The World is Watching: Protect Old Growth Forests in B.C.

Myth: Old growth logging is a thing of the past.

Reality: Wrong

Tens of thousands of hectares of ancient forests are logged each year in BC, resulting in a huge climate and environmental footprint. 

In the past 150 years on BC’s southern coast – Vancouver Island and the southwest mainland – 75% of the original, productive old-growth forests have already been logged, including over 90% of the valley bottoms where the largest trees grow.

Click for more information at Ancient Forest Alliance, which is leading the campaign to save what little old growth remains.

Thank you, AFA! 

Consider a donation while you are there. They need our help.

Standing Up For Big Trees In Fairy Creek Valley

"If you wanna see real change, you're gonna have to stand up for it."

- Old growth protector at roadblock camp

Old growth forest protectors are standing up for big trees near Port Renfrew (Big Tree Capital of Canada) and blockading the construction of new logging roads into Fairy Creek Valley, the last pristine valley outside of a park on southern Vancouver Island.

In a saner world we would not allow the destruction of such a treasure on Vancouver Island's south coast. But we don't live in a sane world. 

Yet. 

When those that work for us in government fail in their responsibility to protect what is collectively ours, it is up to us to be the real stewards of the land, and protect its inherent right to be. 

If our public servants in government won't speak for a voiceless and defenceless nature, we have to.

Case in point is what is happening outside of Port Renfrew, town to an area long known for its (disappearing) big trees. There, just a few kilometres outside of town, Teal Jones is hacking through previously unhacked forest on their way to get to a pristine valley of big, ancient trees. 

The valley contains an ancient forest that has existed, relatively unchanged, since the last ice age, 10,000 years ago. It is a unique, irreplaceable ecosystem.

Some of the ancient yellow cedars there could be upwards of 2000 years old. 

Cutting trees that old in 2020, when we know better, should be an obvious crime against nature, and all around excellent example of the ongoing ecocide currently plaguing our planet.

Show me nature that has been preserved and protected from industrial butchery, and I will show you a scrappy, dedicated group of caring people that put their bodies on the line to do what is right.

It was such citizen groups dedicated to direct action that saved places like Clayoquot, Elaho, Stein Valley, Carmanah, Strathcona Park, and so many more beautiful places.

Respect, and a heartfelt thanks, to everyone on the Fairy Valley logging road blockades.

We appreciate you standing up for some of the last remaining old growth on south Vancouver Island. 

We support you 100%.

Moving On

This is my new forest - the Acadian Forest of Nova Scotia.

The Vancouver Island Big Trees blog began as a way to share my experiences visiting some of the biggest trees around Victoria, Sooke and up West Coast Road to Port Renfrew and beyond. I wanted it to be both a celebration of the west coast's primal forests and trees, and a warning that if we don't start fighting for what is left, it will be gone forever.

Even before moving to the Pacific temperate rain forest for a decade, I visited from the prairies annually from the time I was old enough to drive. It was then that I fell in love with walking the beaches and forest trails of Vancouver Island. I found the trees to be huge and magical.

When I started this blog I lived in the midst of big tree country in the former logging town of Sooke, BC. Even after 20 years of exploring the big trees, I was still mystified how a human that would be lucky to get 100 years, could destroy a tree 1000s of years old.

Over this time I have been rewarded by ancient tree encounters that were life changing, as well as encounters with the ugly side of industrial liquidation and government neglect, that were equally as moving.

I have since moved to my new forest, and one that is perhaps not as tall, but every bit as magical - the Acadian forest of Nova Scotia. They are smaller, but there are big trees here, too. And the diversity of trees in this forest is an amazing thing that will keep me busy learning for years to come.

Nova Scotian forests are also under relentless assault from industrial, profit-minded businesses that don't care if they are destroying an entity that has been living and thriving since the last ice age. It is too bad, because in Canada this forest is every bit as unique as the great Western Rainforest of Vancouver Island.

This is not boreal forest (the largest intact forest left on our planet... for now). It is not the great deciduous forest of the southern USA. This forest is a unique blend of both, and I intend on exploring it every bit as much as I did the forest out west.

