The laundry list of ways the B.C. government has stepped in to protect the imperilled Columbia North caribou herd reads like something from a James Bond script: helicopters, tranquilizers, high-powered rifles and high-stakes captures.

First, it invested in a $2.4 million maternal pen (now defunct) where pregnant females were held until their calves were born and old enough to stand a chance in the wild. Then, it spent up to $30,000 to rescue three survivors from two Kootenay area caribou herds that became locally extinct, tranquilizing the animals and transporting them by helicopter, then trucking them through the snow to a pen and eventually merging them with the Columbia North population. Two years ago, it spent $100,000 to shoot 10 wolves that could gain easy access to the herd through logging roads, seismic lines and other linear disturbances that criss-cross caribou habitat. 

But even with these costly and elaborate recovery efforts underway, the B.C. Ministry of Forests continues to consider and approve industrial logging proposals in the Columbia North herd’s critical habitat — habitat the federal government deems necessary for the endangered herd’s recovery and survival.

As Canada prepares to host COP15, the United Nations’ biodiversity conference that aims to forge a new global agreement to curb extinctions and reverse the loss of nature, the conservation group Wildsight is once again sounding the alarm about potential clear-cutting and road-building in critical habitat for the Columbia North herd. The herd is the only caribou population in the Kootenay region that stands a chance of surviving in the long term as herds to the south wink out one by one.

The group has discovered logging plans in the rare inland temperate rainforest in the Seymour River watershed in the Monashee Mountains, northeast of Kamloops, in an area biologists refer to colloquially as the “hub” for the Columbia North caribou. Wildsight tallied up 620 hectares of clear-cuts — a total area larger than one-and-a-half Stanley Parks. The clearcuts are planned in old-growth western red cedar and hemlock forests, in an area known as the upper Seymour and near three Seymour River tributaries called Blais, Ratchford and Myoff creeks.  

“The Seymour’s right in the middle of the hub,” Wildsight conservation specialist Eddie Petryshen told The Narwhal. “That’s where most caribou in the Columbia North [herd] are and spend most of most of the year … It’s really the heart of their range.” 

Caribou biologist Rob Serrouya said clear cutting in the hub of the Columbia North herd will “increase risks to the whole population.” He said the hub has the “some of the most mellow terrain in an otherwise very rugged landscape” that includes many steep mountain slopes prone to avalanches.

“The hub is the most important to protect in terms of habitat,” said Serrouya, co-director of the Wildlife Science Centre for Biodiversity Pathways, which collects scientific data on species and their habitats to inform decision-making.

“But I don’t want to diminish the other areas of the herd range in terms of habitat protection either because we find that the herd may be expanding to the west and to the northeast. So you don’t want to lose the important habitat requirements at the periphery of the herd boundary either.”

Logging plans overlap with old-growth deferrals

BC Timber Sales, a B.C. government agency that manages about 20 per cent of the province’s allowable cut, plans to log about 266 hectares of predominantly old-growth forest in the Columbia North herd’s core habitat. Pacific Woodtech, a U.S. engineered wood product company, plans to log about 356 hectares of predominantly old-growth forest in the herd’s core habitat, after recently acquiring the timber licences from Louisiana Pacific, an American building materials manufacturer. 

The most recent population census of the Columbia North herd shows it is bucking the trend across southern B.C., where a majority of southern mountain caribou herds are in decline. The herd added 24 individuals over the past year, for a total of 209 animals.

Seven caribou herds in the Kootenay region have become locally extinct or are functionally extirpated, most over the past few years. The only other herd left in the region, the Central Selkirks herd, is hanging on by a hoof, with just 28 individuals remaining.

Biologists who study the Columbia North herd found the animals occupy low-elevation cedar-hemlock rainforests 30 to 50 per cent of the year, foraging on early winter foods like falsebox, an evergreen shrub, before migrating up into the Monashees and other mountain ranges for the remainder of the winter. The logging plans significantly overlap with the route — referred to as a core connectivity zone — used by the Columbia North animals to move between seasonal habitats.

Some cutblocks also significantly overlap with old-growth logging deferrals announced more than a year ago by the B.C. government. The deferral areas temporarily conserve the unprotected remnants of one of the world’s most imperilled temperate rainforest ecosystems, while the B.C. government, in consultation with First Nations, makes decisions about how to proceed. 

In the meantime, the B.C. government has continued to approve logging cutblocks that overlap critical caribou habitat or require the construction of logging roads through protected areas, granting wolves and other natural predators easier access into disappearing caribou range. 

Earlier this year, Wildsight discovered an approved cutblock in the Wood River basin, north of Revelstoke, in the herd’s critical winter habitat. Petryshen has also documented numerous other cutblocks overlapping critical habitat, many of which were auctioned by BC Timber Sales.

Wildsight notes that any additional logging in the Upper Seymour watershed will place the Columbia North population at greater risk of local extinction, including from predation by wolves that follow moose into newly logged areas, gaining easy access through roads and other human disturbances. 

“There’s been an incredible disappearance of caribou on the landscape,” Petryshen said. “It’s happened so rapidly. That’s the way these things go. These tipping points, they just happen … That’s what we’ve seen with the South Purcells [caribou herd], where largely we were too late. And, in Columbia North, there’s still that hope, but we need to act.”

“Our opinion is that this forest development should not proceed under any circumstance because of its impact on caribou and old-growth and carbon storage and landscape function and connectivity,” he said. 

Rare rainforest facing ‘ecosystem collapse’

B.C.’s inland temperate rainforest is scattered in moist valleys stretching from the Cariboo Mountains to the Rocky Mountains. An inland temperate rainforest is found only in two other places in the world, in Russia’s far east and in southern Siberia. One century ago, B.C. had 1.3 million hectares of inland temperate rainforest. Today, less than five per cent of the core, old forest is still standing. Last year, a scientific study warned that ecosystem collapse in B.C.’s critically endangered inland temperate rainforest is imminent in nine to 18 years if logging rates continue at current levels. 

“Within a decade or two we could really be facing a major extinction event in the inland temperate rainforest,” Darwyn Coxson, one of the study’s nine Canadian and American authors, said when the study was released. “We usually think of things like that happening far away, in the tropical rainforest or in a coral reef — ecosystems far removed from British Columbia,” Coxson, a professor in the ecosystem science and management program at the University of Northern B.C., said. “But this is happening in the inland temperate rainforest … I hate to use the word alarming, but the scientific findings are really quite unequivocal. We have 20 years of science leading to this conclusion.”

On its website, Pacific Woodtech says the company’s engineered wood products use raw materials “sourced from sustainable woodlands.” BC Timber Sales says it is committed to maintaining and enhancing the long-term health of forest ecosystems “for the benefit of all living things.”

In an emailed response to questions, the B.C. Ministry of Forests described the inland temperate rainforest as a “globally unique forest type that provides important habitat for wildlife and biodiversity and stores large amounts of carbon.” 

The ministry said approximately 5,710 hectares of priority at-risk old-growth forest have been identified in the Seymour River watershed. Of that, the ministry said 2,640 hectares are already “protected” — including in the Upper Seymour River Provincial Park — while 3,070 hectares have been deferred from logging with the agreement of First Nations. The area the ministry said was protected includes ungulate winter range for caribou, a designation that can be removed if caribou vanish from the landscape.

The two-year logging deferrals were instituted after an old-growth review panel found biodiversity is at high risk in many areas of the province, particularly in old-growth low-elevation valleys where the biggest trees and richest biodiversity – the greatest variety of life — are found. “More troubling is the future projection, where almost all of the province will be in high biodiversity risk once our current management approach harvests most of the available old forest,” the panel concluded in its 2020 report, A New Future for Old Forests. 

Foresters Garry Merkel and Al Gorley, who headed the panel, called for a paradigm shift in the way B.C. manages old-growth forests. They said old forests have intrinsic value for all living things and should be managed for ecosystem health, not for timber. They also said many old forests are not renewable, countering the notion that old-growth logging is environmentally sustainable because trees, no matter how old, will always grow back.

