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We are in a climate and biodiversity crisis. Only 2.7% of B.C.’s original productive old growth forests remain standing. B.C.’s Old Growth Strategic Review Panel urged an end to old growth logging yet the government continues to stall.
Public support is on our side. Two recent polls show that 86% of BC residents are highly concerned about Old Growth logging, and that 92% support a moratorium on old growth clear cutting.
To see all interactive maps of all the AT RISK ANCIENT FORESTS in the area, visit https://www.universalwildlands.com/reports.
The Greater Fairy Creek Rainforest, Pacheedaht Territory
From the Western ridge line of Fairy Creek, you can see all the way to the Walbran valley; the entire Western shelf of the Southern island. In the morning, fog rolls in from the Juan de Fuca Strait and rests over the San Juan River and Gordon River valley systems, evoking a distant past when glaciers blanketed the island and formed the landscape we all recognize today. There are over 5 kilometres of road building approved into the contiguous ancient rainforest ecosystem that feeds the Fairy Creek watershed. These approved roads zig-zag up and over the steep slopes of the watershed and, if completed, would sever the headwaters, which support some of the oldest yellow cedar trees on Turtle Island. There are three blockades protecting this rare, in-tact watershed, and, to date, they are under constant assault by the RCMP with Teal Jones not far behind.
The Northern-most section of the Western ridge of Fairy Creek is the site of Cloud Forest Trail, a steep path that leads to a breathtaking 2000 year old yellow cedar slated to be felled by chainsaw to make way for the above-mentioned logging road.
Edinburgh Mountain, Pacheedaht Territory
To the North-East of the Fairy Creek watershed is Edinburgh Mountain, which, if not for the logging road that runs along Braden Creek on its Eastern side, would have fed an Old Growth ecosystem contiguous with the Fairy Creek watershed. The “Rd 2000” blockade, just off Braden Main, protected some of what was left of this high productivity yellow cedar and hemlock. On the Western side of Edinburgh Mountain runs the Gordon River, which is fed by the headwaters of the mountain as well as by Bugaboo Creek. Here, on a bridge that crosses the Gordon River, is a long-standing blockade camp called Eden. Edinburgh Mountain is one of the largest sections of unprotected Old Growth forest on so-called Southern Vancouver island. Over the past several years, Teal Jones has been granted 3 new road building approvals into the high elevation, mid elevation and low elevation forests of there. The company has five approved cut blocks on the mountain, two of which could be clear-cut any day.
Many will know this crucial ecosystem by its world-famouse giant Douglas-Fir, Big Lonely Doug. Big Lonely Doug was seeded before 1000 CE; the child of an ancient, ancestral grove of coastal rainforest, the lone survivor of a brutal act of cutblock deforestation in 2011.
Bugaboo Creek
Bugaboo Creek is the site of multiple approvals most notably a 2 km long road network approved into the last section of intact old growth in the watershed. This forest contains some of the best high elevation old growth yellow and western red cedar seen outside of the Central Walbran.
The Central Walbran
The Central Walbran has over 5 km of approved road building. Two roads are approved into intact sections of old growth forest adjacent to the Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park on House Cone and near Sad Lake. If built, these logging roads will precipitate the fragmentation of some of the last intact sections of old growth in the Central Walbran. Teal Jones also has approval to log 13 helicopter units in the Central Walbran, these helicopter units target the best remaining stands of Western Red Cedar outside of Castle Grove
Caycuse, Ditidaht Territory
The Caycuse watershed feeds a river that flows into McClure Lake at its Southern-most point and Nitinat Lake to the North-West. Teal Jones has six approved cut blocks in low elevation valley bottom Old Growth and has completed road building into another section of forest elsewhere. The floodplain (the low-elevation valley bottom) of the Caycuse river cradles a high density of biodiversity that has now been brought to the brink of annihilation. Positioned around a bridge that crosses the Caycuse river, the Caycuse blockade camp was established to halt the logging of what remains in this grand, meandering watershed. To date, the Caycuse blockade camp has been the site of 2 RCMP raids and the surrounding area continues to be a place of fearless resistance.
Camper Creek
The very last stands of old growth in the entire Camper Creek watershed are slated for logging. Almost nothing is left in Camper creek and Teal Jones has been granted approvals to log much of what is left.
Upper Walbran Watershed
Western Forest Products has approvals to clear cut a massive track of western red cedar on mount Walbran in the upper Walbran watershed. The approval would destroy some of the last old growth forest in that section of the watershed.
