Clayoquot soundings

Forest and Bird, Issue 279, 1 February 1996, Page 10

Clayoquot soundings

ATTEMPTS AT compromise in the protracted dispute over the clearfelling of rainforest in Canada’s Clayoquot Sound have failed, and destructive clearance seems set to continue. The Clayoquot forests, spanning 100 kilometres of the rugged Pacific coast of Vancouver Island, form one of the last

great tracts of old-growth temperate rainforest left in the world and have been the centre of a fierce dispute between environmentalists and the government of British Columbia for over three years (see Forest & Bird February 1994). The government announced in July that it had accepted all 127 recommendations of a scientific panel established to look at a sustainable logging regime for the sound. Logging would continue but clearcuts more than four tree heights wide would end, over 87,000 hectares of new parks would be created, and unlogged watersheds would be protected at least until full species inventories and ecological assessments had been carried out. There was an assumption (never denied by the government) that no clearcut could be greater than four hectares. The government claimed that clearcut logging "as we know it" at Clayoquot would end. In a province where 15 percent of jobs are forestry related, the compromise was seen as a considerable environmental gain and most conservation groups acceded to the agreement. By September the regime started to unravel when the first batch of new cutting permits — allowing 14 hectare clearcuts — was announced. Environmentalists argue they have been deceived and have denounced the new rules as only providing for the forests to be destroyed with greater sensitivity. The battle to save the Clayoquot forests is obviously not over yet.