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52-455: Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park , originally Carmanah Pacific Provincial Park , is a remote wilderness park located inside traditional Ditidaht First Nation (also spelled diiɁdiitidq ) ancestral territory. The park covers a land area of 16,450 ha (63.5 sq mi) immediately adjacent to Pacific Rim National Park Reserve 's West Coast Trail on the south-western, coastal terrain of Vancouver Island . The provincial park comprises

104-457: A canoe can go" and John Thomas Walbran , a colonial explorer and ship's captain. Access to the park is by gravel logging road from Port Alberni , Lake Cowichan , or Port Renfrew . The Carmanah Walbran protects extensive tracts of luxuriant Pacific temperate rainforest , and is famous for its ancient old growth , which includes giant western redcedar , coast Douglas-fir , western hemlock , and towering groves of Sitka spruce that grow along

156-479: A focus on Carmanah Valley and from 1988 to 1990 increased its membership from roughly 3,000 to over 30,000. During this campaign the Wilderness Committee honed its skills in public education. Over a 2-year period the Wilderness Committee published and distributed over 1 million copies of the organization's educational tabloid style newspapers, 500,000 Adopt-A-Tree mail-in opinion cards, 10,000 copies of

208-639: A friend first laid eyes on the towering Sitka Spruce of the Carmanah Valley in the early 1980s. In 1985 Stoltmann authored an article proposing protection for the Carmanah giant spruce grove as a National Park Centennial gift to Canada while the Western Canada Wilderness Committee issued a report calling for the protection of a 500-acre sitka spruce grove park as a Canadian landmark candidate. It wasn't until 1988 that

260-450: A huge step forward, does not provide legislated protection. There are more than 1,600 species and subspecies are at risk of disappearing from BC, mostly due to human-caused degradation of habitat. From peregrine falcons and monarch butterflies to grizzly bears and spotted owls, endangered species such as these are left to fend for themselves against climate change, toxic contamination, urban sprawl, logging and industrial development as there

312-678: A leader of the Greens in Europe down into the Carmanah to witness one of the last ancient forest watersheds on Vancouver Island on the chopping block. Upon returning to Victoria the MP went public, denouncing the government for clear-cutting practices that in Europe would jail those responsible. Immediately after the moratorium was announced, the Western Canada Wilderness Committee and the Carmanah Forest Society, led by Sid Haskell, began

364-481: A race to build trails into the valley while arranging transportation for the public to come and see the giant trees for themselves. Sharon Chow recalls the Sierra Club of British Columbia designing and selling thousands of Carmanah T-shirts. 100 B.C. artists, organized by Mark Hobson in conjunction with the Western Canada Wilderness Committee , participated in a series of painting trips to the valley, culminating in

416-508: A slower, more sustainable rate to better protect the environment while still providing wood working jobs. The Wilderness Committee is also calling for a ban on raw log exports to further protect wood worker jobs in BC. The Wilderness Committee has an annual budget of approximately $ 2 million (CAN). There are about two dozen staff members who carry out various functions, including organizing volunteers, publishing educational materials, campaigning for

468-625: A suspension on all private 'run-of river' power projects until they are regionally planned, environmentally appropriate, acceptable to First Nations and publicly owned. This is one of the Wilderness Committee's longest lasting campaigns to protect the largest area of ancient temperate rainforest left on BC's Vancouver Island. With 75% of Vancouver Island's old-growth rainforest already logged, forestry companies continue to push for more logging operations in this rare ancient coastal rainforest. In 2008, forestry company, MaMook Coulson proposed logging in one of Clayoquot Sound's intact areas of ancient forest –

520-559: Is all volunteer run. Approximately 90% of all Wilderness Committee funding comes from individual donations and membership fees with the remaining funds coming from foundations and grants. All members receive the Wilderness Committee's annual calendar, five to seven newspapers providing information about current campaigns and wilderness areas and 10% discount on all Wilderness Committee products, such as nature-based cards, calendars, posters and books. An elected, nine-member volunteer board of directors who each serve three years in post governs

572-405: Is calling for a moratorium on all private river hydro-power projects in BC. Following the BC provincial government's 2002 Energy Plan, publicly owned BC Hydro was forbidden from producing new sources of hydroelectricity as part of a shift to deregulate and privatize the BC electricity sector. So far private power companies have staked 600 wild creeks and rivers. The Wilderness Committee is calling for

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624-420: Is calling on the BC government to protect BC's ancient forests by immediately banning logging in the most endangered old-growth forest types and phasing-out old-growth logging from the rest by 2015. The ancient forests provide essential habitat for endangered wildlife such as the spotted owl, marbled murrelet and mountain caribou. According to the Wilderness Committee, BC's second-growth forests could be logged at

