War In The Walbran

Black bear in the Upper Walbran Valley stand to lose more old growth habitat if Teal Jones has its way.
Photo: TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance

For Immediate Release - June 8, 2015

Wilderness Committee Discovers Logging Maps for Walbran
War in the Woods could return as logging company targets Walbran Valley

by Wilderness Committee

Some of Canada's most ecologically significant old-growth cedar threatened by Teal Jones


VICTORIA – One of Canada's most important old-growth rainforests is under direct threat of clearcut logging. New maps obtained by the Wilderness Committee show logging company Teal Jones has laid out eight new cutblocks in the central Walbran Valley on Vancouver Island, a focal point of the War in the Woods for decades.

In recent years, Teal Jones' logging operations have been targeting old-growth and edging closer to the iconic Castle Grove, the finest stand of monumental cedar trees in the Walbran Valley. The new proposed cutblocks surround Castle Grove in an unprotected area on the north side of the Walbran River, near the boundary of Carmanah-Walbran Provincial Park.

"Intact old-growth forests of this size are incredibly rare and endangered – so much has been cut, and we have a moral responsibility to protect the little that's left," said Torrance Coste, Vancouver Island Campaigner with the Wilderness Committee.

"The north side of the Walbran River should be completely off-limits to industrial logging.
This area has been ground zero for the War in the Woods in the past, and that's exactly the level of conflict Teal Jones is choosing by moving into this area now," Coste added.

The Wilderness Committee contacted Teal Jones last fall, after finding new surveying tape in the Walbran Valley. The environmental group highlighted the importance and scarcity of old-growth forests of this type, and asked Teal Jones to shift its operations into less contentious areas elsewhere in its large forest tenure (TFL 46).

"Teal Jones disregarded our request and set its proposed cutblocks in the worst possible locations," Coste explained.

"This company has proven it cares about nothing but its profits. It's time for the provincial government to step in before Teal Jones does more damage in the Walbran Valley."

Intact old-growth forests provide habitat for endangered species, act as a storage sink for climate-changing carbon and possess irreplaceable cultural and recreational values. These values far surpass the forests' value as wood products.

The central Walbran Valley is in unceded Nuu-chah-nulth territories. The Wilderness Committee is calling for a solution that protects the extremely rare old-growth ecosystems and ensures First Nations' access to traditional resources.

                                                                     
For more information, contact:

Torrance Coste | Vancouver Island Campaigner, Wilderness Committee
(250) 516-9900, [torrance@wildernesscommittee.org]

Additional resources:

Central Walbran Valley map showing proposed logging - June 2015 [https://www.wildernesscommittee.org/sites/all/files/CentralWalbran_Map_June2015_0.pdf]

Walbran Valley photos from unprotected areas [https://www.wildernesscommittee.org/victoria/walbran_valley_photos_2015]

Old-growth logging photos from Walbran Valley - March 2013 [https://www.wildernesscommittee.org/victoria/walbran_valley_old_growth_logging_photos_march_2013]

The Wilderness Committee is Canada's largest membership-based, citizen-funded wilderness preservation organization. We work for the preservation of Canadian and international wilderness through research and grassroots education. The Wilderness Committee works on the ground to achieve ecologically sustainable communities.

Sooke Sitka Spruce

A Sitka spruce framed by Western red-cedars

Sitka spruce is the largest spruce variety in the world, growing up to 100 meters tall in places like Vancouver Island's Carmanah Valley where Canada's tallest spruce trees live.

However, it is not a dominant tree in the Sooke region and over most of Vancouver Island away from the wild west coast.

In fact, the easterly-most concentration of Sitka spruce trees in this area can be found in the Royal Roads old growth forest in Colwood, about 25 minutes from Sooke. Although the spruce trees get by in the Royal Roads forest, they are dominated by the more plentiful (and larger) Douglas firs.

Dark green = prime habitat, light green = marginal habitat.

Sooke lies in a transition zone between the dryer Douglas-fir ecozone to the east, and the wetter Western hemlock zone to the west (where the salt-tolerant Sitka are common along the coast). While Sitka spruce are not plentiful here, but some nice specimens can be found, often up river valleys or fringing beaches on the ocean.

Sitka spruce bark is reddish-brown and forms large, loose scales

Sitka spruce are the fastest growing trees in the coastal forest, and can live up to 800 years. Some nice specimens can be found up the Sooke River, as well as in the Muir Creek old growth forest.

