberni, which is surrounded by private managed forest land, cannot afford to buy their watersheds, so must look for other ways to increase protections, Wong said.

Port Alberni Mayor John Douglas said the emphasis is on talking to forestry companies.

“We have a pretty good dialogue going,” he said.

But Alberni-Pacific Rim MLA Scott Fraser, who obtained documents showing strong disagreements between the province and Island Timberlands over protection on McLaughlin Ridge, said logging done so far in the area shows little concern for environmental or watershed values.

Logging this year took place around the periphery of the ridge. The core has not yet been harvested.

“It’s not just a matter of the deer or the water,” Fraser said. “It’s a unique biosystem.”

Jane Morden, spokeswoman for the WatershedForest Alliance in Port Alberni, said the ridge has “scary steep slopes” and harvesting is likely to affect both the water supply and wildlife habitat – even if selective logging techniques are used.

“It was supposedly protected to begin with,” she said. “If anything is going to be left, at least leave this.”

China Creek, the main source of Port Alberni’s water, already has sediment problems, but recent turbidity has cleared very quickly – a sign that the creek is rushing because of erosion higher up, Morden said.

McLaughlin Ridge is made up of old-growth coastal Douglas fir, with a good canopy, hanging lichens and small meadows, making it excellent wildlife habitat, Morden said.

Forests Ministry spokeswoman Vivian Thomas said ministry staff have met with Port Alberni officials about the water.

“There are pre-existing seasonal water turbidity issues in China Creek; however, to this point, no evidence suggests that logging activity in the area is the cause,” she said. “This turbidity has existed for many years and is one reason why Port Alberni also draws water from Bainbridge Lake, particularly when turbidity levels are high in China Creek.”

Minutes of meetings in the documents obtained by Fraser document concerns about public perception.

“Selling this to the public is a real concern for [Island Timberlands],” say the minutes.

Bill Waugh, Island Timberlands’ forestry manager, warned ministry staff that the only way to protect the area in perpetuity would be for the province to buy it.

However, Thomas said the ministry has no interest in buying the ridge.

The scarred landscape of an Island Timberlands clearcut along the McLaughlin Ridge from Oct. 2011. Approximately 400 hectares of the original 500 HA of old-growth remains along the ridges' core.

Battle revealed over use of sensitive Island forest near Port Alberni

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An old-growth forest near Port Alberni that had been protected as critical habitat for wintering deer and endangered goshawks is being logged by Island Timberlands – even though newly released documents show Environment Ministry staff strongly disagreed with the company’s harvesting plans.

The documents, obtained by Alberni-Pacific Rim NDP MLA Scott Fraser through a freedom-of-information request, reveal a pitched battle between government biologists and Island Timberlands over protections needed for McLaughlin Ridge, the headwaters for the main source of Port Alberni’s drinking water.

McLaughlin Ridge is privately managed forest land and was removed from a tree farm licence in 2004 by then-owners Weyerhaeuser. The province insisted that critical winter habitat should be protected for two years and a committee should then decide levels of protection.

But the province and Island Timberlands could not agree and meetings were “terminated” by the company in 2009, with government biologists saying harvesting plans were not science-based. Bed bath and beyond coupons

“It is now apparent that it will not be possible to achieve consensus within the committee on how much protected wildlife area is required,” says a letter from the company.

But a letter setting out provincial objections was never sent to Island Timberlands, which has since said its plans are based on ministry input.

That has Fraser questioning whether information was suppressed by the government.

“With all the concerns about the Harper government stifling scientists, it appears it has been happening in BC for years.”

The list of objections was relegated to a memo or “note to file” that says Island Timberlands wanted to log in deer winter ranges and wildlife habitat areas “and [the Environment Ministry] could not scientifically rationalize how the quality of these areas could be maintained.”

“This letter was never released, but does summarize many important opinions of MoE staff,” it says.

Ancient Forest Alliance founder Ken Wu said that indicates political interference.

