Western Forest Products has applied to build a sprawling road network into a last fringe of old growth forest along the pacific ocean near the outlet of Quintino Sounds and north of Grants Bay. This forest contains old group red cedar with remarkable canopies and is near some of the most productive old growth forest on Northern Vancouver Island.
As of the end of February 2023 this road building has not been approved.
The McCannon Timber Sale in Lewis County is one of the oldest Legacy Forests up for logging on Washington State Department of Natural Resource Trust Lands. The forest re-generated from logging in the 1900s and is now over 100 years old. It contains old-growth trees marked for cutting. It and all other legacy forests like it deserve protection, to get involved visit c4rf.org
As of November 2022 this timber sale has not beed auctioned off.
These are images of the Cranberry Mountain legacy forest complex on private land. There are around 2000 acres of legacy forests on Cranberry Mountain in Lewis county Washington. These forests survived the initial wave of clear-cut logging of this area in the 80s and 90s due to a fire that destroyed much of the ecosystem in the 1890s. These forests which grow at the summit of cranberry mountain are now 130 years old and have never seen industrial logging. Weyerhaeuser, which owns millions of acres in Washington State has been steadily logging this complex of old growth legacy forests despite their commitment not to log old growth. By 2030 all of these forests will be gone.
BTG Pactual a Brazilian investment group also owns a substantial amount of these 130-year-old legacy forests just east of Cranberry Mountain in the Deschutes River watershed which flows into Capital Lake. It is unclear whether or not BTG Pactual will actually log these areas. However, they have already sold some of them to another smaller logging company which has clear-cut around 200 acres of these legacy forests. Cougar Mountain Grove was part of this Legacy Forest complex sold by BTG Pactual.
The Baby Brown Timber Sale north of Haines Alaska in the Chilkat valley is made up of over 1000 acres of pristine old growth hemlock forest. The state of Alaska has been trying to auction off this section of forest for years, in 2020 they succeeded in selling the rights to log this area for a measly $400,000 to a timber company in Oregon. The timber company eventually backed out of the deal due to the areas remoteness however there is good reason to think that the state of Alaska will keep pushing to clear-cut this forest. The initial minimum bid on the Baby Brown timber sale was only about $150,000, the whole point of this timber sale is to just cut for the sake of cutting, The state of Alaska would literally be receiving $150 per acre of old growth cut. Not $150,000, $150.
As of October 2022 there has been no new news about this timber sale being put up for auction.
Bugaboo Creek cut block #4733 in TFL 46 contains some of the richest red and yellow cedar forest on the south island. In August 2022 I discovered a rare population of Oldgrowth Specklebelly Lichen in the cut block. Teal Jones and the Canadian government have come under great pressure to leave a 200m buffer around the lichen. Elder Bill Jones of the Pacheedaht First Nations has personally asked Canada‘s minister of environment and climate change to protect this population of Oldgrowth Specklebelly Lichen. He awaits a response. Bugaboo Creek is also home to at least 21 endangered Marbled Murrelet Sea birds who have been documented in the area by citizen scientists.
As of October 2022 the cut block has not been approved.
As of November 2022 cut block #764325 in the Klanawa Valley has been approved. Western Forest Products has obtained approval to build a 5 km road along the Klanawa River to access this spectacular stand of rare and endangered valley bottom old growth red cedar forest, but work hasn’t started. This forest is listed as a deferral candidate under the old growth strategic review however, despite news coverage to the contrary the Huu-ay-aht Band Council did NOT accept deferrals on their territory. The band council excepted 96% of deferral areas, which sounds good until you realize that the 4% that they left out were the exact areas like this one that they intended to clear-cut in the near term. They received the PR victory while still being able to partner with Western Forest Products in clearcutting this area.
Valley bottom old growth logging is almost over, nearly all of the high-productivity valley bottoms have been destroyed and the fact that a forest such as this remains along a major river on southern Vancouver Island is something of a miracle. It deserves protection. While we explored this old growth forest we were surrounded by the sounds of helicopters dragging logs off of a nearby mountain and of trees crashing down in the distance, the same fate awaits this forest if no one intervenes.
