During the 1990s, Clayoquot Sound was the site of the largest anti-logging protests in Canada’s history. Today FSC certification is legitimising industrial-scale logging in Clayoquot Sound.

FSC-watch recently received the photographs below of logging in Clayoquot Sound. The company involved is Ecotrust Canada, FSC-certified by SmartWood in 2006. “At the core of it all,” says Kent Goodyear of Ecotrust, “we encourage the notion of people relating to where they live, and trying to live in a sustainable manner. This is the underlying principle that makes FSC a valuable conservation tool in my work.”

The photographs came with the following note:

“How does this warrant FSC certification? It is a recipe for blowdown and slides on these weatherbeaten coastal mountains, not to mention the drastic loss of salmon. It took two of these monster barges to take out the bundles of old growth forests here in Rankin Cove in Clayoquot Sound, basically high-grading cedar.”

Note the size of the person next to the logs

Aerial view of bundled old growth logs in Rankin Cove

Giant ancient cedar bundles

Log barge in Rankin Cove, 17 March 2008

Old growth bundles at Rankin Cove

Log bundles