“These are huge revelations that may be a game changer on how Island Timberlands and the BC Liberals have to deal with the public” regarding how old-growth forests are managed, he said.

Forests Minister Steve Thomson was not available, but ministry spokesman Vivian Thomas said staff were not overruled.

“The Minister of Environment of the time did not prevent the letter from being sent, nor did he direct staff not to send it,” Thomas said in an emailed response.

“The draft letter summa rizes differing points of view between ministry staff and Island Timberlands. However, sending it would not have served any purpose, since an agreement with Island Timberlands on managing critical wildlife habitat/ungulate winter range … could not be reached,” she said.

The company is bound by the Private Managed Forest Land Act, federal Species at Risk Act and Drinking Water Protection Act, Thomas said.

Island Timberlands spokeswoman Morgan Kennah said the company had not previously seen the memo, but it would not have affected logging plans.

“We know there were differing opinions on how the property should be managed. Ministry staff at the time thought the preservation model was the one to have and Island Timberland’s perspective was to look at opportunities for … harvest as well as habitat,” she said.

Logging in McLaughlin Ridge has been completed for this year, Kennah said.

“Next year and subsequent years we may be harvesting, but we haven’t finalized our long-term final strategy for habitat management in that area.”

[Times Colonist article no longer available]

San Juan Sitka Spruce

On the big tree trail on Vancouver Island

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Fifteen minutes down a winding gravel logging road outside of Port Renfrew, we spot the telltale flagging tape marking a tree branch and pull over into a small pullout. Across the road, a laminated sign nailed to a tree says “Upper Avatar Grove,” with an arrow pointing up into the forest.

This is it – the reason we’ve driven two hours west of Victoria along Vancouver Island’s rugged west coast to the outskirts of this small former logging town. Stepping into the forest, we take hold of a rope to help us up a steep embankment and onto the makeshift trail, outlined by pink flagging tape.

As we make our way through the rainforest’s undergrowth, ancient red cedars appear almost immediately. The largest trees are 13 metres around and would have been upward of 250 years old when Captain James Cook first set foot on Vancouver Island in 1778. They are the remnants of an ancient forest that once covered much of southern Vancouver Island; it’s estimated only 10 per cent of this ancient forest still remains.

Continuing into the woods, we cross a creek and head up a hillside, passing five or six large cedars as we go. And then, about 20 minutes in, there it is: the piece de resistance, “Canada’s Gnarliest Tree” – a massive red cedar with a bulbous, three-metre burl and serpent-like roots. This is the tree most responsible for sparking a tourism rush in a town once better known for cutting down trees than marvelling at them.

When Ancient Forest Alliance photographer T.J. Watt discovered this stand of ancient cedars in 2009, many of the largest ones were tagged for logging. In a clever marketing move, the alliance dubbed the trees “Avatar Grove,” after the blockbuster James Cameron movie, drawing massive public attention to the trees and ultimately leading to their protection.

These days, visitors to Port Renfrew can pick up a map to the area’s largest trees and set out to explore what’s been coined the Big Tree Capital of Canada. While some of Canada’s largest trees are out of reach of a typical rental car, there are still plenty of accessible giants – aided by the recent paving of the Pacific Marine Circle Route, which allows travellers to drive across the interior of the island and pop out on the east coast near Duncan, rather than doubling back along the same route to Victoria.

After visiting both upper and lower Avatar Grove, which has become such a popular destination that work on a boardwalk is set to begin any day now, we continued on the circle route. About 15 kilometres outside of Port Renfrew, we turn right down a logging road for a few kilometres before reaching the San Juan Spruce, Canada’s largest Sitka spruce tree, standing taller than the Leaning Tower of Pisa at 62.5 metres, with a circumference of 11.6 metres. This tree is so big that if it fell prey to a chainsaw, it could provide enough wood for 333 telephone poles. Thankfully, these days, it’s seeing more camera lenses than chainsaws.

