Cai Creek/Castlegar 2025 BCTS Clearcuts
BCTS has 3 clearcuts planned for this area for 2024-25. TA2185-3 is extraordinary forest worthy of the huge public outcry against it. The area of the proposed cut block is an enormous 134.9 acres, although 46.5 acres of that is set aside in ten small “reserve” areas within the cut block. But a clearcut is still a clearcut. Here is a link to the Save Cai Creek website:
This particular tree is registered as the biggest ponderosa pine in BC. The picture does not do it justice: It is a sight to behold. This tree and a small buffer zone around it will be spared, but the entire ecosystem around it will be compromised.
If you haven't yet hiked Cai, it is a must see. You will never see anything like it again anywhere.
In July 2024, Save What's Left visited Cai Creek with biologists Matt and Amber. We measured and cataloged many old and ancient trees. Due to public pressure, BCTS made the concession to not log trees with a diameter (DBH) of more that 85cm - except for the many located in the new road. But a clearcut is still a clearcut, even if you leave a few giant trees.
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Douglas fir, ponderosa pine and western red cedar growing together. Mother nature just doing her thing!
march 19 2024 BCTS Meeting about Cai Creek
Save What's Left learned so much in this meeting with BCTS about Cai Creek:
1. In BCTS’ 21 year history in the Kootenay operating area, it has never once retracted a proposed cut block due to public input!
2. The regional Timber Sales Manager has the authority to stop a cutblock in the proposal stage right up to the moment before it goes to bid. The plan is to put Cai Creek on the market to be sold to the highest bidder in December 2024 and logging could begin as early as January 2025. So lobby your Timber Sales Manager!
3. The Woodlands Manager for the entire Kootenay operating area said in our meeting that WorkSafe BC requires road clearance widths of 20 meters for a road with a 5m wide surface (7.5m on each side). This is not true! WorkSafe BC’s official statement to Save What's Left is that they have no specified road clearance width requirement and that determining road width is the responsibility of the Ministry of Forests. This is an excuse BCTS has been making around the province for decades to help pay for expensive road building with proceeds from the sale of the trees cut to make way for the roads.
4. Save What's Left played Google satellite imagery video of the Cai Creek area for them on their own big screen. BCTS’ response was they believe what they have done in this area and in the greater Kootenay operating area was indeed sustainable, despite the evidence that any rational person could see. BCTS uses the International standards group SFI to justify their sustainability. SFI was developed by industry, faces worldwide criticism and legal action in Canada.
5. It was unanimously agreed upon that all tree forest licensees, including BCTS, are logging more “front country” areas and that this trend will undoubtedly ramp up because of the dwindling supply of primary forest in more hidden areas in the back-country. Prepare to have your watersheds logged out, your viewscapes altered, and an even more exacerbated risk of flooding and wildfire as the result.
6. The two higher-ranking BCTS staff present at the meeting had no idea about the Ministry of Forests' leaked mapping documents scandal that had happened the week before. These leaked government documents show MOF has now eliminated 55% of 2021 old growth deferrals. This was a major news story at the time and is still very relevant. This further shows that BCTS is operating in a bubble: BCTS, and by extension our provincial government, is literally not seeing the forest for the trees.
7. We talked about critically necessary “landscape level planning,” which the government has been talking up as the future of forestry. BCTS made it clear to me that landscape level planning is only at the discussion phase right now in the Kootenay operating area with no clear plan whatsoever, that there is not even a province-wide implementation plan, and that each of the 12 BCTS operating areas in the province are approaching landscape level planning differently. For someone who has studied forestry deeply for years, this is a jaw dropping admission. This is an abject failure of the Ministry of Forests, and it is horrifying if you are concerned about intact ecosystems and wildlife habitat.
In conclusion, if you know what you are talking about, a meeting with BCTS can be vindicating. The problem is, once they know that you know your stuff, they won't talk to you anymore. Save What's Left has been told formally by both BCTS and the Ministry of Forests, that they will no longer communicate with us under most circumstances. That does not seem very democratic. But why should that surprise anyone? Nothing about BCTS is democratic.