Canada’s Clayoquot Sound is no stranger to logging controversies. In the 1990s, thousands turned out to protect its verdant rainforests from logging during forest blockades. While the Sound’s outstanding ecosystems have been recognized as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve—a designation that carries no legal protections—logging continues to threaten its few remaining intact rainforests.
Clayoquot Sound is the last stronghold for coastal temperate rainforest on British Columbia’s Vancouver Island. The skyline is rimmed by picturesque, snow-capped mountains and glacially cut fjords. Massive spruce, cedar, and hemlock can tower to nearly 100 meters (328 feet) and rivers slice through lowland valleys. The few remaining intact rainforests provide a sanctuary for wild salmon, the table setter for eagles, bears, wolves, and local communities.
Large blocks of intact lowland temperate rainforests are globally rare and like the British Columbia coastline are exceptional but under threat. More than half of British Columbia’s coastal rainforest has been logged, and intact rainforests are especially scarce on Vancouver Island where three-quarters of its pristine valleys have been logged, mined, and developed. The Island’s reserves are small and fragmented, omit many important vegetation types, and being Land Use Objectives, the reserves are less permanent than Canada’s Parks.
A recent proposal by the logging company Iisaak Forest Resources, threatens remaining lowland areas on Flores 
Island within the Sound’s delicate rainforest ecosystem. The 15,400 hectare (38,500 acres) island is the Sound’s largest, and is almost entirely intact. The logging company is soon to submit cutting permits to the British Columbia Ministry of Forests, proposing 86 logging cutblocks and totaling some 1,900 hectares (4,695 acres) of intact rainforest over the next 20 years. This would fragment one of the Sound’s last remaining lowland rainforest ecosystems.
Iisaak’s logging plans also are undergoing an annual audit under the auspices of the Rainforest Alliance SmartWood program that will apply the eco-friendly logging standards of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC ). If Iisaak’s certificate is renewed, logging in pristine old-growth rainforest could commence with the seal of approval from the otherwise highly reputable FSC. To conduct its audit, SmartWood certifiers will rely on regional standards for British Columbia developed in 2005 by diverse stakeholders. The standards identified Clayoquot Sound as meeting FSC’s global criteria of high conservation value forests, which provides a higher level of scrutiny for logging proposals. Because of the rarity of intact low-elevation and old-growth rainforests regionally and globally, SmartWood should place the company’s certificate on hold until the logging company suspends its operations in intact valleys. To do otherwise, would violate the spirit and intent of FSC’s global accreditation programs.
To keep its global status as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, the government of British Columbia should legally protect remaining intact valleys and provide funds in support of a conservation-based economy and restoration of degraded watersheds. While logging provides short-term benefits, it cannot replace the greater ecosystem benefits these forests provide when they remain upright.
The Sound’s rainforests are part of British Columbia’s globally significant carbon warehouse. Massive amounts of carbon are stored in the giant trees, dense foliage, and rich soils. New information shows that these rainforests are part of a larger system that may play an important role in helping to stabilize the global climate. For instance, British Columbia’s Great Bear, Haida Gwaii, and Clayoquot Sound rainforests store an estimated 1.9 gigatons of carbon, the equivalent of nearly three times the provinces’ annual carbon dioxide emissions from the transportation sector. When these rainforests are cut down, up to 40 percent of their carbon is released as a global warming pollutant.
Clayoquot Sound’s ecosystem is priceless, fragile, and of global importance. What happens next will determine whether rainforests thrive or the pattern of destruction continues. For more information on the Sound and this logging threat go to www.focs.ca/action/index.asp
Sources: Carbon storage estimates were extrapolated from Keith et al. 2009, converted to CO² equivalents, and then compared to British Columbia’s greenhouse gas emissions in "Environment Canada’s National Inventory Report 2010." Logging related carbon losses were obtained from Harmon, M. E., S. L. Garman, and W. K. Ferrell. 1996. Modeling Historical Patterns of Tree Utilization in the Pacific Northwest: Carbon Sequestration Implications. Ecological Applications 6:641–652. Regional estimates were provided by the Sierra Club of Canada, British Columbia Chapter.
Island within the Sound’s delicate rainforest ecosystem. The 15,400 hectare (38,500 acres) island is the Sound’s largest, and is almost entirely intact. The logging company is soon to submit cutting permits to the British Columbia Ministry of Forests, proposing 86 logging cutblocks and totaling some 1,900 hectares (4,695 acres) of intact rainforest over the next 20 years. This would fragment one of the Sound’s last remaining lowland rainforest ecosystems.
Iisaak’s logging plans also are undergoing an annual audit under the auspices of the Rainforest Alliance SmartWood program that will apply the eco-friendly logging standards of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC ). If Iisaak’s certificate is renewed, logging in pristine old-growth rainforest could commence with the seal of approval from the otherwise highly reputable FSC. To conduct its audit, SmartWood certifiers will rely on regional standards for British Columbia developed in 2005 by diverse stakeholders. The standards identified Clayoquot Sound as meeting FSC’s global criteria of high conservation value forests, which provides a higher level of scrutiny for logging proposals. Because of the rarity of intact low-elevation and old-growth rainforests regionally and globally, SmartWood should place the company’s certificate on hold until the logging company suspends its operations in intact valleys. To do otherwise, would violate the spirit and intent of FSC’s global accreditation programs.
To keep its global status as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, the government of British Columbia should legally protect remaining intact valleys and provide funds in support of a conservation-based economy and restoration of degraded watersheds. While logging provides short-term benefits, it cannot replace the greater ecosystem benefits these forests provide when they remain upright.
The Sound’s rainforests are part of British Columbia’s globally significant carbon warehouse. Massive amounts of carbon are stored in the giant trees, dense foliage, and rich soils. New information shows that these rainforests are part of a larger system that may play an important role in helping to stabilize the global climate. For instance, British Columbia’s Great Bear, Haida Gwaii, and Clayoquot Sound rainforests store an estimated 1.9 gigatons of carbon, the equivalent of nearly three times the provinces’ annual carbon dioxide emissions from the transportation sector. When these rainforests are cut down, up to 40 percent of their carbon is released as a global warming pollutant.
Clayoquot Sound’s ecosystem is priceless, fragile, and of global importance. What happens next will determine whether rainforests thrive or the pattern of destruction continues. For more information on the Sound and this logging threat go to www.focs.ca/action/index.asp
Sources: Carbon storage estimates were extrapolated from Keith et al. 2009, converted to CO² equivalents, and then compared to British Columbia’s greenhouse gas emissions in "Environment Canada’s National Inventory Report 2010." Logging related carbon losses were obtained from Harmon, M. E., S. L. Garman, and W. K. Ferrell. 1996. Modeling Historical Patterns of Tree Utilization in the Pacific Northwest: Carbon Sequestration Implications. Ecological Applications 6:641–652. Regional estimates were provided by the Sierra Club of Canada, British Columbia Chapter.