Carmanah Forestry Society is designing a campaign to preserve
endangered species habitat (red and blue listed) on the East
Coast of Vancouver Island. If you have ideas, energy, time or
funds to contribute to this campaign please <contact
us>
The east coast of Vancouver Island contains
some of the rarest forest on earth and we are loosing it daily.
Most of the old growth was cut a hundred years ago, and the
remaining old growth areas are listed as G1 meaning that they
are globally significant for the red listed plants and plant
communities. Most of the endangered species including the Vancouver
Island marmot have been extirpated and the marmot is all but
extinct as it’s natural habitat has almost all been logged.
There will also be various insects and …..that have yet
to be identified that would make their habitat exclusively in
what would be knows as the dry Douglas Fir Belt, or Coastal
Douglas Fir (CDFmm) moist maritime.
We believe that all of the remaining G1 lands
should be procured or protected by covenant so that they can
serve as genetic pools to re-innoculate the second growth forest
as they grow into developing old growth characteristics, but
that is not happening, and any old-growth campaign for the coast
will require a serious effort to rescue and protect the older
second growth stands which have been almost “logged out”
over the past decade under the former NDP government. Then Forest
Minister Andrew Petter, refused to apply the Forest Practices
Code Act of British Columbia to private lands as scheduled and
the natural loss of Marmot habitat as well as the decimation
of the mature Coastal Douglas Fir stands stands as a symbol
of his refusal to have the courage to make a difficult decision
as well as those forest ministers that followed him.
The provincial government owns approximately
10% of the lands within this area and they have been made into
woodlots and timber sale areas. Ken Matthews, RPF is the Timber
Sales Manager for the BC Timber Sales, Strait of Georgia Business
Unit, 370 South Doggwood, Campbell River, BC V9Y 6Y7, and he
is in charge of the liquidation of mature second growth forests
that should be protected and allow to grow back into old forests
and eventually old growth forests. (see extracts of the <Mackinnon-Holt
Old Growth Strategy for Southeast Vancouver Island Report>,
prepared for the Ministry of Forests and the Ministry of Sustainable
Resource Management.) This would allow for the re-introduction
of various species including those such as the Marbled Murrelet
and others that no longer have sufficient habitat. These forest
could also serve as recreation areas and in fact many do as
this is the area of land where the people of Vancouver Island
live for the most part.
Recently the Lannam forest, enjoyed for lifetimes
by the people of Courtney-Comox was sold off to be for the most
part logged and converted to a golf course. Ironically, the
people chose to raise public funds to attempt to purchase it
from our provincial government who had incorrectly sold it to
the successful applicant, but illegally. The golf course outbid
the people who were in the silly position of buying back our
public land! This sort of wholesaling of the public assets is
being replicated in other parts of the East Coast and people
are furious to see their rural areas being urbanized with huge
residential developments being approved on public land which
is being sold off without any public input.
Carmanah Forestry Society is launching this
campaign with an effort to rescue block 0109 from being logged
in it’s present form. It is a small island of mature forest
near Cassidy (Nanaimo Land Unit) and is fully approved for logging.
It has the … and ….timber types, which are just beginning
to develop into an uneven aged forest, with Oregon Grape, Vanilla
Leaf, ….. and other red-listed plant communities. CFS has
already applied for the <Forest
Practices Board (FPB to launch an appeal >, but they
refused, as they say there is <insufficient law> to successfully
appeal logging even though the plant communities (forest eco-system)
is listed as red-listed by the< Conservation Data Centre
web site>, which is maintained to keep record of the red
and blue listed species across the province, presumably to protect
the necessary habitat. We have filed a complaint as we did <two
years ago> to cease logging these areas and that complaint
is being investigated by the FPB.
We have a benefactor, and he has offered to
pay for an injunction, and our lawyer Cameron Ward, who successfully
defeated the government in the Cathedral Grove issue is ready
to run with it, but there is no law.
Instead, we are filing complaints to the Association
of Professional Foresters of British Columbia, as their <bylaws>
demand that their members do not approve or participate in planning
that would adversely affect Species at Risk. They have developed
programs and papers to <educate their members>, and we
commend them for taking this action and encourage the public
to join us in educating foresters that they will be punished
if they cooperate with the provinces extinction of species policy.
We have also approached the Federal Environment
Minister, David Anderson, and he has stated that he will do
something to assure that these extirpations stop and a program
is established and he needs encouragement <write Anderson
and Martin>. We have also made initial contact with corporations
such as Weyerhaeuser, (who we have advised and been in communication
for 5-6 years) in an attempt to have them behave responsibly
and encourage other private corporations and landowners to work
cooperatively with ourselves, and other conservation groups,
as well as all levels of government to create an East Coast
Species Survival Plan.
Unfortunately at this time, the provincial
government is committed to timber sales to balance their budgets
and maintain what has been know as the Social Contract or Social
Decision. This mistaken belief by forest managers is taking
place under the Vancouver Island Land Use Plan or VILUP. Carmanah
Forestry Society and many other Vancouver Island based groups,
some of which have gone extinct attended the Vancouver Island
Resource Targets planning meetings and were given three months
to perform 10 years worth of work under the process rich NDP
which have since been driven from power. The present government
is continuing under the same flawed planning and logic.
This website is being developed so that you
can learn more about these issues and help the local people
organize and fight them.
