Environment: Ancient Rainforests Threatened

October-November 1996

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.

Mid-Coast Logging Planned

Johnston Creek is a pristine watershed located on Rivers Inlet on British Columbia's Mid-Coast*, an area world famous for its salmon. This 7500 hectare valley of ancient temperate rainforest is part of a cluster of four intact valleys which contain high salmon and grizzly values. (7500 hectares is equivalent to a rectangle 15 km long and 5km wide). The Johnston has the best grizzly bear habitat in the cluster. In 1992, a research group spotted fourteen grizzly bears fishing for salmon at the river mouth when they sailed into the inlet.

What is happening?

Interfor, a BC logging company, plans to immediately punch 16 kilometres of road through the Johnston watershed and start logging. Interfor has submitted a Forest Development Plan to the British Columbia Ministry of Forests to obtain approval for logging in the Johnston as well as the Sandell River. They are expecting approval this fall.

What we are asking for

Johnston Creek has high conservation values and is a protected area proposal. A land use planning process for the Mainland Coast is being created by the BC government. It is crucial that Johnston Creek and other important protected area proposals be deferred during the process. We cannot allow them to start logging this pristine rainforest valley, destroying its wilderness and wildlife values, before decisions about protected areas for the BC Mid-Coast have been made.

Background information

The lush rainforests of coastal British Columbia are one of the world's most productive and threatened forest types.

Ancient temperate rainforests have always been globally rare, originally occupying less than 1/5 of 1% of the earth's land surface (about twice the size of Washington state). Today, temperate rainforest is one of the most endangered forest types in the world. The coastal temperate rainforests of North America once blanketed the west coast in a thin, continuous band from northern California to southeast Alaska. Today, not a single rainforest watershed remains unlogged in the United States (south of the Canadian border) and only a small number of valleys remain intact in southern British Columbia.

Over half of the world's temperate rainforests have already been logged and over 25% of what remains is found on British Columbia's Pacific coast.

Now that the majority of Clayoquot Sound's old-growth forests have been given over to logging, the largest concentration of remaining intact ancient temperate rainforest in the world is on the Mid-Coast of British Columbia. These forests contain some of the oldest and largest trees on earth. They also provide critical refuge for grizzly bears, salmon and a rare snow white variation of the black bear called the 'Kermode' or 'Spirit' bear. Protecting these vulnerable species requires the preservation of large contiguous areas of forest.

Today less than 7% of the temperate rainforest ecosystem has been protected in BC, and most of the remaining pristine valleys are slated for road building and clearcut logging in the next five years.

Unless large, connected areas of low elevation forest (which comprise the most ecologically rich and most important wildlife corridors) are protected, this rare and beautiful ecosystem may become permanently extinct.

Write letters

The development plans in the Johnston have not been approved and pressure must be put on the government to stop the approval of this permit. Please write and ask the Ministers to stop the approval of the forest development plans until the issue of study area deferrals is completed.

If you are writing from the United States tell the premier of British Columbia that he should take all possible measure to protect remaining intact areas of B.C's temperate rainforests.

. Glen Clark, Premier of BC Fax: 604/387-1356

. Paul Ramsey, Minister of Environment, Lands and Parks Fax: 604/387-1356

.David Zirnhelt, Minister of Forests Fax: 604/387-1040

. Enquiry BC will send your faxes for free 660-2421 (from Vancouver) 1-800-663-7867 (elsewhere in BC)

.Mailing Address: Parliament Buildings, Victoria, BC V8V 1X4

from Jill Thomas, Coordinator, Canadian Rainforest Network, Box 2241 Main Post Office, Vancouver, BC CANADA V6B 3W2 Ph (604) 669-4303 Fax (604) 669-6833 crn@helix.net

*The Mid-Coast is often called the Central Coast.