Editor:
The ad that Sunshine Coast Community Forest ran in Coast Reporter’s March 2 paper concerning the Wilson Creek Forest was a public relations piece that needs to be addressed. Readers should consider that before the forest was clear cut in 2012-13 it had recovered from the 1860s wildlife fire and before that other natural disturbances reaching back to the last Ice Age. There was limited hand-logging (eight to 10 stumps) of cedar in one corner. What the Coast had here was a “mature fire-disturbed” forest showing old growth characteristics, including: old-growth Douglas fir, mature Sitka spruce and red cedar, dead standing wildlife trees, native plants, ferns, mosses, and importantly, an extensive mycelium mat extending across the whole area producing a variety of mushrooms. This natural forest provided ongoing environmental services for free.
It has now been converted into an industrial tree farm. The planted seedlings came from a nursery and are not genetically adapted to the site. They will grow up and then be cut down every 60 to 80 years. Successive harvesting will impact soil conditions, eventually leaving the site void of many of the nutrients that grew such a diverse forest in the first place. Whatever few new plant species SCCF claims to have drifted in here post-logging will be destroyed when logging returns. A complex ecosystem is gone forever.
SCCF had not invested one cent into the site and the trees before cutting them down. They assigned a zero dollar value to the forest. They cannot, in good faith, use the term “harvest” as neither they nor any other agency had actually planted the trees they claimed were harvested. The headline they chose for the ad piece, “After the Harvest,” is catchy. However, a more accurate headline would have been “The Clearcut and the Damage Done.”
Ross Muirhead, Elphinstone Logging Focus
