B.C.'s `war in the woods' battlegrounds to be permanently protected
Old-growth forests that were battlegrounds over clearcut logging in the 1980s and 1990s during B.C.'s “war in the woods” are set to receive permanent protections in a land and forest management agreement.
The B.C. government says an agreement Tuesday with two Vancouver Island First Nations will protect about 760 sq. km of Crown land in Clayoquot Sound by establishing 10 new conservancies in areas that include old-growth forests.
The partnership involves reconfiguring the tree farm licence in the Clayoquot Sound area to protect the old-growth zones while supporting other forest industry tenures held by area First Nations, said Forests Minister Bruce Ralston in a statement.
Statements from the Clayoquot Sound's Ahoushat and Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations say the conservancies will preserve old-growth forests on Meares Island and the Kennedy Lake area, sites of protests that led to hundreds of arrests.
Plans for clearcut logging on Meares Island, about one kilometre northeast of Tofino and the site of some of the world's largest western red cedars, touched off environmental and Indigenous protests in the 1980s. They eventually resulted in a court injunction that halted logging.
About a decade later, more than 800 protesters were arrested in the Clayoquot Sound area near Ucluelet.
The forest company eventually left the area after losing an estimated $200 million in contracts related to timber sales.
Tyson Atleo, Ahousaht First Nation hereditary representative, said the conservancy lands will now safeguard some of the last remaining old-growth forests on Vancouver Island and reflect the land-use visions and livelihoods of the Ahousaht and Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations.