Findings from Clearcutting Canada's Rainforests
- In the vast majority of logging sites over 80 per cent of the trees were removed;
- Only four per cent of fish-bearing streams in logging sites had protective stream-side buffers;
- In the majority of sites not enough trees were left behind to sustain species or habitat that depend on old-growth forests.
Clearcut logging continues in the Great Bear Rainforest despite historic agreements reached almost two years ago to change logging methods and to protect critical areas, says a new report by Raincoast Conservation Society, Forest Watch of British Columbia and the David Suzuki Foundation.
In 72 per cent of the logging completed or planned between April 2001, when the British Columbia government and First Nations signed a landmark agreement, and January 2002 nearly all of the trees were removed from each logging site.
The report also found that logging continues to the banks of small fish-bearing streams, habitat for Pacific salmon.
"Unfortunately, today we must announce that it is largely business as usual in these forests in terms of how and how much of them are cut down," said David Suzuki.
Researchers analysed 227 logging plans for individual logging sites on BC's central and north coast and Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands). They also conducted aerial surveys of the forests and ground visits to logging sites.
"One of the easiest and quickest changes that logging companies could make to demonstrate a commitment to improved forestry practices would be to leave trees standing to create buffer zones on small streams critical to fish," said Aran O'Carroll, executive director of Forest Watch of British Columbia. "Our results show that they haven't, and in fact only four per cent of the logging plans we analysed called for mandatory no-logging buffers on small fish streams inside the logging sites."
Forestry regulations in British Columbia do not require any protection of small fish streams. On US federal lands in the Pacific Northwest a minimum 91-metre no-logging buffer zone is required on each side of a fish-bearing stream.
"We are concerned when we see that logging practices have not really changed since we reached this agreement," said Art Sterritt of Turning Point, an initiative of seven First Nations from BC's central and north coast and Haida Gwaii. "Clearcut logging is not acceptable in these forests and we are working with government, the timber companies and environmental groups to ensure that environmentally responsible practices are implemented."
In addition to the First Nations agreement, the province, environmental groups and timber companies agreed that 20 valleys of extreme ecological and cultural value would be protected and that many other watersheds would not be logged until completion of a land-use plan for BC's central coast. This process is ongoing and the protected status must stand until it is concluded, the groups say.
"Once again the public has been lied to regarding forest practices in British Columbia, and the repercussions in the international market place will further damage the province's reputation," said Ian McAllister of Raincoast Conservation Society.
*Read the report at www.canadianrainforests.org
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[From WS February/March 2003]