Up one of WFP’s Logging Roads

by Pete Rockwell
E-Main angles off the 2-lane highway and then straight up into the cut blocks. First there’s trees and then there isn’t as the gravel road leads into a fairly recent clear-cut. Like a boat trying for the right speed to plane over choppy water I try to smooth out the washboard. There [...]

Government spin on forest industry not new

From coastal decline to the Interior pine beetle, we don’t get the full story
Andrew Mitchell, Special to Times Colonist
Is former forests minister Rich Coleman the sole villain for making a forests decision without due regard to the public interest? Forest ministers in B.C. have been very lenient with the forest industry for more than 60 [...]

Copper Exploration Underway In Protected Clayoquot Sound Area of British Columbia

By Canadian Press
Drilling has begun with the blessing of the provincial mines ministry and the local aboriginal band. However, area environmentalists are preparing for a fight to fend off mining in what was once Ground Zero for the province’s environmental movement.
TOFINO, B.C. (CP) –Exploratory drilling began this week in the environmentally sensitive Clayoquout Sound region [...]

NDP asks Doyle to turn focus on Alberni Valley

More than 70,000 hectares released from tree farm licence in 2004
Judith Lavoie, Times Colonist
The NDP wants auditor general John Doyle to produce a sequel to his scathing report on the removal of private forestlands from three Vancouver Island tree farm licences.
And, the sequel could be even scarier than the original, says Alberni-Qualicum MLA Scott Fraser [...]

Old-growth logging plan sparks war-in-woods threat

Old-growth logging plan sparks war-in-woods threat
Chad Skelton, Vancouver Sun
B.C. could see a return to protests and blockades in world-renowned Clayoquot Sound as a forestry company prepares to log an old-growth forest in the Hesquiat Point Creek watershed – the first time a company has begun logging in such a “pristine” valley in nearly 20 years.
And [...]