Having said that, I do like to keep up on what is happening in the west coast forest, and plan on doing the occasional post on this blog as well. In the meantime, I hike and photograph the Acadian Forest looking for the biggest of the big trees out here.

You can visit my new blog, "Acadian Forest Big Trees" here. I hope to add to it and develop the same following this blog has had since 2009. Thank you to everyone that has made keeping this blog so satisfying. Your interest, and visits, are appreciated.

Long live the big trees, wherever they may be.

Killing Ancient Trees Until They Are All Gone

You have to work hard to bring down an ancient red cedar that has been standing
in the primal forest for a thousand years, or more.

I found the photo above on a friend's Facebook account. It reportedly depicted a logging incident sometime recently on Vancouver Island. 

Like so much on social media, one can not be sure of what one is seeing. Is it one tree, or two? Even if it two, these represent large, old trees, the likes of which are disappearing in our coastal temperate forests.

Upon doing a bit of research, I found information that lent some credibility to this photo and the time in which is was taken. I hoped that it was a photo from decades ago when we were less enlightened. Maybe it is.

But the fact of the matter is that B.C.'s old growth trees, most of which are massive and ancient, continue to be cut down. When these trees go, so goes the health of the forest ecosystem.

When do we stop? Is the plan to cut all old growth down, for the profit of Wall Street hedge funds? What will the logging industry do then? 

Whatever they plan on doing when the old growth is driven to extinction, should be done now. BEFORE all the big, old trees are gone.

At this point, all remaining old growth forests on Vancouver Island and the B.C. mainland are worth much more left standing than they are by cutting them down. People want to see these magical forests. There is no such thing as a magical clearcut.

If we allow corporate logging interests to kill the ancient trees until they are all gone, B.C., and the world, will be at a great loss. Our ancestors will wonder what was wrong with us, and why we allowed such beautiful living things to be liquidated.

Salvaging The Last Of The Cedar

This fallen cedar makes a good bench along the Sooke River

You can tell how valuable cedar wood is by the lengths that people will go to harvest these quintessential rain forest trees. Such is the story up the Sooke River where a nice Western red cedar gave in to gravity and fell into the water.


It did not lay there for long before someone brought in a chainsaw to take the log, which could be used for a wide variety of purposes from beams to boxes.

There are still a few old growth cedars left along the Sooke River, one of
Vancouver Island's largest rivers.

The cut log would have had to be floated down the river to the harbour, a distance of a couple of kilometres, where it could be plucked from the water.

The cedar's roots were undercut by the river till it could no longer stand.

A spear of cedar remains upright, a monument to
the cedar's original destination.

Heartwood of cedar shows its beautiful grain and texture. 

The wood of cedar is sturdy, rot resistant, and smells nice. These qualities, coupled with greed, have doomed the big trees to extinction. The Americans have already lost theirs as the big cedars along the coast of California, Oregon and Washington were consumed long ago.

Now logging companies are targeting the last big cedars remaining, which can be found in British Columbia. More specifically, on Vancouver Island where the largest of these large trees grow. Many of the trees cut down are exported as whole logs to overseas markets. There goes the neighbourhood.

The cut log is a nice place to sit under the feathery cedars,
and watch small salmon in the river below.

Although the tree in the river was probably not more than a few hundred years old, and relatively small as cedars go, it was still worth the substantial effort that it must have taken to cut and remove this tree from the forest along the river.

It will take similar efforts to halt the logging of our remaining old growth Western red cedars and Yellow cedars on Vancouver Island and the rest of British Columbia. 

Consider boycotting products made from first growth trees that could be upwards of a thousand years old. These ancient trees are an important part of not only the forest ecosystem, but also First Nations culture and way of life.

Vancouver Island and Lower Mainland Primal Forests Almost Gone

Pre-1800s

The Ancient Forest Alliance released a recent survey of old growth forests on Vancouver Island and the southwest mainland.  The before and after maps show the pre-European primal forest, and what is left 165 years later.

The most productive temperate coastal rainforest in the world reduced to clear cuts and tree farms in less than two centuries.

What is left of some of the biggest trees the planet has ever seen continue to be cut, both 'legally' and illegally. While what the government and logging companies have been doing may be technically legal, it is certainly not moral.