A little further along the circle route, the Harris Creek spruce is the most easily accessible big tree in the area and towers above the forest. As we drive, it’s impossible not to notice the clear cuts that border right on the highway. It is, after all, an old logging road, so the band of trees normally left to hide clear cuts from view wasn’t originally deemed necessary. While not the prettiest sight, it serves to bring the juxtaposition of the area’s past and future into clear view.

“TimberWest owned all the houses in Port Renfrew at one time. It was a logging town,” says Jon Cash, original creator of the “Tall Tree Tour” map and owner of Soule Creek Lodge.

Indeed, most of the forest around Port Renfrew has been logged two or three times – which is precisely why ancient trees that have avoided disease, fire and logging companies for up to 1,000 years have attracted so much attention.

“Last year there was a dramatic increase in tourism. It was my best year ever,” says Cash, who was a chef in Toronto before moving to Port Renfrew 11 years ago. “I don’t think anyone ever expected this amount of people to go through Avatar Grove.”

The discovery of Avatar Grove, combined with the paving of the Pacific Marine Circle Route, has also boosted business at Coastal Kitchen Café, a hip Port Renfrew eatery.

“It’s bringing a different type of clientele. We always attracted a fishing community. But now we’re attracting more Europeans and families,” says cafe owner Jessica Hicks.

It’s the type of crowd that jumps at the opportunity to stay in one of Soule Creek Lodge’s luxury yurts perched high on the San Juan Ridge overlooking the area’s ocean and mountains. The lodge is a homey place where guests take their shoes off at the door and checkout happens at the kitchen counter.

The night before our big tree adventure, we checked into a yurt before heading out to check out the tide pools at Botanical Beach just a few kilometres outside of Port Renfrew. Botanical used to be the town’s main tourist attraction and it’s easy to see why with the sandstone outcroppings, rocky cliffs and colourful tide pool inhabitants, including starfish, sea anemones and urchins.

After hiking the three-kilometre loop trail and exploring the tide pools, we’d worked up an appetite and, luckily, had a three-course gourmet dinner in store back at the lodge – featuring local salmon and crab bought right off the town’s dock. Not only is it one of the best meals we’ve had in years, but it’s also a chance to meet other guests – half of whom Cash estimates come to Port Renfrew specifically to see big trees. “This will have dividends for years to come,” Cash says, while inching his way back to the kitchen.

Down at Coastal Kitchen Café, Hicks also sees the preservation of the area’s big trees as a long-term boon. “In the first two years there were at least 10 people a day asking for Avatar Grove whereas before there was nobody,” she says. “I can see that it’s the future of the community.”

In a town of 200 people, 10 new visitors a day is a big deal. And if you’re one of those 10, you get the thrill of visiting somewhere long before the crowds discover it – but half a millennium after some of Canada’s largest trees laid down roots here.

How to get there

Instead of heading back to Victoria after cutting across Vancouver Island on the Pacific Marine Circle Route, you might want to continue on to Tofino. Here are two more great places to check out big trees:

– On Highway 4, between Parksville and Port Alberni, you’ll find Cathedral Grove, which became a provincial park in 1947 after being donated by well-known forester H.R. MacMillan. Home to ancient red cedar and Douglas-fir trees, some more than 800 years old, Cathedral Grove is one of the most accessible stands of old-growth forest on Vancouver Island, attracting more than one million visitors per year.

– From Tofino, you can take a 15-minute water taxi across to Meares Island and walk the Big Tree Trail, which features spectacular red cedars along a boardwalk, including one known as the “Hanging Garden” tree. In the late ’80s, Meares Islands was the site of Canada’s first logging blockade in what would become known as the “War of the Woods.” In the summer of 1993, 12,000 protesters blocked logging in Clayoquot Sound – the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history.

If you go:

– WestJet and Air Canada both fly direct to Victoria several times a day. From Victoria airport, leave yourself at least 2.5 hours to drive to Port Renfrew.

– Plan to go between May and October because many Port Renfrew establishments close between November and April.

