Timber Company Puts off Roadbuilding to Canada's Oldest TreesVANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada, June 20, 2000 (ENS) - The upper Elaho Valley, an area north of Vancouver renowned for its old growth forest, will be spared further road building for now. The valley, near the world famous Whistler Ski Resort, contains some of the oldest trees in Canada and has been proposed as a national park.
Squamish forest district manager Paul Kuster last week approved International Forest Products' (Interfor) year 2000 to 2004 forest development plan for Tree Farm Licence 38, which includes the Elaho Valley, sometimes called the Stoltmann Wilderness.
Under the plan, Interfor has deferred a new road north of the company's current operations at Lava Creek and deferred one new cutblock in the same area.
"These deferrals will allow Interfor time to engage in further dialogue with First Nations, environmental groups and community interests before seeking new forest development plan approvals for the upper Elaho," Kuster said.
"It also allows time for ministry staff to examine grizzly bear values in the area and determine appropriate management measures."
The Elaho Valley is home to ancient Douglas Firs, some more than 1,300 years old. Last summer, it was the scene of violent confrontations between demonstrators protesting logging and Interfor employees.
Five Interfor employees face assault charges to be heard in December in connection with an incident in the Elaho Valley last September, which saw three conservationists hospitalized. Four people were jailed in May for violating an injunction barring public access to the area. The injunction has since been struck down.
The roadbuilding deferrals have done little to dampen environmental groups' anger at Interfor's logging and the B.C. provincial government's reluctance to resolve the land use conflict.
On Sunday, members of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee (WCWC) took waste wood - wedges cut from trees to control the direction of the tree felled - from the Upper Elaho and Sims valleys. The group plans to roll the wedges in bright yellow wheelbarrows to the B.C. Legislature in Victoria, 300 kilometers (200 miles) away, in a campaign called "Wedge to the Ledge."
Wilderness Committee director Joe Foy said that if B.C. premier Ujjal Dosanjh will not resolve land use conflict in the Stoltmann Wilderness, it is time to bring the problem to him.
Stump and log of 980-year old Douglas fir tree recently felled by Interfor in the Upper Elaho Valley within the proposed Stoltmann National Park Reserve. May 2000.
"We are bringing him proof of the ongoing destruction of this proposed park's ancient temperate forest, and gathering more support for the area's protection as we go," said Foy.
Another conflict over logging today in British Columbia resulted in civil disobedience hundreds of kilometers east of the Elaho Valley.
In the Slocan Valley's Trozzo Creek watershed, in the West Kootenay region of B.C.'s southern interior, about 45 residents gathered to protest road building by Slocan Forest Products, claiming the work harms their drinking water.
Murray Sadler, a local social worker, chained himself to Slocan Forest Products' machinery and said he was ready to risk arrest to protect the area's drinking water.
Last week, the the Wilderness Committee launched a Boycott Interfor campaign, and was part of a coalition of B.C. environmental groups who called upon the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to revoke an award presented to Interfor in May for "environmental excellence and achievement."
The Wilderness Committee is petitioning the federal and B.C. governments for park protection for the Upper Elaho, Sims and the entire proposed Stoltmann National Park Reserve area near Squamish, Pemberton and Whistler.
The Stoltmann Wilderness, a three hour drive north of Vancouver, encompasses the largest valley bottom ancient rainforest in the southern region of the Coast Mountains. Its diverse habitat sustains the most southerly grizzly bear and moose populations on the Pacific coast of North America.
The area is named after Randy Stoltmann who died in a 1994 mountaineering accident soon after completing a book mapping many of British Columbia's oldest and largest trees.