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An International Flashpoint

     
         
  Abuse of Aboriginal Title & Rights   Wilderness Annihilation  
  Corrupt Governance   Crushing of Environmentalism  
    A Brave Stand  
         
 
 
         
 

Corporate Greed

The greed of the multinational logging industry in making huge profits from its virtual monopoly of cutting rights on the public owned forest lands of British Columbia (BC) has resulted in a shocking spectacle of degradation not expected in an advanced western nation like Canada. This painful loss of biodiversity is covered up by greenwash rhetoric. In 2000 a German tourist photographed a clearcut in which thousand year old trees were massacred (right), an act of eco carnage by Interfor (International Forest Products) in the Elaho Valley north of Vancouver (not far from the 2010 Olympics venue at Whistler). A handful of multinational corporations controls the forest industry in BC, a situation that results from government policy and laws designed to favour big business over First Nations and local communities.

 

Interfor stump, Elaho Ancient Forest, 2000
Photo: Carsten Brinkmeier

 
         
 

Singing Forest of Tenise Creek, an ancient cedar grove destroyed by industrial logging, BC, 1995.
Photo: Gabi Sittig

 
       
 

After clearcutting, Singing Forest.
Photo: Grant Trower

 

Before clearcutting, Singing Forest.
Photo: Matt Lowe

 
         
 

"Corporate Logging - Stolen Land - Stolen Trees - Stolen Future"
Betty Krawczyk and the Women in the Woods blockade
Upper Walbran Valley, Vancouver Island, 2003

 
         
 

Logging blockade, Upper Walbran, 1998.
Photo: Richard Boyce

Save Upper Walbran Valley One of the most endangered ancient forest in BC is located in the Upper Walbran Valley on Vancouver Island, the traditional territory of the Pacheedaht First Nation. Protesters were assaulted by 15 employees of Hayes Forest Service Company and TimberWest in 1998 (above). See: Attack of the Contractors. At another protest, on 9 October 2004, about 500 people gathered on a clearcut in the Walbran to send a resolute message to Weyerhaeuser to stop logging here (right).

 

Protest, Upper Walbran, 2004.
Photo: Jeremy Williams

 
         
 

Ancient Pacheedaht Forest - 1926 to 2007 - Stolen and Destroyed
Sustained Exploitation: From Logging Camp to Lifestyle and Real Estate

1 - "Fallers Making An Undercut"
BC Forestry Service - 1926

2 - "Falled Tree and Men"
BC Forestry Service - 1926

3 - Government Fallers
BC Forestry Service - 1940

4 - Ancient Mothers - Douglas firs
Photo by Tim Ennis - 2007

5 - New Logging Road
TimberWest cutblock - 2007

6 - Old Growth Timber
TimberWest log dump - 2007

7 - Clearcut logged
TimberWest - 2007

8 - Clearcut logged
TimberWest - 2007

9 - Industrial Tree Plantation
Jordan River - 2004

10 - Logging Road for Tourists
Port Renfrew Highway - 2007

11 - Wildwood Lifestyle Lots
Photo by John Harvey - 2006

12 - Stump of a Logged Tree
Pacheedaht Beach - 2007

 
         
 

Pacheedaht First Nation Campground and R. V.
Photo: Port Renfrew Community

Port Renfrew was named in 1896 after a British lord who planned to make it a centre for settlers. Since the logging industry began here in 1906, it has voraciously deforested the land. Scars from the brutal clearcutting remain carved into the landscape (above). This is the homeland of Pacheedaht First Nation (Port Renfrew Community website). The Pacheedaht operate a campground at the start of the world famous West Coast Trail. Only a very few giant trees around Port Renfrew have survived the greed of the forest industry, the most famous being the Red Creek Fir (right), the largest of its kind in the world. For more information and photos, see: Douglas Fir, Then and Now.

 

Red Creek Fir, 2007.
Photo: Myklicious