LETTER: Update on clear-cut logging of old growth at Carmanah/Walbran
![By Photo by TJ Watt (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://sooke.pocketnews.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Walbran_GLW_Clearcut-7.jpg)
Wikipedia photo of a clearcut in Walbran. Photo by TJ Watt.
We are “Friends of the Carmanah/Walbran” — a collective of 2000+ environmental activists and campaigners who have come together to save and protect the last remaining ancient old-growth temperate rainforest on South Vancouver Island and on mainland British Columbia.
We feel certain you are missing out on the media attention surrounding our efforts to curtail the current regimen of Teal-Jones’ clear-cutting around the heart of the Central Walbran Valley on Vancouver Island. Included in their current cut blocks are spruce, cedars, and firs ranging in age between 600 and 1200 years old. These majestic trees, once towering giants which have stood for a millennium, are being reduced to cut logs for shipping and milling into shakes and shingles.
Teal-Jones points to their authorized applications, regarding those “Special Management Zones” appointed by the current BC Liberal party and Premier Christy Clark. It should be noted that these authorizing agencies have been operating under the very same systems of fraud, bribery, and patronage that the Harper federal government maintained, in order to accommodate wholesale “management” of Canadian natural resources. The Harper federal government has since been banished, by outstanding defeat in this year’s federal election. The BC Ministry of the Environment is currently being challenged in the BC Supreme Court, on a number of counts, regarding such ongoing offences.
We know that Teal-Jones Group has many cutting contracts for second-growth timberlands, and yet they insist on destroying the last remaining 4% of old-growth rainforest that stands on Vancouver Island. The heart of the Walbran Valley watershed is being clearcut and heli-logged presently. Determined to stop the ecological carnage, hundreds of concerned citizens and organizations have been applying their best efforts in order to pressure Teal-Jones to quit cutting these forests. Teal-Jones’ response has been to seek court injunctions in order to protect their interests and to threaten further lawsuits, in order to carry on with the carnage. Most recently, they blocked public access roads to the Walbran Valley, hiring contractors to illegally blockade the road with logging detritus. You’ll find picture evidence of this attached.
At this time we are reaching out directly to those companies and corporations who are doing business with Teal-Jones. We believe that you may well be unwittingly accommodating the destruction of ancient old-growth rainforest by continuing to accept their product. We believe that as responsible businesses you are likely not impressed to learn about such sourcing practices as pertaining to one of your supply chain partners. And we are certain that your own customers would not approve. As such, we are asking you to consider for yourselves if your organizations are making ethical and responsible decisions in sourcing your product.
A dedicated consortium of media and communications professionals—all Friends of the Carmanah/Walbran—are currently developing a dedicated campaign to inform all buyers, suppliers, and consumers of Teal-Jones Group timber products. This campaign will target all points of Teal-Jones supply, but especially throughout North American cities. We will be kindling associations with various local environmental agencies and consumers with an intense PR and media campaign intended to make it public knowledge that Teal-Jones product is being sourced unsustainably, from what little ancient old-growth rainforest remaining in British Columbia.
On January 4, 2016 Teal-Jones will be applying for an extended injunction in the Walbran Valley, in order to secure further destruction of the rainforest. We intend to launch the campaign after this court date, in the event that no other resolution appears pending. We welcome your support. Please contact Teal-Jones Group and share with them your concerns.
Finally, we wish to provide you here with just some idea of the media attention surrounding these developments, for your consideration. You will find a selection of such media links following the signature to this letter. Please review this media, to your advantage.
Darren Alexander, Sooke
Friend of the Carmanah/Walbran
Select MEDIA Re. Teal-Jones Old-Growth Logging Opposition
- Times Colonist Victoria News
- Times Colonist Letter to the Editor
- CTV NEWS television: Protesters Hit the Streets
- CTV News: Port Renfrew businesses call on bc to halt logging of ancient trees
- CBC News
- Common Sense Canadian
- Focus Magazine
- Change.org Campaign
- Petition
- Gofundme Campaign
Additional Resources
- BC Chamber of Commerce Passes Resolution Calling on the Province to Expand Old-Growth Forest Protections
- Group seeks to share information on forestry corruption, collusion
- Log Watch launches, and starts counting
- NDP critical of increasing carbon emissions under Clark’s leadership
- Local business owner launches website and billboard, calling for a stop to old growth logging
- BC Liberals and NDP agree on the success of the Great Bear Rainforest agreement
- Sooke entrepreneur seeks to raise funds for Walbran awareness billboard on Pat Bay Highway
- Supreme court rules in favour of logging company Teal-Jones
- LETTER: Update on clear-cut logging of old growth at Carmanah/Walbran
That forest has been in the making for 15,000 years. The last time there were no trees in the Walbran Valley was during the last ice age. Cut ’em down, truck ’em out, ship ’em away, split ’em up and then that 1000 year old cedar tree might be a shingle on a house for as many as 40 years.
This region we live in, from Alaska down to the Redwood Forests and over to the continental divide is STILL a diverse and rich corner of the world. We still have forests and oceans and living lakes and rivers. We still have eagles and hawks in the air, killer whales in the sea, bears, cougars and wolves on land. Our living systems are still functioning but…But if we can not make a go of sustainability, if we in the richest corner of the temperate world can not make sustainability work then it probably can not be done by people. We are doomed if we absolutely must cut these last old growth trees and frack the last of that difficult fossil fuel and damn the last great river because we are also the wisest people and the most creative people ever to walk the earth. Let’s continue to walk this corner but let’s do it a little more thankfully and with a little less entitlement to conquering it.
As for me and my house, we worship the land. Not the resources in it.
Shame!
Why they should even have a licence in place to log old growth beats me! Hopefully that wrong will be corrected before it too late!
thanks, Darren. When will people look at a tree and see a living being instead of $ signs? For even more heartbreak, check out Briony Penn’s article about the Peace devastation in the Dec Focus Mag, the two side by side photos of before and after will make you cry. Clark & Co have already gone ahead and cut everything down. A big thanks to the folks who protested in Nanaimo including those fighting to protect Shawnigan Lake last week. LNG, Site C Dam, all kinds of wildlife and eco devastation, the completely unnecessary culling of innocent animals around the Province, it’s difficult to stay positive. Let’s hope things change in 2016. All the best…