Battle lines drawn over traffic-stopping trees

At Cathedral Grove, B.C. tries to balance safety for tourists against what's best for ancient stand of firs and cedars.

By MARK HUME - Globe and Mail
Monday, December 8, 2003 - Page A3

VANCOUVER -- The giant trees in Cathedral Grove, which were saved by a logging company executive who could not bear to see them cut, are so awe-inspiring that about one million visitors a year stop to gawk at them.

Generations of tourists have pulled over on Highway 4, between Port Alberni and Parksville on Vancouver Island, to have their pictures taken in front of the massive trunks or to run their hands over the rough bark of the 800-year-old trees.

But the enormous popularity of those huge trees, some with trunks nine metres thick, has created a traffic hazard in the small park. And now there's an environmental battle brewing over how best to protect both the trees and the people.

Annette Tanner of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee says a new parking lot slated for next spring will contribute to a problem that has been slowly eroding the 157-hectare park for years.

"Building that parking lot there will remove a buffer strip of timber, and there will be more blow-downs," said Ms. Tanner, referring to a situation in which winter storms, blasting in from the Pacific, knock over trees in the park.

In 1997, hundreds of trees, mostly along the exposed outer edges of Cathedral Grove, were uprooted by winds. Since then, storms have continued to whittle away at the towering grove of Douglas firs and Western red cedars in MacMillan Provincial Park. The park is named after H. R. MacMillan, a logging company president who donated the land to the government in 1944 because he didn't want to see it cut.

Ms. Tanner said logged areas, which give the winds a clear shot at the old-growth trees, now surround the park on most sides.

"It's increasingly exposed to blow-downs. It's a progressive problem," she said. "Last year 12 old trees came down, and this year six have come down."

Each tree that falls in this very special forest is considered a significant loss because of its age and size.
Ms. Tanner agrees a new parking lot is needed -- the existing pullouts along the narrow highway are overcrowded and dangerous -- but she argues it should be built outside park boundaries, in an area that has already been logged.

She also said the government should enlarge the park if it is going to encourage more tourists to stop.
"We want a new parking lot, but only if there's a bigger park."

Ms. Tanner said a logging company owns 400 hectares of forested land adjacent to Cathedral Grove and she is urging the government to buy it before it is cut.

The park is one of the best examples of old-growth forest on the West Coast and it is also the most accessible, thanks to the highway that snakes through its middle.

"It has been called the best drive-in rain forest in the world," Ms. Tanner said.

Joyce Murray, B.C.'s Minister of Water, Land and Air Protection, said it is that very feature, and the increasing traffic, that is forcing the government to act.

"The key concern here is public safety," she said. "There is no way to pull safely off the highway."

Ms. Murray said the new facility is being designed to minimize environmental impact, with provisions made to limit runoff and provide wildlife corridors. The government also looked at the wind problem.
"I've had two studies that say there will be no increased blow-down risk," she said.

Ms. Murray visited the park and personally looked at all the options before endorsing a parking lot plan that would have a minimal environmental footprint, she said.

"We have moved the location of the parking lot [in response to environmental concerns]. At this point it's time to go ahead with it because there are safety issues," she said.

The government, she added, is building the new lot on a 20-hectare parcel of land that it bought several years ago, anticipating just such a need. She said the park is actually bigger because of the parking lot, not smaller.

She ruled out buying the 400 hectares of old-growth forest nearby, saying it would cost "absolutely millions of dollars."

Mike Stini, a wildlife specialist, said he's convinced the new parking lot will harm a herd of elk that winters in Cathedral Grove.

"All that you have left [in the area] that's protected is this park. It's very small, and elk are already excluded from half the park by the trail system, because they don't tolerate human disturbance.

"When you put a parking lot in there you are eliminating the rest of the habitat."

He said tourists who stop to admire the trees rarely see the shy elk, but they are there in the winter; it's one of the few places they can get food.

"When these trees are young they generate toxins to stop animals from eating them. But when they get 100 feet high they don't need that protection and stop producing toxins. The litter falls from the canopy, and the elk eat it. They rely on this old growth for critical times in winter. They can't get the feed they need in logged areas.

"This whole thing is a big joke," he said. "In this day and age I thought we were beyond destroying land of high habitat value, especially in a park."