It's time to cut the hype about parks and forests
Spectacular forests are clear-cut while jobs are lost through raw log exports

Ken Wu
Special to Times Colonist

October 31, 2005

'The BC government has created 37 new provincial parks!" blared taxpayer-funded TV ads before the last provincial election.

"Golly, when did that happen? Where are these 37 newly created parks?" I thought to myself. "I must not be paying enough attention to wilderness issues."

It turns out that these 37 "new" parks were in fact already protected by the former NDP government as part of the Okanagan, Shuswap, and Skeena land use plans between 1999 to 2001. The Liberals simply renamed the "protected areas" as "parks," thus misleading the public into believing that they actually protected 37 previously endangered wild areas. Sneaky!

But sneaky or not, it's revealing that the Liberals find it important to convince the public that they've been busy creating new parks, when in fact park creation has virtually ground to a halt since the Campbell government took office. It shows that the voting public loves our parks and wants more of them. The public also loves our forests -- standing, generally.

Nowhere is this more true than on Vancouver Island, which has about the highest concentration of environmentally conscious people on the planet. The forested scenery and parks here are a major draw for both tourists and residents alike.

The eco-tourism industry has exploded over the past decade here, as is evident by the proliferation of eco-tourism brochures on the B.C. Ferries ships enticing tourists to watch the whales, trek among trees, swim with salmon, or boat near bears.

Unfortunately, every effort to protect public lands on Vancouver Island has run into a brick wall -- the 1994 CORE (Commission on Resources and Environment) Land Use Plan. That's it for parks on the Island, the Liberals proclaim. Thirteen per cent of the Island's land area was protected under the plan, though this amounts to only six per cent of its low-elevation, productive forests where the big trees grow, since much of our park lands are alpine rock and ice.

But isn't our wildlife at least safe within the protected 13 per cent? Conservation biology studies show that small, isolated protected areas -- as are most of the Island's parks -- eventually become "islands of extinction" as industrial developments surround them.

Small populations supported by small parks eventually die off due to inbreeding, disturbances and diseases. Only large, interconnected protected areas can ensure that all species persist over the long run, particularly large carnivores like wolves and wolverines that need lots of space.

While we advocate more forest protection, we're also working to defend jobs in the forestry sector. The Liberals have eliminated the local milling requirements of companies logging our public forests, meanwhile allowing raw log exports to triple. This is resulting in the loss of thousands of milling jobs to other countries.

Instead, we need to cut less but manufacture more. We can start by banning raw log exports, making wood available for the value-added sector through regional log markets, and expanding community forests and woodlot licences to help ensure local forestry employment.

At the same time, the government must restore the staff in the Ministry of Forests, Environment, and Agriculture and Lands, who used to regulate logging on our public lands.

Since the 1994 Land Use Plan was announced, I've seen clearcut after clearcut tear through the spectacular ancient red cedar forests in the Upper Walbran Valley by the West Coast Trail.

Logging roads have spread like cancer through the gargantuan Sitka spruce columns and thousand-year-old yellow cedar stands in the Klaskish and East Creek Valleys by the Brooks Peninsula, which until recently were the sixth and seventh remaining intact, primary valleys left on the Island -- out of an original 89 such unlogged valleys.

In the Nahmint Valley, old-growth Douglas firs -- almost as rare as black rhinos -- have come crashing to the ground recently, even though only one per cent of the original ancient Douglas fir groves remain.

None of these forests can be replaced by the ensuing tree plantations, which lack the structural complexity and old-growth dependent species found in the original forests. Today, only 25 per cent of Vancouver Island's original ancient forests remain. Time will run out -- unless the door is opened for new protected areas by revisiting the decade-old land use plan.

George Abbott, until recently the Minister of sustainable resource management, told the Times Colonist in June that "at some point the old land-use plans will be reconsidered and reviewed."

That time has come on Vancouver Island. A new land use plan open to public input, based on conservation biology science, that sustains the jobs of forestry workers, and that involves adequate consultation with and accommodation of First Nations bands who've never ceded ownership over their territories, is long overdue.

Ken Wu is the campaign director for the Western Canada Wilderness Committee in Victoria. He graduated from University of British Columbia's Ecological Science program and has worked as a biologist and tree planter.