As a blueprint for a paradigm shift, Merkel and Gorley issued 14 recommendations — all of which the B.C. government said it would implement within three years. But, more than two years later, only one recommendation — that logging be immediately deferred in areas “where ecosystems are at very high and near-term risk of irreversible biodiversity loss” – has been implemented, and not fully, leaving conservation groups and scientists questioning the government’s promise to protect old-growth forests and embark on a forestry transition many believe is long overdue. 

A technical advisory panel appointed by the government identified four million hectares of old-growth forests at the highest risk of biodiversity loss. One year ago, the government announced two-year logging deferrals for 2.6 million hectares of unprotected forests with “ancient, rare and priority large stands” of old-growth trees, including in the Seymour River watershed.

In an email, Fernando Cocciolo, a forest manager for Pacific Woodtech Canada Ltd., said the company has deferred logging of “planned old forest blocks in our portion of Upper Seymour until [the] government’s old-growth review process is completed.” Cocciolo said Pacific WoodTech may proceed with logging in “several small, second-growth blocks” in the Blais Creek area, near the southern end of the Upper Seymour. 

The B.C. Ministry of Forests said a public consultation is underway on the proposed transfers of the Seymour forest licences and associated road permits from Louisiana Pacific to Pacific WoodTech. Comments can be submitted until Nov. 30. 

Petryshen said the proposed licence transfer provides an ideal opportunity for the B.C. government to follow through on its commitment to protect old-growth forests and caribou. “If they want to prioritize that, they’ve got to get to work on recovering these caribou.” 

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A new plan plotting the course of the logging industry on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast over the next five years has placed a treasured forest, home to some of Canada’s oldest trees and an unofficial bear sanctuary, on the chopping block. 

The logging plan for the Elphinstone area, released by BC Timber Sales in late March, includes an abnormally high number of cutblocks for auction for the planning period, according to local conservation group Elphinstone Logging Focus.

“We haven’t seen this many blocks in a five-year period before,” said Ross Muirhead, a forest campaigner with Elphinstone Logging Focus, which counted an unprecedented 29 blocks slated for clearcut logging from 2020 to 2024.  

Because of the area’s sensitivity, BC Timber Sales has usually limited logging to about one block a year. 

Muirhead is calling on the B.C. government to cancel 63 hectares of cutblocks slated for auction on Dakota Ridge, a roadless high-altitude forest west of Port Mellon, where he believes Canada’s oldest tree may be located.

Some of the oldest trees in Canada grow in the 3,361-hectare Dakota watershed, with tree coring showing one yellow cedar is 1,036 years old, Muirhead said.

Last fall in the Dakota area, Muirhead and his colleagues measured a tree that was too big to be cored because boring instruments aren’t made long enough.

“This tree is wider than the oldest recorded tree in Canada,” Muirhead said.

That record-breaking tree was a yellow cedar that grew in the Caren Range on the Sunshine Coast. It was cut by loggers in the 1980s, and a ring count put its age at 1,835 years.

“This tree is the same elevation, same species, and it’s bigger,” Muirhead said.

Black bear dens, ancient yellow cedars at risk

Elphinstone Logging Focus unofficially named the forest on Dakota Ridge the Dakota bowl bear sanctuary after the first black bear den study on the Sunshine Coast, in 2015, found an unusually high number of dens in the area.

The ancient yellow cedars in the Dakota bear sanctuary are the best trees for bear dens as they tend to rot out at the base, providing well-hidden locations, and, as the trees grow in the snow zone, there is insulation for hibernating bears, Muirhead said.

Dakota Ridge is still intact and without formal hiking trails, Muirhead said, adding the area’s five hanging lakes offer a good freshwater supply for bears. “It’s chockablock in wild blueberries.”

“I am of the opinion that black bear den activity may be concentrated on Dakota Ridge not just due to old-growth structural availability, but due to the extensive loss of similar habitat in the surrounding region from clearcut logging,” wrote Wayne McCrory, author of the 2015 study.

A map showing the location of Dakota Ridge on the Sunshine Coast. Map: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

The study, which was done by McCrory Wildlife Services, concluded that logging in the approved Dakota Ridge cutblocks would destroy 12 dens in one block and 16 dens in a higher elevation block.

That research is going to be updated after Elphinstone Logging Focus received a grant in late May from West Coast Environmental Law to do further bear den surveying in an expanded area. 

Bear dens are not protected in B.C., except on Haida Gwaii and in the Great Bear Rainforest. In April 2019, wildlife biologist Helen Davis asked B.C.’s Forest Practices Board, the province’s independent forestry watchdog, to launch an investigation into the protection of bear denning trees, primarily old yellow and red cedars in old-growth forests. 

The board found in January that there is a “knowledge gap” on black bear populations and a population assessment could determine whether it is necessary to regulate protection of bear dens.

Black bears rely on old-growth trees as second-growth forests are cut before the trees reach the necessary size for denning, so lack of denning space could affect the population, the board report noted.

Companies given harvesting licences sometimes voluntarily protect dens and “the practice of including bear-den trees in wildlife-tree-retention areas is a best practice that should be encouraged,” the report says.

Logging of old-growth forests has underlined the loss of bear dens, and in August last year more than 20 biologists, First Nations, wildlife businesses and environmental organizations wrote to the provincial government asking for protection of dens, whether occupied or not.

Black bear dens are often used intermittently for decades.

A spokesperson with the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development said under the Forest and Range Practices Act, black bear dens can be identified in a forest stewardship plan and protection strategies can be included in the plan.

“As well, as part of BC Timber Sales’ environmental field procedures, if a previously unidentified bear den is identified, work must stop and a plan to deal with it will be developed,” he said.

Culturally modified trees promised protection

Some Dakota Ridge blocks now marked for auction by BC Timber Sales also contain culturally modified trees — trees that have been visibly altered or modified by Indigenous peoples for cultural uses — in addition to the abundance of black bear dens.

“We have three scientific studies clearly showing that [Dakota Ridge] has very high natural and cultural values that wildly supersede any small financial gain from destroying it,” said Hans Penner, a director of Elphinstone Logging Focus.

The Dakota area is in the territory of the Skwxwu7mesh (Squamish) First Nation, which conducted a joint review of identified culturally modified trees with BC Timber Sales. Both parties agreed to exclude those trees from logging.

Elphinstone Logging Focus brought a proposal for the Dakota bowl bear sanctuary to a councillor with the Skwxwu7mesh Nation, where it remains under consideration within the rights and title department, Muirhead said. “I haven’t had a formal reply yet.”

Calls to the Skwxwu7mesh First Nation from The Narwhal were not returned by time of publication.

Culturally modified trees will be buffered with a minimum 10-metre reserve and bear dens will be protected, a spokesperson with the Ministry of Forests told The Narwhal.

“Any tree that meets the definition of a legacy tree will not be harvested,” she said.

Legacy trees include those that are exceptionally large for their species or have been culturally modified.

Hans Penner, a director of Elphinstone Logging Focus, measures one of the largest cedars in the Dakota area. Photo: Elphinstone Logging Focus

Muirhead said the McCrory study looked at active, used and potential dens, but BC Timber Sales appears to be looking only at dens that are in use.

“We think at least one forest in the entire province should be set aside for bear den supply. So, no, I’m not confident that they will go to the extent of ensuring the den supply is protected,” he said.

Elphinstone Logging Focus members are also worried the massive trees won’t be given adequate protection.

“They could leave a few of the biggest in clearcuts with no buffer. That’s poor conservation for these ancient trees,” Muirhead said, noting there are problems with the practice of leaving legacy trees uncut within larger cutblocks. 

“Right off the top, leaving single trees standing in an open clearcut is typically a recipe for their quick demise. They’re subject to more windthrow because they’re in an opening, so you get tops breaking off, branches get snapped off and then the whole trunk is more subject to wind conditions.” 

He also expressed concern that BC Timber Sales will be left to make the final determinations about which trees are considered for legacy protections. “And then who is overseeing which trees are being set aside? Is it their own subjective analysis of which are the best legacy trees?”

BC Timber Sales, which was created in 2003 by the Liberal government, manages 20 per cent of the province’s annual allowable cut, making it the biggest tenure holder in B.C.

