Beautiful Flores Island is largely unprotected. Photo credit: Ian Mackenzie
Clayoquot Sound is still not saved!
By Maryjka Mychajlowycz and Diego Garcia, Friends of Clayoquot Sound
Clayoquot Sound is known worldwide as a temperate rainforest hotspot. Clayoquot Sound’s 260,000 hectares of forests, beaches, islands and river valleys are entirely within the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations’ territory. This amazing area is located on the West Coast of Vancouver Island and is accessed by following Highway #4 to its western terminus at the village of Tofino. Clayoquot Sound contains the largest undisturbed area of old-growth forest left on the entire Island.
In 1993, Clayoquot Sound became a household name when more than 12,000 people converged in the area to protest the logging of its ancient temperate rainforest by MacMillan Bloedel Ltd. The Clayoquot protests to this day stand as the largest act of peaceful civil disobedience in Canadian history - dubbed "The War in the Woods" by media. Since those protests the rate of logging has been reduced by about 80%, causing many to think that Clayoquot has been saved. But that’s not the case because no new legislated protected areas have been created and new threats from logging are increasing.
Interfor’s recent logging in Satchie Creek, Clayoquot Sound. Photo credit: Maryjka Mychajlowycz
Despite being designated a "Biosphere Reserve" in 2000 by the United Nations’ Environmental, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), about three-quarters of the ancient temperate rainforest in Clayoquot Sound remain open to logging, according to the provincial government. The biosphere designation represents international recognition of the global ecological value of Clayoquot Sound, yet offers no additional legislated protection.
The Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations of Clayoquot Sound have declared the pristine intact forested areas of Clayoquot Sound as "eechmiis" which mean "very special areas" in their language. This designation has kept logging operations out of these intact areas.
The ecological importance of Clayoquot Sound is as a direct result of its pristine, unlogged valleys like the Sydney, Clayoquot, Upper Bulson, Pretty Girl, Satchie Creek, Hesquiat Lake Creek and Ursus Valleys, which together provide rare, undisturbed rainforest habitat for 45 vulnerable and endangered animal species.
However, the BC provincial government has recently approved plans to begin logging in several intact areas of Clayoquot’s ancient temperate rainforest, threatening a renewed "War in the Woods". Help us stop this ecological crime.
The environmental group, Friends of Clayoquot Sound, played a pivotal role in the protests of 1993 and continues today to defend Clayoquot Sound, Vancouver Island’s largest intact ancient rainforest.
For more info visit www.focs.ca
