Friends of Clayoquot Sound: News 050627

October 31, 2005

Interfor Attacks Clayoquot 'Scientific Panel' Logging Standards

Interfor has released an ominous new Management Plan for its Tree Farm License 54 in Clayoquot Sound. In the draft plan, Interfor proposes to single-handedly downgrade several of the Science Panel's recommendations for improved logging in Clayoquot Sound. The company is even upfront about the rationale for the proposed changes. They're designed to enable Interfor to squeeze out a higher volume of cut to make the Tree Farm License economically viable.

These are some of the reductions in environmental standards that Interfor is proposing:

doubling the rate of logging in some valleys in the short term, so that 10% or 20% of a valley can be cut in one year (instead of 5% or 10%)
logging closer to streams, including right up to stream banks
increasing the size of cutblocks (clearcuts) by 50% in some areas
tripling the size of small cutblocks allowed in sensitive terrain or areas important for recreation, scenery, or wildlife
reducing the size of the no-logging reserves set aside for protecting marbled murrelets, a threatened seabird that nests in old growth forest.

The stakes are high. If approved, Interfor's plan will spell the unraveling of the Science Panel in Clayoquot Sound. Since 1995, Clayoquot has experienced reduced and improved logging because of the recommendations of the Scientific Panel for Sustainable Forest Practices in Clayoquot Sound. Although accepted by the provincial government as policy, the Panel's recommendations are not legislated, and therefore vulnerable to being dismantled bit by bit.

FOCS and others are pressuring the BC government to require Interfor to drop all reference to changing the Science Panel from its Clayoquot management plan. We can't allow Interfor to begin turning back the clock to the "bad old days" of logging.

If Interfor can't make money following the better (but by no means world-class) Science Panel standards in the Clayoquot Sound Biosphere Reserve, the solution is not to decrease standards in order to increase logging. Rather, it's time for Interfor and industrial corporate forestry to ship out of Clayoquot Sound.

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