Canadian Logging Dollars Vie for Tourist Dollars as Stumps Replace Giant Trees : Logging Dollars Vie for, Tourist Dollars

It’s easy to see why British Columbia rain forests are called nature’s own cathedrals.

Tree trunks thick as columns in a Gothic church rise into a leafy canopy far above. The green twilight below is broken only by shafts of sunlight that turn motes of dust into flecks of gold.

It’s the mystical sort of scene the provincial government recently put on a poster promising “a surprise” for tourists visiting rain forests.

The real surprise, however, is the giant trees are vanishing or turning into sun-bleached stumps.

“They are disappearing quickly,” said Jim Bullen, a retired assistant chief forester for British Columbia. “The province needs a new master plan. I think more have to be saved.”

Trees the height of high-rises, mere seedlings when Columbus first sailed to America, were a common sight 100 years ago all along the coast. The supply seemed inexhaustible.

Myth Dispelled

A recent report commissioned by the provincial and federal governments dispels that myth. A survey of 27 logging companies found some firms have less than a 10-year supply of old growth left. The bulk admit they are down to their last 20 or 30 years.

None of this is a surprise to foresters. The future of the lumber industry is planned around harvesting rain forests while waiting for seedlings planted among the stumps to reach maturity.

“Everything is in balance,” said Tony Sauder, author of the government report. “There is no danger of running out of trees.”

But many British Columbians question the wisdom of eliminating the bulk of the rain forests.

“Rain forests are the backbone of our tourist industry,” said Ken Lay, a director of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. “They contain mysteries we are only beginning to understand.”

Tourists generated $3.5 billion last year in British Columbia and created 120,000 mostly seasonal jobs. But that is only a quarter of the lumber industry’s $13.3-billion impact. And although only 86,000 people work in the forest sector, their jobs are higher paying and full time.

‘Deserve’ Jobs

“We believe our children’s grandchildren deserve a right to forestry jobs,” said Jack Munro, the Paul Bunyan-like president of the 38,000-member International Woodworkers of America-Canada. “Not selling God-damned popcorn to tourists for four bits an hour.”

Such views fuel the battle raging over the Carmanah Valley, a narrow 16,625-acre valley sloping into the Pacific Ocean on Vancouver Island’s west coast.

It is one of the last pristine valleys in British Columbia and is home to what may be Canada’s tallest tree, a 310-foot Sitka spruce known as the Carmanah Giant.

Agreeing the sight is special, forestry giant MacMillan Bloedel plans to save the Carmanah giant and more than 200 other trees at least 230-feet high. But they want the province’s permission to log most of the valley.

Forests Minister Dave Parker has yet to decide whether to permit the valley to be logged.

Environmentalists, dissatisfied that nearly 7% of British Columbia is already parks, say saving big trees is not enough.

Ecosystem Preservation

Entire ecosystems must be preserved, they maintain, everything from delicate lichens to tiny seedlings that will replace decaying giants.

Besides being a respite from modern life, old-growth rain forests support wildlife found nowhere else, said Lay. There are also resources not measured in board feet.

One example is the Pacific yew tree, a slow-growing species researchers say may help the fight against cancer. The tree, found only in old growth forests, produces a chemical believed to inhibit cancer but is in short supply.