Clear-cut of Vancouver Island ancient trees shows faults in B.C.’s deferral system

By Todd Harmer
CTV News Vancouver Island
May 15, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

The images of the fallen enormous western red cedars in Quatsino Sound on the north end of the island were captured by conservationists with the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA), which said the trees should have been protected under the old-growth forests deferral agreement. AFA said some of the old growth trees measured upwards of 3 metres wide in a 25-hectare cutblock, the area equivalent to over 50 football fields, located on public lands in Tree Farm Licence 6, which is held by logging company Western Forest Products. The group says the area was not deferred from logging due to a mapping error. …The group said “this particular grove was not included in the TAP’s original deferral recommendations due to the forest being incorrectly labelled as 210 years old in the province’s forest inventory database (40 years younger than the province’s 250-year-old threshold)”.

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