I don't think we have the right to destroy an entire ecosystem. I believe the word for it is ecocide, and as far as I'm concerned, all the "cides" are pretty horrible and should be avoided at all costs.

What was left in 2012 

The statistics are sobering and indicate the necessity of ending old growth logging in British Columbia immediately. The following numbers tell the sad tale of resource depletion in our forests.


Old-Growth (OG) Forest Statistics - SOUTHERN COAST (ie. Vancouver Island and SW Mainland)
From: Ancient Forest Alliance

Original Total OG: 5.5 million hectares
Low Productivity OG: 2.2 million hectares
Original Productive OG: 3.3 million hectares
Remaining Productive OG: 860,000 hectares (26% of original)
In Parks - Productive OG: 200,000 hectares (6% of original)
In Parks and OGMA's - Productive OG: 260,000 hectares (8% of original)


Valley Bottom*, Highest Productivity Old-Growth - SOUTHERN COAST (ie. Vancouver Island and SW Mainland)

Original: 360,000 hectares
Remaining: 31,000 hectares (9% of original)
In Parks: 9,400 hectares (2.6% of original)
In Parks and OGMA's: 11,700 hectares (3.2% or original)

* Low, Flat Terrain Under 300 meters elevation, under 17% slope

The primal forests on Vancouver Island and the lower mainland are just about gone. Along with them went an entire ecosystem that is unlikely to return as long as profit is the only guide in forestry decision making.

The magnificent old growth forests have been industrialized. Although theses areas remain rugged, they are not really wilderness any more. The second and third and fourth growth trees in the plantations will be laid down on a 60 year cycle in perpetuity by companies with headquarters in New York, where all the profits and benefits will fall.

In these parts it takes about 250 years for a productive valley bottom forest to acquire the characteristics of an old growth regime. Barring fire (rare in the coastal forest) or human greed, such forests can continue for thousands of years.

The primal forest here began after the last glaciers retreated about 10,000 years ago. It survived in all its majesty until the 1800s when Europeans arrived.

Can we save the little bits that remain?


Visit the Ancient Forest Alliance website to donate, write a letter, and/or sign their petition.

Take Us To Your Tree People

"Sorry, we are looking for intelligent life forms with patience and a sustainable, cooperative attitude."

"Greetings gentle tree people, carriers of sustainable, cooperative approaches to living. You have so much to share. If we were looking for a cooperative, sustainable model to emulate, your forest ecosystem would be unsurpassed.

Thousands of species working together in perfect harmony resulting in a stable system that can last little unchanged for many eons. Until those pesky suit-wearing humans intervene."

Intelligent life forms know that driving entire ecosystems to extinction is not a good idea. Here is hoping that the new year brings you, the enlightened reader, plenty of forest experiences that motivate you to join the growing chorus to save the last of the old growth on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and around the world.

Happy new year. Happy better year.


"Beam me up. After they killed all the trees there's no intelligent life left down here."

50% of World's Forests Logged

With 50% of the world's forests already affected by logging, it is important that we take responsibility for caring for what is left. There are things that each of us can do to help save our forests.

Saving for all the other living things that depend on it, for future generations of humans to use and enjoy, and for the simple fact that forests as 'super-organisms' have the right to exist unimpeded by greed and mismanagement.

Each of us can do things to help save the world's forests:

• be conscious of how we are using paper and other wood products - don't waste, recycle
• buy wood products to last - a good wood cutting board could last generations if cared for properly
• only buy certified wood products
• refuse to use single use paper products
• go paperless - printers cost a lot to maintain. We got rid of ours, and if we really need to print something out we go to the public library.
• if you own a forest, practice good stewardship - you are only borrowing it from future generations
• lobby politicians for an end to old growth logging - some countries have already put a moratorium on old growth logging, such as Japan and New Zealand.
• consider alternatives to wood as a building material - steel, concrete, straw bale...
• get out and visit big trees and old growth areas - let people know you value these special places

Why We Can't Save Our Last Old Growth

Logging? What logging?

It may be cynical, but I often wonder if anyone is actually paying attention to what is happening globally to our original forests, the likes of which we may never see again.

It is a fact that life is complicated, with many distractions. But let us look at the facts of what we are losing while being consumed by all our trivial things.

• Vancouver Island has lost over 75% of its productive old growth forests, including 90% of the valley bottoms where the biggest trees and richest biodiversity are found.
• continued old growth logging below 30% of intact forests creates a high probability of massive species loss 
• 99% of the old growth coastal Douglas-fir forest on Vancouver Island has been logged already 
• some of the biggest, tallest, and oldest trees on earth are still being logged in British Columbia

Governments and multinational logging companies are planning on taking 100% of our original forests. If we don't wake up and stop them, who will?

The Wonders Of Big Trees

"The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe
about us,the less taste we shall have for its destruction."
- Rachel Carson

During winter I usually do more big tree hunting online than I do in the field. Every once in a while a really big specimen emerges from the digital background, like the one above. It is a monumental big tree that was not identified, although I had some good ideas as to its type and location. It was a big tree mystery.

It was not difficult to find other photos of the giant. As I suspected, the tree is a Coastal redwood. Several other pictures of the tree on the web indicate that it is in Jedediah Smith State Park in California.

California has the largest trees in the world. If it weren't for them, Vancouver Island would hold this distinction.

However, size doesn't matter so much - it is all about paying attention to the wonders and realities of big trees, wherever they are.

If A Tree Falls, Does Anybody Hear?

"Felling A BC Fir Tree", 1920. Photo: University of British Columbia

Written in 1988, the hit single "If A Tree Falls" from the album Big Circumstance raised awareness of the destruction under way in the world's rain forests. Now, over 20 years later, the destruction continues.

If A Tree Falls, Bruce Cockburn (1988)

Rain forest
Mist and mystery
Teeming green
Green brain facing labotomy
Climate control centre for the world
Ancient cord of coexistence
Hacked by parasitic greedhead scam -
From Sarawak to Amazonas
Costa Rica to mangy B.C. hills -
Cortege rhythm of falling timber.

What kind of currency grows in these new deserts,
These brand new flood plains?

If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
Anybody hear the forest fall?

Cut and move on
Cut and move on
Take out trees
Take out wildlife at a rate of species every single day
Take out people who've lived with this for 100,000 years -
Inject a billion burgers worth of beef -
Grain eaters - methane dispensers.

Through thinning ozone,
Waves fall on wrinkled earth -
Gravity, light, ancient refuse of stars,
Speak of a drowning -
But this, this is something other.
Busy monster eats dark holes in the spirit world
Where wild things have to go
To disappear
Forever

If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
Anybody hear the forest fall?

Quotes by Bruce Cockburn about his song If A Tree Falls:

"When I wrote that song they were cutting down the Amazon rain forest to put in cattle. But that didn’t work out, and the next thing you know they’re planting soybeans. But they’re still cutting down the forests, and they’re still displacing the natives. Corn for the biodiesel trade, that’s the new big thing. You can’t win. You create all this awareness about one aspect of the problem, but as soon as you think you have a foot on top of that, it squeezes out from under and morphs into something else." (2010)

"My exposure to rain forest, with the except on one brief day in Australia, has been in the Northwest, the western coast of North America, which is as much rain forest as anything else. It's just not tropical. So a lot of the time when people talk about the rain forest, they don't realize that they are also talking about the large groves that grow on the west coast of Canada and North America." (1997) 

"A lot of critics didn't like that song. They felt it was too pedantic and I was being too literal and I was 'stretching my metaphors too far'. I have a two-word response for those people." (1989) - source

2012 - The Year We End The Old Growth Slaughter

There are people who want to destroy all of the earth's original forests for short term profit. I, like Bruce Cockburn, have a two-word response for them. 

Actually I have several two-word answers, the nicest being, "Hell, NO!". 

Let's make 2012 the year that we stop the ongoing greedy, senseless, selfish, slaughter of our old growth forests.

Renfrew's Avatar Grove Moves Closer To Protected Status

Lower Avatar Grove, Port Renfrew, BC

It is rare to find large sections of old growth forest on southern Vancouver Island - 90% of the original forest has been logged, and ancient trees continue to fall. Forested areas with trees over 500 years old are rare.

But old growth forest is what Victoria resident TJ Watt found when he noticed the grey, weathered spires of ancient Western red-cedars from a well-traveled logging road near Port Renfrew, a former logging town. The big trees were dubbed Avatar Grove. With the help of Watt and the Ancient Forest Alliance, we learned that the grove was surveyed and flagged for cutting.