The valley above Zeballos Lake on Northern Vancouver Island was an intact old growth forest up until 2018 when Western Forest Products began a series of devastating clear-cuts in the valley. These images show the aftermath of their logging. The lower half of this intact Valley has been destroyed however the upper half remains pristine, this Alpine wilderness is continuous with Wass lake provincial park and is one of the largest unprotected roadless areas on Vancouver Island, it deserves protection. Western Forest Products is currently seeking approval for a cut block #O65 which would extend this devastating road network farther up this alpine valley.
These are images of the lower section of Western Forest Products cut block #782106 in the upper Walbran Valley, this area was defended by the Walbran Watch Camp but is now vulnerable to logging.
As of October 2023 cut block #782106 is approved and logging could begin any day.
These are images of the eastern edge of the Fairy Creek Rainforest in the Upper Granite Creek watershed including Cut Block #8022, Heli Camp Grove (where Teal Jones holds approval to build logging roads into the forest) and the site where Teal Jones is building a road into cut block #8013 and towards the ridgeline a Fairy Creek. I took these images in the winter of 2022 after hiking up Granite Main in the snow.
Granite Creek cut block #8013 is on the eastern edge of the Fairy Creek Rainforest wear teal Jones has blasted a road into the old growth forest. Teal Jones has approval to extend this road another kilometer towards the ferry creek Ridgeline. Cut block #8013 hasn't been approved yet but once it is it will be taking the first chunk out of this Ridgeline, situated just above the road to Heli Camp. It will also be logging a couple of remnant sections of old growth up the mountain west of River Camp in two additional units of the cut block.
As of October 2022 this cut block hasn't been logged or approved.
Heli Camp Grove in Granite Creek is one of the richest sections of the Fairy Creek Rainforest. Just across the ridgeline from Fairy Creek and right next to cut block 8022 and the area known as “Heli Camp” this section of at-risk ancient forest is the most intact 4orest east of Fairy Creek. It is separated from Cut block 8022 by an alpine stream and runs as a contiguous forest from Granite Creek to the mountaintop that divides the slope from the Fairy Creek Watershed.
Teal Jones has approval to build a 1 km long section of road into this ancient forest however any attempt to start work on this road approval would almost certainly reignite the war in the woods and the blockades at Fairy Creek.
This area is home to a population of Oldgrowth Specklebelly Lichen, the largest of only 53 documented in British Columbia. Elder Bill Jones of the Pacheedath Nation has called for the protection of this entire area. This area is also home to a massive population of endangered Marbled Murrelet with 115 birds documented nearby. Western Screech Owls have also been documented in this section of Granite Creek (I was lucky enough to document one of them in the middle of Teal Jones’ planned cut block.)
During the height of the Fairy Creek Blockade protesters used this forest as a staging ground for "cops and loggers,” “hide and go creek” and other tactics meant to slow the logging of the neighboring cut block.
These are the spectacular cedar groves of Looper Creek cut block #774428 Looper Creek is a tributary to the Caycuse River and contains the largest most extensive old growth forest in the entire watershed. Cut block #774428, which has been approved by the provincial government despite being a deferral candidate, will take a massive chunk out of the richest section of this forest. The last five images in this gallery are of trees in the contiguous forest outside of the cut block.
As of October 2022 roads have not yet been built to this cut block, however western forest products is clear cutting just upslope in a neighboring old growth Heli block.
These are images of cut block #4559 near Sad Lake in the Central Walbran Valley. The cut block is made up of three separate units totaling only a few hectares. I visited this forest back in 2018 and found that even though the area Teal Jones is targeting was small it contains a spectacular cedar forest with trees exceeding 10 feet in diameter. Despite being located in the central Walbran, the deferral affecting the central valley did not protect this cut block. Teal Jones has plans to build a 5 km road on the ridge line above this cut block as well as to the northeast in the area referred to as the “camper bowl.”
This cut block was approved in 2018, however, it still hasn’t been logged.
