Old-Growth Destruction in the Nahmint Valley – Vancouver Island, BC

This heartbreaking video reveals the destructive impacts of old-growth logging by BC Timber Sales in the Nahmint Valley near Port Alberni in Hupačasath, Tseshaht, and Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ territories.

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This incredible ancient forest was home to enormous western redcedar trees upwards of 9 ft or 3 m wide and well over five hundred years old. A forest of this grandeur should have been included as a priority big-tree old-growth logging deferral. However, like countless others, it was missed in the original mapping process due to gaps in government forest data. And when it comes to old-growth deferrals, you can currently subtract, but you can't add.

As per their current policy, BC Timber Sales – the BC government’s own logging agency – uses field verification to remove forests recommended for deferral that don’t meet deferral criteria so that they can be cut. However, they do not use field verification to identify at-risk old-growth forests that may have been missed, such as this one, so they have a chance of being deferred and later protected.

This is a clear and blatant bias toward the timber industry that leaves the door open for the destruction of irreplaceable ancient forests that support endangered species, the climate, clean water, wild salmon, tourism, and First Nations cultures.

Premier David Eby should immediately instruct the Ministry of Forests and BC Timber Sales to close this conservation loophole.

To help secure old-growth logging deferrals in the most at-risk and often most valuable old-growth forests with big trees, the BC NDP government should also provide at least $120 million in old-growth deferral or “solutions space” funding for First Nations. This funding would help offset lost logging revenues as nations are asked whether they want to forgo logging in priority old-growth areas as defined by the province’s Technical Advisory Panel.

Learn more at: http://www.ancientforestalliance.org