Avatar Grove ancient candelabra cedars

After a very successful campaign, Ancient Forest Alliance is reporting that the BC government is making moves to protect the grove of mind-blowing trees, some of which are over 1000 years old.

"The popularity of Avatar Grove, as it was named in a brilliant branding move, has convinced the British Columbia government to protect the area – and it may yet lead to a rethinking of how the province manages its oldest forests." - Globe and Mail

Thousands of visitors to the grove are witnessing the grandeur of accessible old growth, a rarity on southern Vancouver Island.

With your support, we can push for fully protected status for Avatar Grove and other areas of precious old growth ecosystems.

Ancient forests are far more valuable standing than when cut to fuel our short-term, insatiable demands for more.

Ancient Forests Worth More Standing

British Columbia's remaining ancient forests felt a cold wind shudder through today as local newspapers announced that China has surpassed the USA as our largest lumber market. Their burgeoning economy and growing middle class are putting prized wood at a premium.

The Times Colonist reported:

"May’s B.C. softwood lumber shipments to China, including Hong Kong, were valued at $122 million compared to $119 million in shipments to the U.S.

Jobs, Tourism and Innovation Minister Pat Bell said that while more wood — roughly 1.2 million cubic metres compared to 1.1 million — was sent to the U.S. in May, the Chinese exports were more expensive.

“The Chinese are paying for high quality and they’re getting high quality,” Bell said.

Bell said most B.C. lumber sent to the U.S. is used in house construction, but in China it is used for apartment buildings, trusses, commercial buildings and furniture among other things.

From January to May this year, the province exported 2.8 million cubic metres of lumber to the world’s fastest growing economy, more than double the value and volume exported there during the same period last year." - source

Old growth, and those that love it, should be very afraid. It is time for BC to switch to logging second growth while phasing out all harvesting of what is left of our ancient forests.

Ancient forests are worth more standing.

Make 2011 The Year B.C. Stopped Logging Ancient Forests

What will happen when our ancient forests are gone? Considering that we are inevitably headed in that direction, government and industry must have a plan. Right? Wrong. They are winging it, and extracting maximum profit before the party is over. Then what?

They don't care, because the individuals that are perpetrating the continued pillaging of public resources will be long gone by the time fate deals its hand. With comfortable pensions, and fat bank accounts such folks will do just fine... except for that nagging feeling that they did something horribly wrong.

They can be stopped by citizens rightfully claiming what belongs to them - the natural resources of this province. Improved environmental stewardship must be placed high on the political agenda, for what we do to the earth we do to ourselves.

Please consider writing letters, phoning elected officials, and supporting non-profits working on our behalf to save what is left of our beleaguered forests. Let's make 2011 The Year B.C. Stopped Logging Ancient Forests.

Lower Avatar Grove, Port Renfrew (this ancient forest is surveyed for logging)

B.C. Government Puts Moratorium On Logging Old Growth

Photo by: Scott McGeachy

Environmentalist and tree huggers, young and old alike, rejoiced when the government of British Columbia announced today that effective immediately it would put an end to the logging of old growth forest across the province.

Pat Bell, Minister of Forests and Range said, "After sitting down with feedback groups our government has decided to listen and do what the people of this great province have been asking for - put an end to the destruction of our dwindling old growth forest resources."

"About 75% of the original productive old growth forests have been logged on Vancouver Island for example," Bell exclaimed passionately, "and we have to save what is left for our children, and their children. We are thinking at least 7 generations ahead in all our planning. Logging old growth is an old idea that we don't need any more."

He went on to explain that the government has decided to listen to groups such as Western Canada Wilderness Committee, Ancient Forest Alliance, and others, and that the new plan considered old-growth forests to be vitally important for sustaining a diverse ecosystem, tourism, clean water, First Nations traditional cultures, and would therefore be protected henceforth for all time.

Ken Wu, interviewed in the now protected Avatar Grove said, "Wow", and announced the formation of his new group No Oil Tankers Alliance.

The government is in the process now of shifting to the sustainable use of second and third growth forest resources in B.C.