– Port Renfrew receives twice as much rainfall as Vancouver, so even in the dry season be prepared for muddy conditions.

– Big trees love the rain, but so do mosquitoes. Pack bug spray!

– Pick up the “Tall Tree Tour” map at Soule Creek Lodge or Coastal Kitchen Café.

– Rates at Soule Creek Lodge include breakfast and range from $110 a night for a room in the lodge in the low season to $215 a night for a 450 square foot yurt in the high season.

– Check out ancientforestguide.com for more information on Avatar Grove and the San Juan Spruce.

– Get off the tall tree trail with a trip to Botanical Beach, just five minutes from Port Renfrew. Go at low tide for the best view of Botanical’s spectacular tide pools.

Read more:  https://www.calgaryherald.com/travel/story.html?id=7211566

Photo by TJ Watt

Letter to the Editor – Pine beetle claims refuted

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Re: Kieran Report, Aug. 23-29

In his attempt to blame the NDP government of the 1990s for the pine beetle epidemic in B.C.’s forests, Brian Kieran claims that the “infestation was first detected in Tweedsmuir Provincial Park and could have been contained there if forest companies had been permitted to go into the park and selectively log infested areas” — an argument that has been roundly refuted by everyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of the issue. Even the Liberal government acknowledges that while there was a beetle infestation at Tweedsmuir, there were concurrent infestations throughout the Interior, from the Kootenays and the Chilcotin to the Central Interior. Teaching Grants For College Students

The same government scientists point out that the biggest culprit in the spread of the beetle was lack of cold winters. In other words, even clear-cutting the park — which was being advocated by some — would have had no actual impact on the overall pine beetle outbreak.

Unfortunately, the ultimate response in the face of the unstoppable outbreak was to allow the forests to degrade. Rather than be up front about the state of the forests, the B.C. Liberals stopped doing forest inventories and drastically reduced the amount of treeplanting and silviculture work necessary for long-term forest sustainability.

Only by investing in the natural infrastructure can we ensure the stability of the industry. Doing so will require us to start from a factual, scientific basis — not disproved arguments placing blame where none exists

Read more:  https://www.mondaymag.com/opinion/letters/167871685.html

Survey tape sparks logging concerns in Vancouver Island old-growth forest

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The Vancouver Island old-growth forest that, over the decades, has sparked bitter confrontations over logging is again in the spotlight after survey tape was found near a grove of massive western red cedars.

Members of the Ancient Forest Alliance found the tape in the Upper Walbran Valley, near Castle Grove, which contains the Castle Giant: a western red cedar measuring five metres in diameter. The tree is listed in the provincial big tree registry as one of the widest in Canada.

“Castle Grove is ground zero for the ancient forest movement on southern Vancouver Island, both historically and today,” said Ken Wu, AFA executive director.

“To try and log it is insanity — it will only escalate the war in the woods to a whole new level,” he said.

The logging tape, marked “falling boundary,” is less than 50 metres from the Castle Giant, said AFA campaigner TJ Watt, who discovered the tape.

In an email response to questions, however, the Forests Ministry said no activity is planned in Castle Grove, although some logging is planned in the area farther south.

Teal Jones Group of Surrey holds the licence for the area, but spokesman John Pichugin said he could not say whether the company has applied for a cutting licence in the area until he has seen a map.

Wu said it’s time the province came up with its promised “legal tool” to protect B.C.’s largest trees and monumental groves.

“Of all places, Castle Grove is the place where such a legal designation would make most sense. Otherwise, the B.C. Liberals’ rhetoric has been as empty as a clearcut,” Wu said.

The ministry statement said there are legal mechanisms to provide protection to unique or special trees and all British Columbians who find special trees are encouraged to register them on the Big Trees Registry.

“The ministry continues to look at other ways that may provide stronger proactive protection,” it said.

Read more: https://www.vancouversun.com/news/metro/Survey+tape+sparks+logging+concerns+Vancouver+Island+oldgrowth/7158428/story.html