Sitka spruce have a beautiful shape

Logging In Walbran Valley May Threaten Champion Red Cedar

The Castle Giant (5 meter diameter, and registered Champion), is a Western red-cedar in the unprotected
Upper Walbran Valley, that may be threatened by logging. photo: T.J. Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance

The wilderness of Vancouver Island is an unusual landscape where industrial clear cuts boarder shrinking areas of pristine old growth.

On one side, the sounds of chain saws, helicopters, and monster trucks carrying now-inert ancient trees; and on the other, mist floating through a 10,000 years old ecosystem, wetting the rain coast undergrowth. Pileated woodpeckers call from the fluted trunks of massive thousand year old cedars.

I have not visited the big trees of Vancouver Island's back country as much as I would like this past summer. Considering that, I appreciate the work of the people who are out 'in the bush', navigating dusty washboard gravel roads shared with loaded logging trucks, to visit the old growth and report back to the rest of us.

The adventurous forests defenders of Victoria-based Ancient Forest Alliance are examples of individuals that are acting as our eyes in endangered old growth rain forest areas. They drive to rough and rugged foggy places where few dare to tread (although more all the time), and often the information they bring back is vital and disturbing.

One of their most recent field trips was no different.

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

“Castle Grove is ground zero for the ancient forest movement on southern Vancouver Island, both historically and today,” said Ken Wu, Ancient Forest Alliance executive director. “To try and log it is insanity — it will only escalate the war in the woods to a whole new level,” he said.

The logging tape, marked “falling boundary,” is less than 50 metres from the Castle Giant, said Alliance campaigner TJ Watt who discovered the tape." - read more here

It seems that no one in government, or the company that operates in the area (Teal Jones Group of Surrey), knows anything about logging activity in the area in question. Or at least they aren't willing to speak to why the area has been flagged for falling.

The Teal Jones Group is a private logging company whose website states that the organization "recognizes that only through respect for all aspects of our environment can we consistently achieve our objectives and commitments in the long term productivity and conservation of natural resources."

However, cutting trees up to 1000 years plus does not show respect. And then planting a few seedlings doesn't cut it, unless they are planning on letting the seedlings grow for the next several hundred to 1000 years before they harvest again.

How about even 250 years? This is about the time required for the coastal forest to mellow into the next old growth phase, and attain a level of biomass not seen in any other ecosystem.

No, the next harvest here, in order for logging companies like Teal Jones to 'achieve their objectives' of increasing profits, will be in 60 to 80 years.

Once it is logged, the old growth forest and all the diversity that goes with it is gone forever. That is why it is so important to save what is left, including the Upper Walbran Valley's Castle Grove and champion trees like the Castle Giant.

Say NO to old growth logging.

The Carmanah Giant

The Carmanah Giant: Diameter - 3 m (10ft), Height - 95 m (315ft), Age - 500 to 700 years

The Carmanah Giant is a monumentally tall Sitka spruce growing in the Carmanah Creek canyon in Carmanah/Walbran Provincial Park. It is the tallest tree in Canada, and the tallest Sitka spruce in the world. The Giant lives in one of the tallest forests on the planet, and is an excellent example of the vanishing primeval forest that once blanketed Vancouver Island.

The trees of the Carmanah and Walbran watersheds escaped the saw for a long time due to their remote location on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. But the arrival of the timber cruisers, bulldozers, road builders, and fallers was inevitable, and in the 1980s they finally came. 

If it were not for conservation efforts, starting with Randy Stoltmann, this magnificent tree and all its neighbours would have surely been razed in a clear cut that would have represented a huge global loss. It would have been a loss, as well, to the pairs of endangered Marbeled murrelets that nest only on the huge branches of old growth trees.

I am glad this incredible tree and the forest in which it grows were saved from impending destruction. However, the Carmanah Giant is not in the "See Them" category of big trees. Visitation to some parts of this park, including the Carmanah Giant, is discouraged in order to avoid the devastating potential results of unregulated access.

Even though I feel the lure of the big trees, many individual trees get loved to death by tourists. For me it is good enough to know that the Carmanah Giant is out there, growing, thriving, and perpetuating 12,000 years of continuous forest processes and cycles.

Photo credit: Iriemaan