Public Access to Canada's Oldest Tree Retained
9/3/99
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Public Access to Canada's Oldest Tree Retained
Source: Environment News Service, http://ens.lycos.com/
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: September 3, 1999
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada, September 3, 1999 (ENS) - A
British Columbia Supreme Court judge has ruled that a 1,300 year old
Douglas fir tree believed to be the oldest in Canada will remain
accessible to the public. But protesters are enjoined from
interfering with road construction by International Forest Products
(Interfor) in the Elaho Valley.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Randall Wong Wednesday limited an
injunction application by Interfor to 500 metres (1,625 feet) around
the active work area.
Still, Interfor was granted an extension to its existing injunction,
which keeps protesters who suspend themselves from trees out of its
road building site. The protest is taking place in old growth forest
at the end of an isolated logging road about 100 kilometres (62
miles) north of the logging town of Squamish on the B.C. mainland
coast.
The disputed area is located a three-hour drive north of Vancouver
next to the world famous resort village of Whistler. It is the
southernmost habitat for North America's coastal grizzly bears which
at one time roamed as far south as Mexico. The valley contains the
finest groves of old growth Douglas fir and cedar trees left in
southwest B.C., conservationists maintain.
Forest protectionists from the Forest Action Network and People's
Action for Threatened Habitat have set up a camp near the work site
and suspended themselves from trees, slowing down the road work.
Interfor lawyer Bill McNaughton testified that company equipment has
been damaged. He said tensions between workers and protesters are
increasing.
Environmentalists not involved in the protest claimed a broader
injunction would keep the public away from the old Douglas fir,
hampering a forest research program. The tree is about 1,300 years
old, according to the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. The area
in which is located is known as the Stoltmann Wilderness, named after
the late Randy Stoltmann, a Western Canada Wilderness Committee
researcher who wrote the definitive book on the big trees of B.C.
before he died in a mountaineering accident in 1994.
Lawyer Karen Writen, who represented the Western Canada Wilderness
Committee in court, said the committee has an equal right to access
to the old growth region as part of its effort to have a national
park created there.
In July, forest researcher Andy Miller obtained a core sample from a
grove of over 50 ancient Douglas firs in the area. The sampled tree
and surrounding grove were dated at over 1,300 years old, making them
Canada's oldest known living Douglas firs.
Interfor was scheduled to cut this grove in mid-July. Widespread
public outcry prevented Interfor from falling the giant trees but the
company plans to continue roadbuilding 2.5 kilometres (1.5 miles)
further into the heart of Stoltmann Wilderness. This road will pass
within 30 metres (100 feet) of the ancient grove.
Interfor has now temporarily excluded the grove in which the oldest
tree stands from its logging plans.
"Interfor is rushing in to clearcut a grove that contains the oldest
living Douglas fir trees in Canada. They are older than the great
cathedrals of Europe and hundreds of years older than the oldest
trees surviving in Cathedral Grove Park on Vancouver Island!" fumed
Western Canada Wilderness Committee campaign coordinator Joe Foy.
"The millennial grove is a truly amazing find. Any forest capable of
producing not one but over 50 ancient firs will undoubtedly have
other comparable trees or even groves. It's very exciting and an
excellent opportunity for further scientific investigation," said
Miller.
A crew of 25 volunteers are in the Upper Elaho Valley working in what
they are calling the Millennial Tree Camp, Western Canada Wilderness
Committee's newest effort to save the ancient temperate rainforests
of the 500,000 hectare (1,930 square mile) Stoltmann Wilderness.
The camp, which runs until late October, is the base for teams of
volunteers finding and documenting trees older than 1,000 years in
the area. Information gathered will be used to strengthen the case
for creating a Stoltmann National Park.
In April 1994, just before his death, Randy Stoltmann, B.C. writer,
conservationist, and mountaineer, completed a report advocating the
preservation of a 260,000 hectare (1,000 square mile) wilderness area
encompassing the Upper Elaho, Sims, Clendenning (all within the
Squamish Watershed and Tree Farm Licence #38) and Upper Lillooet
Valleys.