BC’s “forest warfare” battlefields to be permanently protected

VICTORIA — Old-growth forests that were battlegrounds for indigenous and environmental rights over logging in the 1980s and 1990s during British Columbia’s “forest wars” will receive permanent protection in a management agreement lands and forests.

The BC government says an agreement Tuesday with two Vancouver Island First Nations will protect about 760 square kilometers of Crown land in Clayoquot Sound by establishing 10 new conservancies in areas that include old-growth forests and unique ecosystems.

The partnership involves reconfiguring the tree farm license in the Clayoquot Sound area to protect old-growth areas while supporting other First Nations-owned forest industry tenures in the area, Forests Minister Bruce Ralston said in a statement.

Statements by the Ahoushat and Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations of Clayoquot Sound say the conservancies will preserve old-growth forests on Meares Island and the Kennedy Lake area, sites of protests that have led to hundreds of arrests.

“We have successfully reached a first phase of implementing the land use vision,” Tyson Atleo, hereditary representative of the Ahousaht First Nation, said in an interview. “We will see (Tree Farm License 54) on Meares Island actively become true statutory protected areas for the first time in history.”

Plans to cut timber on Meares Island, about a mile northeast of Tofino and home to some of the largest western red cedars in the world, sparked environmental and indigenous protests in the 1980s. a court order that halted logging, saying that issues related to indigenous land claims should be resolved.

About a decade later, more than 800 people were arrested in the Clayoquot Sound area of ​​Kennedy Lake near Ucluelet as protesters descended to demonstrate against more logging activities.

The logging company eventually left the area after losing about $200 million in contracts related to timber sales.

Atleo said the conservation lands, previously authorized for forestry, will now protect some of the last remaining old-growth forests on Vancouver Island and reflect the land-use visions and livelihoods of the Ahousaht and Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations.

“It will produce a significant economic opportunity for Ahousaht in the development of the carbon credit, in the tourism investments we are making, as well as being able to use forest products for the benefit of our community,” he said.

Ahousaht will seek to sell and generate carbon credits as part of the environmental benefits of the preserved forest areas, but will not sell to oil and gas companies, Atleo said.

The deal is backed by more than $40 million raised by the environmental group Nature United, which said it would use the money to compensate the forest landowner and support two conservation management endowments for the Ahousaht Nation and the Tla-o- qui-aht.

“These new preserves include old-growth forests on Meares Island, the site of the historic ‘forest war’ protests against logging that spurred global attention in 1993,” Nature United said in a statement.

“Pacific coastal rainforests such as those in Clayoquot Sound also hold large amounts of carbon stored for hundreds of years, making them powerful natural climate solutions that will continue to sequester carbon while contributing to time to air and water health, ecosystem resilience, and the well-being… of communities.”

Nature United Executive Director Hadley Archer said the organization has been working with the Ahousaht and Tla-o-qui-aht peoples for more than a decade.

“We are proud that Nature United’s long-term investment in Clayoquot Sound has supported a new model of collaboration and transformative change that will protect globally significant old-growth forests, provide funding for Indigenous-led stewardship and reverberate across the province and across Canada. ” he said.

Atleo said the establishment of the new conservancies will be widely celebrated, but the First Nation will now launch the appeal for more government, industry and public support for future management of the area by the Ahousaht.

“There is no funding to manage these protected areas in the long-term future and that is the next pressure point we need to apply,” he said.

The conservations take effect on June 26.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on June 18, 2024.

Dirk Meissner, Canadian Press