676-558: Is no stand-alone endangered species law in BC. The Wilderness Committee is calling on the provincial government to enact a law that will protect the habitat of endangered species and identify, protect and establish effective recovery plans for all endangered species across BC. Around the globe people are mobilizing to meet the challenges of climate change but instead of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Canada continues to pursue policies that will greatly increase – not decrease – greenhouse gas emissions. Half of Canada's future emissions growth

728-558: Is projected to come from the Alberta and Saskatchewan tar sands. The Wilderness Committee's climate change campaign calls for the deep reduction of carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels, with legislated goals on reducing our carbon emissions that are set by the best science available. Stopping the expansion of fossil fuel extraction, like the Canadian tar sands, new coal mines or proposals for oil and gas exploration will address some of

780-492: Is the CWH Submontane Very Wet Maritime subzone, which comprises the majority of the area of Carmanah Walbran park. The dominant coniferous trees here are western hemlock , coast Douglas-fir , western redcedar , and Sitka spruce . The year-round mild and humid climate produces ideal conditions for the development of extensive epiphyte communities in the forest canopy. The forest contains twice

832-531: The Grass River Provincial Park , an area that is also home to a newly discovered herd of caribou. In September 2009 the Wilderness Committee filed for a formal appeal against this license. The Wilderness Committee believes the decision to approve the road will have a negative impact on the migration route of the park's woodland caribou, which gained protected status under the province's Endangered Species Act in 2006. The Wilderness Committee

884-520: The West Coast Trail became part of the newly established Pacific Rim National Park Reserve in 1973. This First Nations in Canada –related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Western Canada Wilderness Committee Paul George , the founding Director, has published a history of the organization: Big Trees, Not Big Stumps . Other key campaigners for

936-743: The Hesquiat Point Creek Valley – sparking a strong response from the environmental community. Currently, no logging has taken place in the pristine area of Hesquiat Point Creek or any other intact area within Clayoquot Sound. But the conflict over potential logging in Hesquiat Point Creek has renewed the interest in finding a lasting solution for protecting Clayoquot Sound, while providing livelihood opportunities for those who live there. The designation of Clayoquot Sound as an UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2000, while

988-682: The Valhalla Campaign with the Valhalla Wilderness Society). In 1985, the Wilderness Committee initiated a new campaign tactic with its Stein Valley campaign. A hiking trail was constructed into the threatened wilderness area so that citizens, media, scientists and politicians could go there and see the Stein Valley wilderness for themselves. This activity required mobilizing dozens of committed volunteers and moved

1040-399: The Wilderness Committee into an active year-round organization. 1988 was a pivotal year for the Wilderness Committee. It launched its first stand alone campaign to protect Carmanah Valley from industrial logging, and brought national attention to the importance of protecting Canada's big-treed ancient temperate rainforests. The Wilderness Committee initiated its first door-to-door canvass with

1092-546: The Wilderness Committee over the years have been Adriane Carr , Colleen McCrory , Bryan Adams , Randy Stoltmann , Ken Lay, Joe Foy, Andrea Reimer , Ken Wu, Gwen Barlee and Nik Cuff. The Wilderness Committee's Mission is: To protect Canada's bio-diversity through strategic research and grassroots public education. The Wilderness Committee believes that the right, the duty and the ability to act are integral to citizenship. The Wilderness Committee values nature , with all its natural bio-diversity , as absolutely vital to

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1144-401: The Wilderness Committee works to protect wild lands, safeguard wild habitats from destruction, defend the well being of and public access to established national and provincial parks , keep wild rivers as a vital part of the natural environment and ensure that people can live and work in healthy communities. Underlying the Wilderness Committee's education work is a belief that citizens have

1196-528: The Wilderness Committee's award-winning book Carmanah – Visions of an Ancient Rainforest, 20,000 posters, 45,000 calendars and thousands of news releases on the Carmanah Valley issue. As part of this campaign the Wilderness Committee also conducted slide-show tours in BC and Ontario, built its first boardwalk wilderness trail, produced the organization's first video, built the world's first upper canopy ancient temperate rainforest research station and supported researchers who discovered hundreds of new insect species in

1248-519: The Wilderness Committee's educational mission. The Wilderness Committee often works closely with other environmental groups, First Nations and community leaders, and conducts regular expeditions into threatened wilderness areas. Campaigns fall within the following areas: 1. Protecting Wild Lands 2. Safeguarding Wildlife 3. Defending Public Lands 4. Preserving the Pacific Coast 5. Supporting Healthy Communities The Wilderness Committee

1300-497: The Wilderness Committee. The Board appoints and gives direction to the Executive Team. The Executive Team carries on the day-to-day management of the Wilderness Committee. It reports to the board of directors and serves as ex officio non-voting members of the board and board committees. When the Wilderness Committee was founded in 1980 there was little information available to the public on Canadian wilderness issues. Under