Two government investigations into BC Timber Sales’ actions in the Nahmint Valley on Vancouver Island found the government agency failed to protect legacy trees from being harvested.  

High-elevation logging a watershed concern

Muirhead is also worried about the safety implications of increased logging in the region. 

The lower slopes around the Dakota Creek watershed were logged in the 1950s and 1960s, and, after a series of landslides, a logging moratorium was put in place in 2000. 

However, BC Timber Sales now claims the steep-walled valley is hydrologically stable, despite a series of flash floods and predictions of increasing extreme rainfall events, Muirhead said.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Forests said BC Timber Sales will continue talking about the proposed logging plans with stakeholders, First Nations and the Sunshine Coast Regional District, which is concerned about the effect of logging on groundwater and stormwater runoff.

A hanging lake in the high-elevation Dakota Ridge forest. Photo: Elphinstone Logging Focus

Provincial old-growth protections awaited

More than 140,000 hectares of old-growth forests are logged each year in B.C. An independent report released Thursday found that the majority of British Columbia’s productive old-growth forests are gone, and the majority of the old growth remaining is slated to be logged. 

Although the province was slated to table amendments to the Forest and Range Practices Act this spring, the timing was set back because of the pandemic.

An independent old-growth strategic review panel submitted its report to the government at the end of April. The province has six months to release the report.

At a time when the pandemic has shocked the world into halting industrial activities, governments must remember they also have to deal with the ongoing climate crisis, said Jens Wieting, Sierra Club BC’s senior forest and climate campaigner, who believes this is the time for a complete rethink of how B.C. deals with its old-growth forests.

“We know some of these trees are older than 1,000 years. This is a legacy. There is a global responsibility to protect trees like this,” Wieting said.

Wieting is not confident new legislation will concentrate on the environment, rather than short-term forestry jobs, and wants the provincial government to stop issuing permits and auctioning logs until there has been an in-depth discussion with communities and First Nations on the future of B.C.’s forests.

“We need time,” he said. “As a society, we need to have a conversation about what kind of future we want for these last intact old-growth forests and biggest trees before it’s too late.”

Lori Pratt, chair of the Sunshine Coast Regional District, is also calling for an expanded  conversation with all involved ministries, rather than only with BC Timber Sales, and a broad look at the cumulative effect of all logging in the area, including logging on private land.

Government ministries tend to operate in silos, with one ministry not knowing what another is doing in the same area, Pratt said. What is needed, she said, is a big-picture look at logging, protection of watersheds and land use plans with local First Nations.

“Whatever you are doing up on the mountain affects everything all the way down to the ocean,” she said. “We see bits and pieces of it, but, when you get some of the torrential rains we get, we need to see how this all fits together.” 

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Large numbers of logs are being left behind at logging operations in the Great Bear Rainforest, according to data analyzed by The Narwhal.

The Narwhal investigated the waste levels after receiving photographs of logs abandoned by Interfor on Gilford Island, which is in the southern portion of the iconic temperate rainforest that is known the world over for its ecological values and allegedly leading forest practices.

According to a provincial government database that can be used to track logging rates by individual companies, Interfor — one of the world’s largest lumber companies — logged a little more than 493,000 cubic metres of wood in the North Island-Central Coast Natural Resource District, which includes the southern Great Bear Rainforest, in the first 10 months of 2019.

During that same time period, the company reported leaving behind nearly 115,000 cubic metres of logs. Meaning for every four trees logged and taken to market at least one tree was left behind to rot in the forest from which it was logged.

Photographer Tavish Campbell, who grew up on Sonora Island in the southern portion of the Great Bear Rainforest, documented some of the wood waste on Gilford Island in March of this year, noting droves of yellow cedar and cypress logs left behind.

Campbell told The Narwhal the most extensive waste was higher up mountain slopes where the company was engaged in very expensive helicopter logging, or “heli logging,” operations. 

Waste piles containing scores of sizeable cypress tress on Gilford Island. Photo: April Bencze

A map showing the boundary of the Great Bear Rainforest on the coast of British Columbia. Gilford Island, where Interfor logging operations are taking place, is shown by the red square. Map: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

‘An incredible amount of waste’

“There’s an incredible amount of waste in the heli blocks because they’re only wanting to take the most valuable wood off the hill,” Campbell told The Narwhal.

“In the heli blocks we walked they’re leaving lots of logs. They’re leaving the yellow cedar. They’re leaving the hemlock and the balsam. Anything that’s even slightly substandard, they’re bucking and leaving it there. They’re just targeting the best red cedar.”

Interfor logging operations on Gilford Island in the Great Bear Rainforest. Photo: Tavish Campbell

There is reason to believe, however, that the actual levels of wood waste are far higher than the numbers that the provincial government tracks.

That’s because Interfor and other companies increasingly use an obscure formula for calculating the number and the value of the trees they log — a formula that is almost impossible to verify after the fact. There is no independent auditing of what companies report.

Under the formula, known as “cruise-based” pricing, small sample plots are analyzed and used to project the total number and value of standing trees to be logged on a larger parcel of land. 

The assessment is important because it’s also used to calculate exactly what the provincial government will receive from logging companies by way of payments known as “stumpage” fees. The fees are paid to the province in recognition of the fact that the trees are logged on Crown or publicly owned lands and that the public is entitled to a share of the value of the trees after they are logged.

The forests of Gilford Island in the Great Bear Rainforest contain great diversity that may not be reflected in “cruise-based” assessments. However, there are no independent audits to verify if companies are accurately representing the value of trees in cutblocks. Photo: Tavish Campbell

The Great Bear loophole: why old growth is still logged in B.C.’s iconic protected rainforest

‘Limited’ government oversight

Cruise-based pricing is controversial, however, because it only works if the sample plots that are selected truly represent the number, diversity and value of trees on the wider landscape. Because once the cruise assessment is accepted — there is no checking on what is logged after the fact.

Mark Haddock, who recently completed a report on “professional reliance” for the provincial government, warned that there is potential “vulnerability” associated with cruise-based sales because there have been known cases where the volume and the value of trees were underestimated using the system — in one case a witness said he found this to be done deliberately.

If, for example, numerous plots of smaller trees are considered to be representative of the whole, when in fact some plots may have much larger trees, then the larger, more valuable trees aren’t captured in the estimates and the companies pay less stumpage on those trees.

Giant cedars on Gilford Island. Photo: April Bencze

“In the past, there have been known issues with underestimation of timber volume and quality that led to enforcement issues, professional association disciplinary cases and litigation,” Haddock noted in his report.

“Oversight of these policies and procedures depends on government’s capacity to carry out audits and compliance and enforcement, which the Ministry [of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development] acknowledges is very limited.”

The alternative to cruise-based pricing is a more expensive system, in part because it has built in checks and balances. On non-cruise-based logging sites, some logs are actually “scaled” or measured to ensure that the companies accurately report what they say they log. These logging sites are referred to as “normal production” sites in the database, and are also commonly referred to as “scale-based” logging sites.

But no such checking occurs with cruise-based sales. Also, under cruise-based sales there is no reporting on how much waste is left behind because the waste is allegedly already paid for and built in to the up-front calculations.

Interfor logging operations. Photo: Tavish Campbell

Big trees ‘worth exponentially more’

All of which means that the actual level of waste at Interfor’s logging operations is likely to be far  higher than the numbers reported in the provincial database because of the large amount of wood that is being logged by the company under cruise-based sales.

In the first 10 months of 2019, the amount of logging done by Interfor under cruise-based sales was a reported 298,000 cubic metres or 60 per cent of everything the company logged in the North Island and Central Coast region.

If the unrecorded log waste at the “cruise-based” sites matched that on the scale-based sites where the logging waste must be reported, then Interfor’s log waste levels would rise by nearly 176,000 cubic metres.

“We’ve lost the ability to track at a finer scale, particularly when it comes to these big old trees.”

Jody Holmes, a biologist and project director with the Rainforest Solutions Project, estimates that when all is said and done the actual waste at logging operations throughout the Great Bear Rainforest may be much higher because of the potential for under-reporting with cruise-based pricing.

