Friends of Clayoquot Sound: Logging

Ma-Mook Natural Resources / Coulson Forest Products

In March 2007, Ma-Mook Natural Resources Ltd., a company owned by local First Nations, bought Interfor’s Tree Farm License (TFL 54) in Clayoquot Sound. International Forest Products (Interfor) had owned this public land Tree Farm License since 1992.

To finance the purchase, Ma-Mook entered into a joint venture with Coulson Forest Products, a logging company from Port Alberni. The joint venture also gives Ma-Mook access to Coulson’s logging expertise and its sawmill in Port Alberni, a town 50 km south of Clayoquot Sound.

In 2008 and 2009, Ma-Mook/Coulson can log a total of 300,000 cubic metres of old-growth wood in Clayoquot Sound, a volume accumulated from Interfor’s “undercut” when Interfor did not log for two years as it prepared to sell its license.

Ma-Mook/Coulson intends to carry through with the road building and logging planned by Interfor. This would take it into the currently intact wilderness valleys of Satchie Creek and Sulphur Pass. Recognizing the contentious nature of logging in Clayoquot Sound’s intact temperate rainforest valleys, which scientists and environmental organizations have identified as urgent conservation priorities, Ma-Mook/Coulson has agreed to stay out of Sulphur Pass and Satchie Creek in 2008 and 2009.

However, by 2010 these two pristine areas will be back in the logging schedule, as Ma-Mook/Coulson will have run out of forest to cut in the “developed” areas of its Clayoquot Sound license (areas of old growth forest that are already fragmented by logging).

The company has stated it intends to log throughout its entire tenure in Clayoquot Sound, which would take it into other intact old growth areas such as Sydney Valley, Pretty Girl area, and Hesquiat Lake Creek.

Ma-Mook’s Tree Farm License 54 in Clayoquot Sound: 49,000 hectares (120,000 acres)

Contact us!

Friends of Clayoquot Sound
PO Box 489, 331 Neill St., Tofino BC V0R 2Z0
Tel: 250-725-4218 Fax: 250-725-2527
Email: info@focs.ca