After more than a century of industrial logging, over 80% of Vancouver Island’s productive old-growth forests have now been logged, including more than 90% of the most productive valley bottoms where the biggest trees grow and the richest biodiversity is found. See before and after maps and video.
Historically, many of the river valleys in the rainforest zones of BC would have been home to some of the largest living trees on Earth. Yet even in recent times, stumps as wide as 16 feet (5 metres) in diameter are still being found as old-growth logging continues in some of the last fragments of ‘big-tree’ forests that remain. These trees can be exceptionally old as well. When the rings were counted on the stump of yellow cedar in the Caren Range on the Sunshine Coast, the tree was found to have been 1,835 years old before it was cut down.
Old-growth forests are a non-renewable resource. No one is waiting 500-1000 years for giant trees like these to grow back. And with a rapidly changing climate, there’s no guarantee that they would, even if given the chance. We must protect endangered old-growth forests and ensure a swift transition to a sustainable, value-added second-growth forest industry today.
Take action by sending an instant message to protect old-growth forests.