She notes that next to Interfor, the largest entity using cruise-based pricing is actually BC Timber Sales, an arm of the provincial government that awards allotments of timber to companies that bid on the right to log.

Farlyn Campbell, sister of Tavish, on an Interfor cutblock on Gilford Island. Photo: April Bencze

Logging company Interfor’s operation on Gilford Island, located in the southern tip of the Great Bear Rainforest. Photo: April Bencze

She worries that a “level of detail” is being lost with such sales that makes it almost impossible to verify what is actually being logged in the Great Bear Rainforest, which opens the system to abuse.

“We’ve lost the ability to track at a finer scale,” Holmes says, “particularly when it comes to these big old trees. Those big old cedars are worth exponentially more than the other stuff. You only need four or five of them in a block to all of a sudden make it incredibly valuable.” 

In response to emailed questions, the provincial forests ministry told The Narwhal that it is confident that cruise-based pricing is statistically sound and that it ensures that the public gets a fair return for what is logged. The ministry added that the system is designed to “capture the variation” of value in different trees, whether they are big or small, younger or older, or of lower or higher economic value.

“The province believes that these standards are sufficient to capture the variation of the stand,” the ministry maintained. It also added that because cruise-based pricing takes into account the waste that may be left behind at logging sites before the actual logging takes place, that that waste calculation is built into the final prices paid by the logging companies.

This means that there may actually be less logging waste on such sites because there is a built-in incentive for the companies to not leave trees behind. The objective, the ministry said, is to encourage “maximum utilization” of what is logged.

An Interfor cutblock where waste piles were re-harvested for merchantable timber. Photo: Tavish Campbell

The Narwhal contacted Interfor and was instructed to submit emailed questions about logging waste and other issues.

Blaire Iverson, a professional forester and Interfor’s area manager for coastal woodlands ultimately responded with a letter. In it, Iverson said that “the industry as a whole has been working to improve utilization and we are implementing policies that the provincial government has put in place.”

“Interfor is proud of our operations being fully compliant with all legal requirements,” Iverson said.

Update December 17, 2019 3:30pm pst: This article was corrected to clarify that the filing of inaccurate information on the value of trees in cruise-based sales may not necessarily be deliberate, but was described as deliberate by an expert witness. That expert witness told the Forest Appeals Commission that a cruiser working on behalf of Apollo Forest Products “deliberately tried to keep the tree count low.” The commission subsequently found Apollo in violation of the Forests Act.

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Some of you may have already seen the pictures. 

Vast stands of old-growth Douglas firs and cedars, toppled. A grim-looking individual, perched atop a stump, staggering in size, its history harkening back to pre-colonial times, sap oozing beneath their feet. 

British Columbians are near-immune to such images these days, with old-growth clearcutting a common sight and common practice. But something about the images coming out of Vancouver Island’s Nahmint Valley struck a chord.

A photo gallery posted by the Ancient Forest Alliance to Facebook in May of 2018 became a near-immediate viral sensation, being shared more than 4,800 times. 

The organization, during an ancient forest expedition with the Port Alberni Watershed-Forest Alliance, found exceptionally large Douglas fir, including the fifth and ninth widest ever recorded in B.C., scattered among the remains of an extensive clearcutting operation.

The groups documented old-growth cedar stumps measuring a staggering 12 feet (3.7 metres) in diameter.

Something felt wrong about the scope and scale of the logging operations in the Nahmint Valley to the expeditioners. 

And they were right.

Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner Andrea Inness walks beside an enormous, freshly fallen western red cedar in a BC Timber Sales-issued cutblock in the Nahmint Valley near Port Alberni. Photo: TJ Watt

Before and after images of a massive Douglas fir tree in the Nahmint Valley. According to the B.C. Big Tree Registry, this Douglas fir was the ninth-largest of its kind in Canada. Photo: TJ Watt

Investigations point to government agency at heart of B.C.’s old-growth logging

Following their expedition, the Ancient Forest Alliance submitted a complaint to the compliance and enforcement branch at B.C.’s Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations.

The findings of two subsequent investigations would confirm a deep-rooted suspicion that BC Timber Sales (BCTS), the government agency responsible for auctioning provincial logging permits, was thwarting protection rules and violating the principles of old-growth management plans.

The results of those investigations, obtained by the Ancient Forest Alliance through a Freedom of Information request, and reviewed by The Narwhal, show BC Timber Sales is not complying with rules designed to ensure sufficient old-growth forest is retained to avoid loss of biodiversity.

One of these investigations, conducted by a compliance and enforcement officer with the Ministry of Forests, recommended logging in the Nahmint Valley be halted, that future harvesting tenures be put on hold and that the agency should be prevented from establishing Nahmint old-growth management areas — which are created to protect old growth and achieve biodiversity targets — while problems are addressed to avoid legitimizing ongoing overcutting.

The second investigation was conducted outside the ministry and came to similar conclusions, documents released through the Freedom of Information request revealed.

Yet despite the clear and unequivocal tone of recommendations made by investigators in the summer of 2018, little change has been effected on the ground, where clearcutting in the Nahmint has continued unabated.

“None of the recommendations have been implemented,” Andrea Inness, Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner, told The Narwhal.

Before: An old-growth Douglas fir forest in a BC Timber Sales cutblock in the Nahmint Valley. An estimated 1 per cent of B.C.’s original old-growth Douglas fir remains today. Photo: TJ Watt

After: The same patch of Douglas fir after logging commenced. Photo: TJ Watt

Compliance officer told to ‘close the investigation down’

The ministry report was conducted by senior compliance and enforcement specialist Bryce Casavant, who is no longer working for the provincial government.

“When I left government a few weeks ago, logging was continuing and there were 490,000 cubic metres scheduled to go to market by next spring,” Casavant told The Narwhal.

“Suffice it to say they are planning on extensive logging in that area despite the findings of the report,” he said.

Making the situation more frustrating, Casavant said he was told during the investigation that, in future, the compliance and enforcement branch would no longer investigate BC Timber Sales as government would not charge the organization.

“I got told at one point to close the investigation down and not to write a report and just send an internal memo and they would sort it out,” Casavant said.

BC Timber Sales, which was created in 2003 by the former BC Liberal government, manages 20 per cent of the province’s annual allowable cut, making it the biggest tenure holder in B.C.

An aerial view of the Nahmint Valley, July 2018. Photo: Jens Wieting / Sierra Club BC

When asked whether the compliance and enforcement branch is still able to investigate BC Timber Sales, a ministry spokeswoman, in an emailed response, said “compliance and enforcement can investigate BCTS and they can charge BCTS with infractions.”

But Casavant, who now works for Pacific Wild as a conservation policy analyst, said he was left with no doubt that investigations into the timber sales agency were not welcome. 

BC Timber Sales and the law enforcement services at the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations are closely related and so, when problems arise, the answer is to come up with some fancy spin-doctoring, Casavant said.

“The problem is that there’s no true independence in the law enforcement service and forestry officers. The government will tell you that they are not related to BCTS, but in practice it’s not true. They all work out of the same office, side by side, day in and day out. They share the same deputy minister. There’s no true separation,” he said.

The timber sales agency is treated more favourably than other logging corporations, Casavant said.

“They are not treated the same as everyone else.”

The second, independent investigation found that planning for old-growth management areas appears ad hoc, “aiming to achieve the bare minimum required legally, rather than following good conservation design.”

“Our assessment suggests that the Nahmint demonstrates failure of professional reliance at maintaining publicly-agreed-upon values and priorities,” the report found.

Inness said it might be a good thing existing draft old-growth management areas in the Nahmint haven’t been legalized.

“The planning that went into the delineation of those OGMAs was flawed. When those areas were mapped, when those lines were drawn on maps, BCTS didn’t even look at ecosystem data or consider best practices,” she said.

An aerial view of logging in the Nahmint Valley. Visible is a fallen Douglas Fir, measured as the ninth-largest of its kind in Canada. Photo: TJ Watt

Inness further suggested those draft areas were designed to support a bigger take for logging companies. 

In addition to the two 2018 investigations, a Forest Practices Board investigation into the Nahmint is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

That investigation means the ministry cannot comment, according to a spokeswoman.

