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By Ken Matthews, Forestry ManagerForestry News

Do you remember the news headlines from twenty years ago in 1988 (Sulphur Pass) and continuing on to 1993 regarding the great protest over logging in Clayoquot Sound? Clayoquot Sound logging was world news and events gained headlines around the globe. Loggers were branded as the dark side of the story. First Nation communities and environmental groups often stood together to challenge the status quo with Coastal logging.

Twenty years later, MaMook Coulson is about to begin full operations in TFL 54 which is bound to bring some of the yet unanswered questions to the surface one more time. This time, however, we are in full partnership with the Clayoquot Sound First Nations and have the full support of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Central Region Chiefs to operate in the Sound.

In the next issues of this newsletter, I will discuss some of the events and developments over the past 20 years in Clayoquot Sound in more detail to provide a perspective on why things are the way they are there and why we operate the way we do in Clayoquot Sound. I will try to stick to the facts and leave the questions as to whether we have gone too far or if we have not gone far enough to you.

Coulson Forest Products will wrap up logging operations at Cataract Lake at the end of June. We are preparing for logging in TFL 54 in Clayoquot Sound over the next 18 to 24 months. Zolie Schafer has numerous road headings and four cutting permits approved in TFL 54 covering about 100,000m3 of timber and is about to submit several more requests for approval over the next few months with the objective of having about 350,000 m3 under permit by late fall. Several logging roads are constructed and some falling has taken place in preparation for production logging.

The greatest single change and achievement with forestry in Clayoquot Sound in the last 20 years is the ownership of the forest tenures ( TFL 54 and 57 ) by First Nations. In 1988, the forest companies who held the TFLs were MacMillan Bloedel Ltd and BC Forest Products. Neither these companies nor the Ministry of Forests had any requirement to discuss their harvesting plans or the impact of harvesting on First Nation values or culture prior to logging except where they might impact known archeological sites. In most cases, timber flowed off the land and past First Nation communities without input or discussion. Today, much consultation and First Nations input is needed before any road building or logging can occur on any area of Crown land. First Nations now own the TFLs 54 and 57 and can provide direction as to how it is managed and where the dividends from harvesting timber flow to as part of the provincial scheme in addition to their historic land claims being reviewed in the Treaty process.

On the environmental side, the status quo of 1988 was revoked and a new management regime installed. The extent of this change is still in dispute. In 1988, the approved harvest level from the lands in Clayoquot Sound was well over one million m3 per year. Clayoquot was going to be the timber basket of the future, after heavy logging had been undertaken in the previous decades at Kennedy Lake, Franklin River and Nitinat Lake. First Nations leaders and environmental groups protested and said no to that plan and gained considerable support from the public. As a result, a series of initiatives were launched by the provincial government which changed the amount of protected areas (additional parks), the relationship with First Nations ( the interim measures agreement ) and changed how we undertook logging ( the scientific panel rules). By 1995, these measures were all in place and they foreshadowed what would continue to happen on the rest of the Coast of B.C. and the Queen Charlotte Islands over the next 13 years and continues today. The approved harvest level for the land in Clayoquot Sound is now less than 300, 000m3 per year and harvesting of that full volume has not been achieved in any year since 1995.

Environmental groups kept the pressure on large companies through on the ground protests and international market campaigns. This curtailed logging and as we now know, BC Forest Products sold TFL 54( previously 46) to Fletcher Challenge who sold to Interfor who sold to MaMook Coulson. MacMillan Bloedel split TFL 57 ( Clayoquot ) away from TFL 44 and then sold to Weyerhaeuser and then to Cascadia . Along the way Iisaak was formed and in 2005, First Nations took over total ownership of TFL 57 under Iisaak.

Coulson Forest Products in our partnership with First Nations, is well situated to succeed where others have not. We are a local (regional company) with a manufacturing facility to further add value to our wood products We have considerable skill and a long successful experience logging in West Coast areas such as Clayoquot Sound. We have full support from our First nation partnership to go forward. And, we have an enthusiastic and skilled workforce to draw upon including members of our partnering First Nation communities.

Will we see a repeat of 1988? Possibly, some groups will try , but a lot has changed in Clayoquot Sound over the past 20 years.