Update: Clearcut logging near China Beach

Clearcut logging across the highway from the entrance to China Beach campground, behind a "beauty strip" of unlogged forest.

Tansky Main, opposite China Beach Campground on Highway 14.

The company doing the logging is Queesto, a partnership between the Pacheedaht First Nation and Canadian Overseas Group. The land was once part of Tree Farm License 25, but is now part of the new Tree Farm License 61 (PDF map) which is owned by the partnership.

No men with chainsaws here. The logging is done with feller-bunchers. These machines (shown above) cut and drop a tree in a few seconds. Five machines were operating in the cutblock, which after just a couple weeks is the size of ten football fields. A forester said the whole hillside (about 100 football fields) will be stripped by Christmas.

The loggers are contractors. There were no Pacheedaht First Nation members working  in the cutblock. The logs are not supplying the mini-sawmill on the Pacheedaht reserve - they are trucked to the Jordan River log sort, then to a mill on the Fraser River. The milled lumber is sent to China and elsewhere.

According to news reports, the Pacheedaht First Nation paid at least $300,000 for the right to harvest timber on their traditional territory. It will take years to pay off the debt.

Photos by James Coccola.

Clearcut forecast

Reported: Clearcut logging across the highway from China Beach, near Juan de Fuca Provincial Park, 70 km west of Victoria.

The company doing the logging is Queesto Logging, a partnership between the Pacheedaht First Nation and Canadian Overseas Group. The wood is reportedly destined for a mill on the Fraser River. This group began operations in its new Tree Farm License this fall. Click here for a larger PDF version of the forest map below.

A few kilometers east of China Beach, the Jordan River log sort yard is full of timber.

This just in: Caycuse Valley has been stripped.

Below: Ancient Forest Alliance executive director Ken Wu next to old growth Douglas fir trees that were cut down in the Caycuse Valley between Cowichan Lake and the Walbran Valley. The Alliance is trying to prevent this from happening again, to preserve Vancouver Island​’s few vital old growth forests. Photo: Tyler Clark for Lake Cowichan Gazette. 
 

 













The Ancient Forest Alliance reports:

The BC government has allowed an important deer wintering range to be logged on Vancouver Island in the Caycuse Valley south of Cowichan Lake. British Columbia's coastal black-tailed deer populations that live at higher elevations (ie. where there is snow pack) spend the winter months in old-growth forests where they find food and shelter. Lichens which take a long time to spread and grow (and thus are found in much greater abundance in old-growth forests) form a large part of their winter diet. 

This particular grove of extremely rare old-growth Douglas firs was logged in the summer of 2011. Vancouver Island's deer population has dropped from over 200,000 individuals in the 1970's to less than 60,000 individuals 30 years later in large part due to the logging of their old-growth wintering range. Help protect Vancouver Island's last old-growth forests, ensure sustainable second-growth forestry, and ban the export of raw logs.

Click to view video: