Logging in Fairy Creek and all old-growth logging must be stopped 

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More than 140 people have been arrested for protesting the imminent logging of old-growth trees at Fairy Creek on Vancouver Island. These youth, elders and Indigenous land defenders are part of a larger movement of people fighting for a future, protesting humanity’s suicidal path that undermines the planet’s life-support systems: air, water, soil, photosynthesis and biodiversity.

The B.C. government has agreed to plans by the Huu-ay-aht, Ditidaht and Pacheedaht First Nations to defer logging in Fairy Creek and Central Walbran for two years while they develop stewardship plans, but logging continues in old-growth forests elsewhere in B.C. and around the world.

“Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history … and the rate of species extinctions is accelerating,” according to a May 2019 global assessment report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

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IPBES chairman Sir Robert Watson explained why it matters: “The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”

The IPBES message is urgent: Our survival depends on nature and we must stop destroying it.

Numerous species are found only in B.C., where large trees and salmon have long played a huge economic and cultural role. For years, environmentalists demanding a moratorium on logging old-growth forests have been called “greedy” as government and forest companies claimed to be sustainably managing them. The IPBES report concludes that at least a million species face imminent extinction, and in that context, B.C. has a special responsibility to protect what remains.

But what does it mean when we claim to “manage” a forest? Clearcutting and replacing the downed trees with seedlings or saplings of species deemed important by us isn’t sustaining “forests.” Only nature and time have grown forests.

Managing anything — we claim to manage air, water, specific species and whole ecosystems — requires, at minimum, two elements: an inventory of all species and nonliving factors in the system and a blueprint of how all those parts are interconnected and interact.

How many species live in our forests? We have no idea, even ignoring the microscopic organisms that are the foundation of life on earth. Globally, the number of macroscopic species has been estimated at between five million and 100 million, although there’s some consensus it’s around nine million. Harvard ecologist E.O. Wilson estimates perhaps 1.2 million have been given a name — that is, identified.

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“Identifying” a species doesn’t mean we know how many there are, where it occurs, its niche within an ecosystem, how it reproduces, what it eats or how it interacts with other species. We have that kind of information for a handful of species, often selected for study because they are cute, big, useful or abundant, factors that bias our knowledge base. Could we manage a shoe or computer factory knowing only a fraction of all the parts involved?

University of Victoria ecologist Tom Reimchen showed the exquisite interconnectivity of salmon, whales, eagles and the giant trees of the temperate rainforest that we try to manage through often competing departments (environment, agriculture, forestry, fisheries and oceans, energy and mining). University of B.C. forestry Prof. Suzanne Simard has shed new light on the way tree roots and mycorrhizal fungi form a network to communicate and exchange water and nutrients. UVic biologist Neville Winchester found entire mini-ecosystems and new insect and arachnoid species in the canopy of the Carmanah forest, which was once slated to be cut.

It’s not only species diversity that is important; genetic diversity of the same species from different areas is critical to understanding local adaptations, but we have virtually no information of that kind. These studies reveal complexities and interactions previously unknown, indicate how little we know and hint at how much has been lost now that intact forests no longer cover the entire continent or even most of B.C.

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The IPBES report was an urgent call to stop the catastrophic destruction of nature. It’s in our own self-interest. The forests here have been a critical part of the rich, diverse coastal First Nations cultures for millennia. Colonists and settlers who followed weren’t constrained by the Indigenous Peoples’ ecocentric perspective, one suffused with responsibility to act properly so nature can continue to flourish. Instead, settlers from different parts of the world came for opportunity, and the forests became “resources” to fulfil that goal.

Humans have taken over most terrestrial portions of the planet for roads, towns and cities, agriculture and resource extraction. We are one species of perhaps nine million, yet we claim most of the planet for ourselves. The truly wild areas remaining are mere vestiges of what once was, chopped into pieces and criss-crossed with roads, wires and pipelines. But they’re repositories of the most biodiversity left on earth and are the only source of information that explains the resilience, adaptability and productivity of nature. It’s criminal to continue to destroy any remnant of the wild. Replacement of an old-growth tree with two or three seedlings or saplings isn’t restoring a forest; it’s an attempt to grow trees like a crop of potatoes or corn. A forest is a community of diverse species of diverse ages, most of which we know very little about, shaped by soils, water flows, sunlight, weather and climate.

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All wild places should be returned to those who have the only track records of sustainably living on Turtle Island. Indigenous people can help teach us to love and respect Mother Earth and care for her so she can continue to be generous to us. They have been guardians of the land and can guide scientists to peel back the layers of ignorance and learn from nature. Stop all destruction of old-growth forests.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Peter Wohlleben is author of The Hidden Life of Trees.

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