From the Rainforest: Renewed Threats to Clayoquot Sound

December 05-January 2006

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
To download a pdf copy of the magazine click here: > DOWNLOAD

by Dan Lewis

Pretty Girl Cove in Clayoquot Sound—part of Interfor’s logging tenure. © Jacqueline Windh photo.

Clayoquot Sound is the largest area of ancient temperate rainforest left on Vancouver Island, and a sea kayaker’s paradise. No wonder so many people assume it’s a protected area. But it’s not. Although one third of the area is in parks, it’s mostly rock, ice, bog and scrub forest that never would have been logged. The rest of Clayoquot is open to logging.

The Friends of Clayoquot Sound, our local conservation group, are celebrating the fact that International Forest Products (Interfor), which has the logging tenure for much of Clayoquot Sound, had a zero cut in the region’s ancient forests this year. Although they began building a road into an intact watershed at the headwaters of Hesquiat Lake at the northern end of the Sound, a flurry of public, media and market pressures were brought to bear, and Interfor stopped building the road. People involved in the campaign felt good knowing that they had helped to save this valley from the saws.

Then, Interfor’s engineers determined that logging the east side of Bedwell Sound would not be economically viable, so that area is also safe for now. This is the viewscape looking north from Tofino to the glaciers of Strathcona Park. It is steep country that would have been helicopter logged, leaving scars that would have been visible for decades. Interfor also stayed out of Satchie Creek near Hesquiat Lake, and beautiful Sulphur Pass, which is on the way to Hot Springs Cove.

However, just when things were starting to look good for this year, Interfor released their Management Plan at the end of August, and the plan does not look good. Back in 1993 when the provincial government decided to allow two-thirds of Clayoquot Sound to be clearcut, they knew there would be massive public outrage. They attempted to soften the blow by promising ‘world class logging standards’. In 1995 the blue ribbon Scientific Panel they commissioned announced the new standards—certainly not the best in the world, but a huge step forward from the way rainforests were being logged at the time.

After ten years of logging under these new Scientific Panel standards, Interfor now claims they cannot make ends meet, even with subsidies on the stumpage fees they pay the government for the trees they cut. So they are asking the government to ‘relax’ some of the recommendations of the Clayoquot Sound Scientific Panel.

Among other things, they are asking to be permitted to log right down to the banks of some streams (which will inevitably have a negative impact on fish-bearing streams), and to triple the width of cutblocks (which are already permitted to be of any length). They also want to reduce the size of forest reserves left for Marbled Murrelets, a sea bird that nests in old growth forest and is on Canada’s threatened species list.

Every winter Clayoquot Sound is repeatedly hammered by severe storms with high winds which often blow trees down. In fact, this is the major disturbance regime here, as forest fires are rare in rainforests. In areas prone to blowdown, Interfor proposes to create larger clearcuts, that is, cut the trees down, because they might blow down if left behind. They also want to be able to ‘salvage’ trees which blow down along the edge of cutblocks, which can lead to larger openings than planned.

Interfor also hopes to be allowed to double the rate of cut in small valleys. Right now they can only cut ten percent of a valley in ten years. They would like to cut twenty percent percent within twenty years. That means they could log twenty percent of a valley in one year, then stay out of it for 19 years.

Clearly Interfor can see the writing on the wall. They know that public opinion is against them. As each year passes, and global warming becomes more obvious, the idea of logging the Earth’s few remaining ancient forests seems more ludicrous. They know they won’t be cutting in Clayoquot’s ancient forests 10 or 20 years down the line, so they want permission to get in now and get the wood out before it’s too late. They are truly setting up for a sprint to the finish line.

I ronically, the Scientific Panel recommendations were actually meant to be reviewed and updated. The correct procedure for Interfor to follow would be to submit their suggestions for changes to a Technical Planning Committee. They are trying to circumvent this process by putting the request into their Management Plan and asking the Ministry of Forests to approve it directly. This could lead to a snowball effect as other tenure holders could ask for the same rollbacks in order to remain competitive.

This bodes poorly for Clayoquot Sound and for the area of British Columbia’s mainland coast known as the Great Bear Rainforest, where Interfor also holds tenure. In the conservation plan now awaiting government approval, ecosystem-based management is supposed to compensate for the small size of the protected landbase.

Interfor claims they cannot make enough profit under the Scientific Panel standards. In my mind this proves that the plan to log Clayoquot Sound was flawed from the outset. Even Interfor acknowledges that Clayoquot Sound is “frequently cited for its unparalleled wilderness, biodiversity and recreational value”. Interfor’s request to lower environmental standards in order to increase profitability indicates that the provincial government ought to revisit their decision to log Clayoquot Sound at all.

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Editor’s Note: Dan’s article is a reminder that we should only use wood and paper products from sustainable sources.

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