“The Forest Practices Board is currently investigating. That is all the information we can provide at this time,” ministry spokeswoman Dawn Makarowski said in an emailed response to questions from The Narwhal.

Despite investigations, old-growth logging continues in Nahmint Valley

On the ground in the Nahmint Valley — under parcels auctioned by BC Timber Sales — giant trees continue to fall, threatening habitat for species such as the marbled murrelet and northern goshawk. 

The agency has plans underway to auction off more than 400,000 cubic metres of old growth and, despite a specific recommendation to pause such actions, BC Timber Sales is moving to have draft Nahmint old-growth plans legalized.

In the formal complaint, submitted to the Ministry of Forests, Ancient Forest Alliance’s Inness wrote operations in the Nahmint appear to be in violation of the official land-use plan for Vancouver Island. 

The intent of the Vancouver Island Land-Use Plan, established in 2000, is to retain a critical mass of old-growth. 

“After walking through various recent cutblocks planned by BC Timber Sales in the Nahmint Valley, we believe BC Timber Sales’ forest stewardship plan fails to meet the results and strategies set out in the Vancouver Island Land Use Plan … that rare and underrepresented site series and surrogates be represented and protected,” Inness wrote.

The plan identified the Nahmint Valley as a special management zone, which prioritizes “environmental, recreational and cultural/heritage sites” rather than old-growth logging, but the investigation found that, although mapping of the valley’s unique biological features exists, the best available data was not used to protect unique ecosystems, retain biodiversity or protect large diameter trees.

The crystalline waters of the Nahmint River. The valley is a popular outdoor recreation destination. Photo: TJ Watt

The ministry’s internal inspection found logging in the Nahmint suggests a “high likelihood of government noncompliance” with the land use plan.

Investigators concluded that there appear to be “legacy compliance issues” with timber harvesting in the Nahmint — meaning the overcutting probably dates back 18 years. 

This failure to implement proper protections for the Nahmint is what led investigators to warn BC Timber Sales should not legalize new old-growth management zones until those failures have been addressed. 

An email from Bryce Casavant to Don Hudson, BC Timber Sales manager. The email notes the Ministry of Forests investigation found a “high likelihood of government non-compliance” with regards to logging in the Nahmint Valley.

Yet, although there have been tweaks to the system, with small changes to cutblock locations, there is no indication that BC Timber Sales is planning to act on the investigation’s recommendations.

“It seems that eventually they will just carry on with business as usual,” TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance co-founder, told The Narwhal.

In the internal documents detailing the investigations, a BC Timber Sales response claimed the agency’s planning is “generally” consistent with best practices and stated that logging in the Nahmint Valley cannot be in violation of the land use plan because the region’s forest stewardship plan was approved by a district manager. 

That defence drew outrage from Inness.

“Approved forest stewardship plans do not override legal orders or government set objectives and can’t be used as a shield to allow non-compliant logging to occur,” she said. 

“This is indicative of a truly corrupt system where, according to BCTS, logging can never be in non-compliance with the law, so long as a district manager signs off on it.”

The justification has Inness worried BC Timber Sales might be out of compliance with land-use plans for other areas of Vancouver Island. 

“This has broader geographic implications as other special management zones and geographic areas managed by BC Timber Sales may have been — and continue to be — similarly mismanaged,” Inness said.

“They have been way over-logging and it opens up Pandora’s box. If it is happening in the Nahmint and they have completely misinterpreted the targets here, where else is it happening?” she asked.

‘This is the way government works’

Many contentious areas controlled by BC Timber Sales have high recreational value or are close to communities, which increasingly puts it at odds with local communities and First Nations. The Nahmint Valley is in traditional territories of the Hupacasath and Tseshaht First Nations.

Brandy Lauder, Hupacasath First Nation elected councillor, said she is not surprised that BC Timber Sales is ignoring recommendations to stop logging old growth.

“I am not shocked … This is the way government works,” said Lauder, adding that she is witnessing over-logging of old growth throughout the Alberni Valley, which is affecting the movement of wildlife as habitat is lost.

“Until the province actually tells BC Timber Sales not to log, they are going to continue. It will have to come from (Premier) John Horgan. They will just keep on operating and saying they are working on it. As long as they say they are working on it, they think they can just keep on going,” she said.

Last year, Hupacasath sent an open letter calling on the provincial government to halt old-growth logging in the Nahmint and work collaboratively with the band to protect the area’s old growth and, especially, the biggest trees and monumental cedars.

The letter to the Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation called on the government to immediately extinguish all approved cutblocks in Hupacasath traditional territory and establish “best management practices for coastal legacy, monumental and old-growth trees.”

In July the province announced new protections for 54 old-growth trees listed in the B.C. Big Tree Registry, four of which are in the Alberni-Clayoquot region. But the plan drew criticism from those concerned with the scale of old-growth logging in some of the last intact zones on Vancouver Island.  

In its announcement for the big tree protections, the province claimed 55 per cent of old-growth forests on Crown land in B.C.’s coastal region are protected from logging. Yet the majority of that protection exists in the Great Bear Rainforest while on Vancouver Island 1,300 hectares of new old-growth cutblocks have been approved in 2019.

A map of pre-existing forests in Southern British Columbia. Map: Ancient Forest Alliance

A map of remaining old-growth forest based on satellite data from 2012. Map: Ancient Forest Alliance

Long-time environmental advocate Vicky Husband, who worked to tighten up the Vancouver Island land-use plan before it was adopted in 2000, said she always feared the plan lacked teeth.

“We got some important changes, but not nearly enough was fully protected and now the ancient forests are in fragments over most of the island,” she said

“Nahmint is very, very contentious and what BCTS is doing, with the B.C. government’s backing, is promoting logging in some of the last areas left.”

Forests are being gutted and government can be misleading about how much ancient forest is left on Vancouver Island, Husband said.

“We have protected only 5.5 per cent of the original extent of ancient, big, old tree forests on Vancouver Island and just about one per cent of the dry Douglas fir forest. Imagine how we, a so-called progressive society, have done so little to protect the amazing forest heritage that we inherited,” she said.

“I am appalled. The public must act now to save what is left and then work to restore these incredible forest ecosystems.”

Inness said it appears government agencies are either willfully ignoring or misinterpreting B.C.’s already inadequate forestry rules.

“We have such a desperate need in this province for forestry to be done differently and they can’t even follow their own laws,” she said.

Casavant said ecologically rich places like the Nahmint Valley suffer irreparable harm when the province ignores its own rules. 

“In today’s society it’s completely unacceptable for government to be involved in what should be classified as unlawful activities,” he said.

“If you are in non-compliance you can’t just say, ‘well maybe there’s a problem, but we are just going to go ahead.’ If you are in non-compliance and your plan requires you to follow the legislation, it is just wrong to go ahead.”

Casavant argues there should be legislation to ensure an impartial law enforcement service can investigate BC Timber Sales’ activities and charge them when necessary.

“BCTS should be treated, instead of a branch of the ministry, as a stand-alone Crown corporation,” he said.

Having an investigative branch embedded within the ministry is “absolutely ludicrous,” he added. 

“We can’t have everybody working in the same office right from the planning stage to the approval stage to the investigation when something goes wrong.”

The government agency at the centre of B.C.’s old-growth logging showdown

During the summer the province asked for public feedback on the Forest and Range Practices Act, with changes expected over the next two years, but many fear changes will come too late to save the sizeable swaths of old growth needed, especially to protect biodiversity.

A report from the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre says that, in high productivity areas such as valley bottoms, less than 10 per cent of the original old growth remains.

“On Vancouver Island, only about a fifth of the original, productive old-growth rainforest remains unlogged. More than 30 per cent of what remained standing in 1993 has been destroyed in just the last 25 years,” it says.

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Thousands of some of Canada’s most endangered trees are falling in logging operations in British Columbia on privately owned land due to lax regulations, The Narwhal has learned.  

According to a provincial government database, CanWel Timber Ltd. has logged more than 5,000 cubic metres of whitebark pine trees since 2016. The company’s operations include logging on 55,000 hectares of privately owned forest in the ecologically rich Elk Valley in southeastern British Columbia. CanWel took over Jemi Fibre Corp. in 2016.

The logging has occurred despite the federal government formally listing whitebark pine trees as endangered under Canada’s Species at Risk Act in 2012. According to the same database, only one company has logged more of the critically endangered trees since they were listed. That company, as detailed in a previous investigation by The Narwhal, is Canfor — B.C.’s largest forest company. The vast majority of Canfor’s logging occurs on public lands.

CanWel’s ongoing logging has many people in the region concerned, says Eddie Petryshen, conservation coordinator for Wildsight, an organization working to protect lands in the Columbia and Rocky Mountain regions. 

“Two hundred-hectare, steep-slope clear-cuts are popping up all over the place,” Petryshen says. “The whole landscape is increasingly becoming one giant cut-block.”

Recent steep slope logging above the Fording River near Elkford’s Josephine Falls. Photo: Bailey Repp

19,000 cubic metres of endangered trees cut, zero fines 

The Elk and Flathead valleys are considered a critical north-south wildlife corridor for grizzly bears and other wide-ranging species linking areas to the south in Montana to the Banff and Jasper national park complex to the north.

Because those parks are under direct federal government control, one company that logged just 38 endangered whitebark pine trees within the borders of Banff National Park was fined $2.1 million in 2018. But on Crown lands and private lands under provincial government control in B.C., no fines have yet been levied for a single whitebark pine tree being logged in the province, despite more than 19,000 cubic metres of the trees being logged since being listed as a species at risk.

Petryshen says CanWel’s logging is a growing concern not just because of its pace, but how markedly different it is from what used to occur when Tembec — which owned the land until 2014 — managed logging in the area. Partly in response to the urging of conservationists, Tembec embarked on a quest to have its logging operations across Canada independently certified as sustainable by an independent third party auditor under the auspices of the Forest Stewardship Council. The council is widely considered to be among the most stringent forest certification programs.

Tembec had logging operations in the East Kootenay certified under the Forestry Stewardship Council, including both operations on publicly owned or Crown lands and on private lands. As a result, the company did more partial-cutting or selective logging, its clear-cuts were smaller in size and it worked hard to protect “visual quality” in its Elk Valley logging operations.

Recent clearcut harvesting on CanWel’s Private Managed Forest Land contrasts with remaining intact forest in the Leach Creek drainage east of Fernie. Photo: Bailey Repp

“It was to a much higher standard than what we’re seeing [with CanWel] and to a much higher standard than what’s regulated under the Private Managed Forest Land Act,” Petryshen says. “And that’s one of the really big shifts. We went from, you know, that [private] land being treated essentially as Crown land to it being treated as: ‘Hey. We’ve got this property and we’re going to manage it for the short term.’ ” 

Tembec eventually ran into financial troubles and sold its private lands in the Elk Valley to Jemi in 2014. And with the sale the logging innovations ended.

B.C. government reviewing regulations for logging on private lands 

CanWel’s logging of endangered whitebark pine trees plays out against the backdrop of an ongoing provincial government review of private managed forest land regulations and a recently released report by the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre which found much to be concerned about on private forest lands throughout the province.

The report concluded that in the 15 years since the Private Managed Forest Land Act came into effect in 2004, “private forest land has been logged at unsustainable rates, without adequate protection of sensitive public resources.” 

Among other things, the report recommends that the provincial government grant local governments the authority to introduce and enforce bylaws to protect streamside forests and community watersheds from private land logging; and for the provincial government to set “clear environmental standards that ensure private managed forests are logged sustainably.”

Eroded soils on steep slope harvesting on CanWel’s Private Managed Forest Land near the B.C.-Alberta border. Slope erosion can lead to increased sediment in streams. Sediment, which clogs gills and irritates mucous membranes, is dangerous to fish populations even in small amounts. Photo: Bailey Repp

“At a minimum,” the ELC report concludes, “privately owned forests should be held to the same practice standards as crown forestland under the Forest and Range Practices Act.”

The report also addresses an issue of major concern on Vancouver Island, where the largest expanses of private forests in B.C. are found. Under current rules, there is little to stop private forest land owners — including major corporations such as TimberWest and Island Timberlands — from clearing forests and then selling the logged lands for conversion into suburbs. And indeed, real estate has become a big part of their businesses.

The report concludes there should be strict limits on logging and flipping such lands and advocates for a return to the idea of a Forest Land Reserve, similar to the Agricultural Land Reserve, which was created to protect farmland in the province.

Endangered whitebark pine trees likely to end up as wood chips

An ongoing concern with the logging of whitebark pine trees — both on privately owned and public lands — is that the species is generally considered to have very low commercial value.

Many of the endangered trees fall in what amounts to the logging industry equivalent of the fishing industry’s “bycatch” phenomenon, says Sally Aitken, a professor in the department of forest and conservation sciences at the University of British Columbia.

The industry doesn’t really want to log the trees, but they are in the way much like an undesired fish species may be in the way of the more prized catch.

Aitken notes that many years ago, foresters knew the most accessible valley-bottom forests were running out and that an increasing amount of logging would occur in the “guts and feathers,” or forests far higher up the mountainsides.

And that is precisely where whitebark pine trees are found.

A winter harvested block on CanWel’s Private Managed Forest Land, with Teck Resources’ Coal Mountain mine in the background. In the Elk Valley, wildlife and ecosystems are dealing with the cumulative effects of logging, mining, development and recreation. Photo: Bailey Repp

As the logging companies go after the commercially desired spruce and subalpine fir trees, endangered whitebark pine trees fall too. Adding insult to injury, whitebark pine trees have very little economic value. If they are processed at all, they may become low-grade lumber or, more likely, they will simply be chipped to make wood pulp.

“It really is a waste,” Aitken says. “Nobody’s cutting it because they’re going to get something meaningful out of it.”

The Narwhal phoned Steve Williams, CanWel’s forest operations coordinator, to ask about the company’s logging of whitebark pine trees and was told to file questions by email, but the company provided no answers in response to the questions.

The major problem confronting whitebark pine is an exotic, introduced fungus that kills many but not all of the trees.

Provincial forests ministry officials have spearheaded efforts to plant whitebark pine seedlings grown from cones from trees that may have some natural resistance to the fungus. Dozens of plots have been planted and there is ongoing sampling of the plots to see how the trees are faring.

Logging by CanWel in a riparian area (the transition zone between land and water) near the town of Elkford. The majority of the Elk Valley’s riparian zones, which are rich in biodiversity, provide critical habitat to numerous species and are key travel corridors between low and high elevation terrain, are highly disturbed by industry and development. Photo: Bailey Repp

To date, roughly 60,000 whitebark pine seedlings have been planted in trials organized by the ministry, trials that are augmented by roughly 10,000 more planted by researchers at the University of B.C. and in the Smithers region. 

But the planting trials are just that. Only time will tell whether some of the seedlings planted in those trials will not succumb to the fungus once again and live to replace the thousands of whitebark pine trees that continue to fall to the chainsaw in British Columbia. 

This article was produced in partnership with the Small Change Fund.

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Following intense pressure from local residents to do something about their community’s deteriorating drinking water, the mayor of the Okanagan community of Peachland has called on the provincial government for a “time out” on further logging of local watershed lands.

The request by Mayor Cindy Fortin was made in writing to Doug Donaldson, Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development one month ago, and flagged the community’s ongoing concerns with logging impacts on drinking water quality.

The letter only recently become public.

For years, Trepanier and Peachland creeks, the two creeks that Peachland residents rely on for their water, have been contaminated by fine particles of dirt that can mask potentially deadly pathogens, making the water unsafe to drink.

Many community residents believe that accelerated logging of the forests in the community’s watersheds caused their drinking water to become unsafe. As detailed in a recent investigation by The Narwhal, Peachland’s water grew markedly worse in the last decade and reached its lowest point in 2017 and 2018 after a mudslide below a logging road blocked Peachland Creek.

As a result, the community is now spending an estimated $24 million on a new water treatment plant and related infrastructure that many hope will be up and running in about one year’s time. Until then, local residents, like their counterparts in numerous other communities in the Okanagan region, live with the prospect of frequent boil water advisories.

Peachland’s main water supply comes from Peachland creek, its muddy waters seen here flowing into Okanagan Lake. Photo: Will Koop / The Narwhal

Mayor changes stance

Until recently, Fortin was reluctant to speak out forcefully on the issue, saying that a logging moratorium was too “lofty” a goal.

But recent presentations to council appear to have swayed her thinking. On June 26, she wrote to Donaldson asking that he halt the issuance of any new logging permits in the forested valleys that drain toward the community’s water intakes “so that the cumulative impacts on water quality, quantity and flow can be thoroughly examined.”

“This is huge. This is a big step,” said Taryn Skalbania, one of the community’s most vocal advocates for watershed protection and co-chair of the Peachland Water Protection Alliance. While Skalbania said the mayor’s letter falls short of what is needed, it is an important first step and may serve to motivate others in smaller rural communities like Glade and Grand Forks, which have also been the focus of investigations by The Narwhal, and where tensions run high over existing or proposed logging of watershed lands.

Taryn Skalbania stands in front of the Deep Creek Water Treatment Plant on McDougald Road in Peachland. A landslide occurred five mins off of McDougald Road and disrupted Peachland Creek, the town’s primary water supply. Photo: Travis Oleniak / The Narwhal

In response to calls from The Narwhal, Fortin said she understands the forest industry is important to the economy of the province, but that it has come at a steep price for her community.

“There’s been a lot of it. It almost seems like an increase in logging over the years,” Fortin said. “We’re not against forestry. We understand the economy of it and why it’s important, especially to the entire province. But it’s just that so much is happening up there that we’re really concerned that the cumulative effects are going to impair and affect our water. And we just can’t let that happen.”

A costly bind for small communities

Keith Fielding, a former mayor of Peachland and a current councillor, said the community is not alone in finding itself in a terrible bind when it comes to watershed lands.

In almost all cases, those lands are Crown or publicly owned and fall under the provincial government’s jurisdiction, not nearby communities. Communities have little or no say on the pace or kind of logging, yet are on the hook to pay for upgraded water treatment facilities in the event that logging or other land uses such as mining or cattle grazing degrade their water supplies.

“That is a problem. Especially for small communities that are faced with very large expenses for having appropriate drinking water. The standards are very high and are set by the health authority,” Fielding said. “And there is very little that smaller communities can do other than either look for government funding to build the necessary treatment plants or to plan for it (proactively building such plants) for a long period of time.”

Fielding, who worked for the City of Toronto until retiring and moving west 20 years ago, said Peachland always intended to build a water treatment plant. But the steady deterioration of the community’s water essentially forced the issue. Now, he says, the big problem is what happens if the water entering the new treatment plant continues to be muddy for months on end or gets even worse.

If watershed lands continue to be “denuded” by logging, he says, more water will run off logged lands faster, carrying more sediment with it.

“What we don’t want is for any problem to be exacerbated by additional, unwanted runoff,” Fielding said. “It just makes it worse, and it makes it more expensive for the water treatment plant to operate.”

Cumulative logging activities in Peachland’s watersheds have degraded the quality of drinking water. Map: Dave Leversee

Clean water No. 1 issue

Work done by the Peachland Water Protection Alliance and submitted to Peachland’s council prior to the damaging 2017 landslide noted that clean water ranked as the “number one issue for residents” and that nearly three in four of residents polled “wished for consistent, improved quality and quantity of water.”

In a June 27, 2017 request to Peachland’s council, the alliance noted that at that time the district faced spending $18.8 million “on the first phase” of a water system improvements that carried a combined price tag of $55 million.

“The district’s own website supports the Interior Health Authority’s recommendations that it is safer, cheaper and easier to protect water at its source, the watershed, than to treat it later at the plant intake,” read the request, signed by the alliance’s chairman, Joe Klein.

While Skalbania welcomed Fortin’s intervention, she said more specific things need to be demanded of Donaldson’s ministry.

She noted that in the current five-year planning period as many as 1,000 hectares more forest — the equivalent of two-and-a-half Stanley Parks — could be logged in Peachland’s watersheds. In addition, another 55 kilometres of logging roads could be built on watershed lands.

In a news release, the alliance said it “wholly supports” the mayor’s call for a pause in logging and said that current logging plans “will destroy much of what is left” of the community’s watershed lands.

“Already, more than 40 per cent of Peachland’s watershed is or ‘acts as a clearcut’ — meaning that past clearcuts have been replanted but that hydrologic recovery is only beginning,” the news release states.

Ray Travers, a retired professional forester and long-time provincial civil servant, is quoted in the release saying it’s time for the provincial government to act boldly and to consider special zoning of community watershed lands “to protect water and non-timber resources, similar to zoning already used in urban areas such as ALR (the provincial Agricultural Land Reserve) for farmland.”

The Narwhal filed several questions with Donaldson’s ministry.

Jeremy Uppenborn, a senior public affairs and media relations officer with the ministry, said the ministry had not yet received Fortin’s letter.

In an email, Uppenborn said that logging will likely continue on watershed lands.

“The province doesn’t plan to suspend harvesting approvals where proposed developments are consistent with legislative requirements, higher level land-use plans and professional assessment recommendations,” Uppenborn wrote.

Asked how the ministry plans to address cumulative impacts, Uppenborn said that a “hydrological assessment” of Peachland’s watersheds was carried out for the ministry by a “professional engineer” and that that report indicated “proposed” logging developments “were not considered to carry any major risk to water quality.”

Three companies currently have logging rights in the watershed, including Tolko, Gormon Bros. and the Westbank First Nation-owned company Ntityix Resources. Blocks of forest are also auctioned for logging in Peachland’s watershed under the auspices of BC Timber Sales, a provincial agency.

This article was produced in partnership with the Small Change Fund.

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The expanse of ragged stumps, stretching up a steep slope beside Schmidt Creek, on northeast Vancouver Island, serves as a graphic example of controversies over old-growth clearcuts approved by BC Timber Sales and a growing push-back from those who want better protection for intact forests.

The clearcut, above the world-famous Robson Bight orca rubbing beaches, has drawn the ire of conservation groups, whale biologists and First Nations provoking questions about how BC Timber Sales is assessing parcels of old growth for auction.

BC Timber Sales, which was created in 2003 by the Liberal government, manages 20 per cent of the province’s annual allowable cut, making it the biggest tenure holder in B.C. This year, the government agency plans to auction off about 600 hectares more old-growth forest on Vancouver Island, an area about 1.5 times the size of Stanley Park.  The agency has plans to auction off another 8,800 hectares in future years.

Old-growth trees are at least 250 years old and are prized by timber companies. As they become increasingly rare, BC Timber Sales is auctioning off parcels close to communities or recreation areas, meaning conflict is more likely, said Jens Wieting, Sierra Club BC’s forest and climate campaigner.

“They are running out of places to find timber where they can log without conflict, so they end up pursuing what I call extreme old-growth logging,” Wieting told The Narwhal.

Floods, droughts and fires are also shining a spotlight on the impacts of climate change, made worse by logging.

“These forests provide clean water, clean air and carbon storage,” Wieting said.

The mandate for BC Timber Sales puts the standalone agency in a straitjacket, Wieting said.

“Auction 20 per cent of B.C. volume no matter what. So, instead of using BC Timber Sales to develop and implement best practices in the midst of climate and species emergencies, they behave like a machine designed with a single purpose: find the fibre,” he said.

That is not how BC Timber Sales sees its mandate and, in an emailed response to questions from The Narwhal, a spokesperson said forestry practices are rooted in the precautionary principle and failing to auction off 20 per cent of the allowable annual cut would “put the integrity of the timber pricing system at risk.”

Wilderness Committee campaigner Torrance Coste in a BC Timber Sales old-growth clearcut in Thursday Creek, Upper Tsitika Valley. Photo: Louis Bockner / Sierra Club BC and Wilderness Committee

‘This is being done by the government of B.C.’

Still, there is no doubt that many recent logging decisions made by BC Timber Sales have provoked community outrage.

In addition to the Schmidt Creek logging, controversies include clearcut logging in the Skagit Doughnut Hole, beside Manning Park, which brought protests from the U.S and accusations that B.C. was breaking an international treaty; plans to log the old growth adjacent to Juan de Fuca Provincial Park, a proposal that is now on hold to allow consultations with the operator of a nearby eco-lodge; and clearcut logging in the Nahmint Valley, west of Port Alberni, where one of the biggest Douglas fir trees in Canada was felled, despite objections from conservation groups.

“The fact that this is being done by the government of B.C. should make everyone’s blood boil,” said Torrance Coste, Vancouver Island campaigner for the Wilderness Committee.

At the Schmidt Creek site, the immediate fear is that landslides and silt will harm the beaches where threatened northern resident killer whales rub themselves on the smooth pebbles.

“When you take that much wood and forest off a hillside, it’s a physical certainty that there will be earth erosion either from a major rainfall or from cumulative erosion,” said Mark Worthing, a Sierra Club BC climate and conservation campaigner, who visits Schmidt Creek regularly and dives in the water around the rubbing beaches.

When Worthing visited Schmidt Creek in June he was horrified to see the aftermath of logging, which had been carried out by Lamare Group of Port McNeill. The timber rights had been bought at auction last year from BC Timber Sales by Super-Cut Lumber Industries of Langley for more than $13 million.

“It was like a punch in the gut. They are just hammering this poor little valley,” Worthing said.

Renowned killer whale researcher Paul Spong, whose OrcaLab research station is on nearby Hanson Island, believes the logging will inevitably affect the rubbing beaches, which he describes as a massage parlour for whales, and he fears the cultural activity, passed down through generations of whales, could be disrupted.

There are already changes to the beaches and observers say whales are visiting for shorter periods of time.

Sierra Club BC campaigner Mark Worthing in a clearcut at Schmidt Creek. Photo: Torrance Coste / Wilderness Committee

Sierra Club BC campaigner Mark Worthing in old-growth rainforest slated for auction by BC Timber Sales in Tessium Creek. Photo: Louis Bockner / Sierra Club BC and Wilderness Committee

‘It’s business as usual’

It is difficult to understand why BC Timber Sales would approve logging in the area, especially as the Robson Bight Ecological Reserve was created in 1982 largely to protect the rubbing beaches, Spong said.

“We are very concerned because it is so central to the whales. … It’s outrageous that they are logging old-growth trees on steep slopes. I think they should just be left alone. It’s just common sense when you’re coming to the last of the old growth,” Spong said.

“I totally expected an NDP government to do things differently and, with respect to forestry and logging old growth, they are not doing things differently. It’s business as usual. It’s beyond disappointing.”

Logging in Schmidt Creek. Louis Bockner / Sierra Club BC and Wilderness Committee

In an emailed statement, BC Timber Sales told The Narwhal  the beaches were examined in 2016 by a regional geomorphologist who concluded that “carefully planned harvesting in Schmidt Creek is unlikely to affect the rubbing beaches.”

Initial observations suggest the beaches are eroding due to wave action, likely because of sea-level rise and severe storms, and there is no evidence of sediment affecting the beaches, the statement says.

While opponents of the clearcutting say silt will inevitably wash down on to the beach, BC Timber Sales says the logging is taking place in a side valley on slopes that are not directly above the beaches and that the Ecological Reserve includes 467 upland hectares, which protect the orca habitat.

The thorny question of Indigenous consent

Chief Rande Cook. Photo: Spartan Media Group Inc

Then there is the complicated question of Indigenous consent, with critics claiming that logging companies and BC Timber Sales are picking and choosing which Indigenous groups to consult.

Chief Rande Cook, known as Makwala, who heads the Ma’amtagila First Nation, said Schmidt Creek is in Tlowitsis-Ma’amtagila territory and he was devastated by the logging.

“I have never seen so many yellow cedar logs and there were some culturally modified trees that were cut down,” said Cook, who was not consulted about the logging plans.

There are long-standing differences of opinion between the Tlowitsis and Ma’amtagila people, Cook said.

“These people only want to consult with the First Nations they know they can get a pro-business outcome with,” he said.

In a statement, BC Timber Sales said the area had an archaeological overview assessment, a member of the Tlowtsis First Nation took part in field work during preliminary field reconnaissance and no culturally modified trees or areas with archaeological potential were identified.

The statement also said BC Timber Sales has adopted strategies to protect suitable red and yellow cedar for cultural purposes and to protect the province’s biggest trees, meaning more than 300 cedar and 66 legacy trees have been protected from harvesting, says the statement.

Jobs, jobs, jobs

Jobs and money are at the heart of many of the decisions and BC Timber Sales says that “approximately 8,000 people are directly and another 10,000 people are indirectly employed as a result of BCTS’ auction of timber, as well, the net revenue generated from these auctions are returned to the government so as to support many of the programs the government offers the citizens of B.C. Curtailing BCTS operations would have significant impacts on all British Columbians.”

But, more than twice the number of British Columbians work in tourism than in forestry and, on the streets, there are demonstrations demanding that the province halt old-growth logging, backed by a petition organized by Sierra Club BC and Leadnow, signed by 20,000 people. A letter last year from 223 international scientists urged the province to take immediate action to protect B.C.’s temperate rainforest and the B.C. Green Party is among the groups asking for a moratorium on old growth logging on Vancouver Island.

Sonia Furstenau, Green Party house leader, finds it disappointing that old-growth logging is continuing at the same rate as under the previous Liberal government.

“While there seems to be an acknowledgement that the world and conditions have changed very quickly, the practices aren’t (changing),” Furstenau told The Narwhal.

She’d like to see community forests form the basis of future forest policy.That would allow decisions to be made with input from residents and First Nations so the community is not undermined by decisions made at the provincial level, Furstenau said.

Climate change also needs to  be factored into all decisions, she added.

“We can’t just continue with business as usual and then see what happens. We know what’s going to happen,” she said.

The B.C. government is asking for input until July 15 to improve the Forest and Range Practices Act and the University of Victoria Environmental Law Centre, in a report for Sierra Club B.C., is calling for the same level of protection used in the Great Bear Rainforest to be used as a model for all the province’s forests — something the NDP included in its election promises.

The report also asks for more Indigenous input with agreements incorporating traditional ecological knowledge in all decisions.

“The B.C government should partner with the federal government to enable Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas and contribute to the international and national commitment to protect 17 per cent of the land by 2020,” it says.

Many are puzzled that logging practices have not changed under the NDP. TJ Watt, co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance, believes one difficulty is that there have been few staff changes within the Forests Ministry.

“I think the NDP is being given the same information around the incorrect idea that old-growth forests aren’t endangered and there’s nothing to worry about … when, in fact, we know that is not the case,” he said.

Furstenau agrees there has been little change within the ministry. “It’s very hard to change course in a radical or transformative way when you are still getting advice from the same people,” she said.

Louis Bockner / Sierra Club BC and Wilderness Committee

Louis Bockner / Sierra Club BC and Wilderness Committee

Estimates of the remaining old growth in B.C and the amount that is protected differ wildly, mainly depending on how old growth is defined.

The Environmental Law Centre report says that, across the province, in high-productivity areas, such as valley bottoms, less than 10 per cent of the original old growth remains and an even smaller amount is formally protected.

“On Vancouver Island, only about a fifth of the original productive old-growth rainforest remains unlogged. More than 30 per cent of what remained standing in 1993 has been destroyed in just the last 25 years,” it says.

Many of the contentious areas are on Vancouver Island and Forests Minister Donaldson has said that 50 per cent of old growth on Vancouver Island, or more than 520,000 hectares, is protected. But Wieting counters that Donaldson is referring to half the remaining old growth — therefore, in a bizarre twist, the more old growth that is logged, the higher the percentage of protected forest.

Watt said provincial figures include low-productivity forests that grow at high elevation or in bogs.

“Almost 80 per cent of the original productive old-growth forest and over 90 per cent of the low-elevation, high-productivity stands where the largest trees grow has already been logged,” Watt said.

This article was produced in partnership with the Small Change Fund.

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