1352-570: The biomass of tropical rainforests. Marbled murrelet nests have been found in the area. Ditidaht First Nation The Ditidaht [dee-tee-dot] First Nation is a First Nations band government on southern Vancouver Island in British Columbia , Canada. The government has 17 reserve lands: Ahuk, Tsuquanah, Wyah, Clo-oose, Cheewat, Sarque, Carmanah, Iktuksasuk, Hobitan, Oyees, Doobah, Malachan, Opatseeah, Wokitsas, Chuchummisapo and Saouk. Several of these traditional communities and

1404-541: The campaign to save the Carmanah commenced when McMillan Bloedel, the company with timber rights, was about to start clear-cutting the lower valley. Randy Stoltmann and Clinton Webb got word through to Peter McAllister, then Chair of the Sierra Club of Western Canada, now Sierra Club BC , via Bristol Foster, that the logging road was about to be punched into the heart of the valley. McAllister immediately contacted MacMillan Bloedel to see if he could cut them off. He learned they were unaware their chainsaws were about to destroy

1456-412: The case for protecting the valley. He argued for a temporary moratorium on road-building and logging. Remarkably, the company agreed to a four-week stay of execution and that's what it took to trigger a most extraordinary rush of campaigning to bring fame and salvation to the Carmanah. With the help of Tony Gooch the Sierra Club raised the money to commission a preliminary environmental assessment to alert

1508-426: The civil disobedience extended well into the early 1990s. The protests worked to garner more public support and fought to gain provincial funding that would enable the area to become a park and thus be protected against the long lasting and detrimental effects of deforestation . Protesters chained themselves to some of the great Sitka spruce while camped out in portaledges at heights of over 50 metres. In response to

1560-533: The collaborative production of a 1981 full-colour wall calendar featuring 12 endangered wilderness areas in Western Canada, with response tear-offs to a dozen different Canadian environmental groups. In its early years the Wilderness Committee mounted campaigns in collaboration with other groups (e.g., South Moresby/Gwaii Haanas – with the council of the Haida Nation and Islands Protection Society; and

1612-422: The domestic action needed to prevent runaway climate destruction. Stopping highway expansion and increasing investment in public transit, cycling and walking infrastructure and protecting wild lands like forests and wetlands, a significant storage of greenhouse gases, are some of the local solutions proposed by the Wilderness Committee. Manitoba provincial parks were the most threatened parks in Canada, and some of

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1664-614: The entire drainage of Carmanah Creek (northwest of the mouth of the creek hosted the kwaabaaduw7aa7tx village, a "local group" whose alliance makes up one branch of the Ditidaht Nation), and a good portion of the lower Walbran River drainage, both of which independently empty into the Pacific Ocean . The park is named after the Anglicized diitiid?aatx word kwaabaaduw7aa7tx , or Carmanah, meaning "as far up as

1716-486: The health of people, communities and the planet . The Wilderness Committee acts with integrity and courage to mobilize citizens to take lawful, democratic action to defend Canada's remaining wilderness and wildlife . The Wilderness Committee has campaigned successfully, alongside other like minded individuals and organizations to protect millions of hectares of Canadian wilderness in over 40 key wilderness areas. With community-based, grassroots education campaigns,

1768-400: The leadership of Paul George, the Wilderness Committee began to research, publish and distribute information about threatened Canadian wilderness; especially focusing on the big-treed temperate rainforests of coastal BC. The Wilderness Committee's primary goal was to build grassroots and broad public support for protecting ecosystems and bio-diversity. The Wilderness Committee's first project was

1820-472: The most famous grove of giant Sitka Spruce containing the tallest one in the world. With that McAllister, accompanied by the Victoria office's Sharon Chow were helicoptered into the valley to show MacMillan Bloedel's Regional Forester and a couple of their executives the exceptional trees. They found Randy Stoltmann and Clinton Webb camped out in the grove. Back at MacMillan Bloedel headquarters, McAllister made

1872-456: The most threatened globally. But in 2009 the Wilderness Committee and other supportive individuals and organizations succeeded in convincing the provincial government to stop logging in 79 of Manitoba's 80 provincial parks. The Manitoba's Forest Amendment Act was assented to on June 11, 2009. A license was issued in 2009 by the Manitoba government to build a logging road through the heart of

1924-478: The neglect and disrepair of the park's boardwalk trail system—trail access via the boardwalk is essential in preserving the area's delicate ecosystem. Although BC Parks received a funding increase in 2012 for the first time in over ten years, BC's provincial government has repeatedly cut funding to the BC Parks' budget, the result of which is BC Parks' inability to staff a sufficient number of Park Rangers to maintain

1976-429: The network of trails and keep the park safe from cedar poachers and illegal logging . As of 2014, the extensive trail network woven throughout both the Carmanah and Walbran portions of the park has fallen into disrepair, which makes hiking through neglected areas dangerous for visitors and for the delicate natural balance of the park's ecological systems. The wooden boardwalks have completely collapsed in some segments of

2028-505: The ocean lies the CWH Southern Very Wet Hypermaritime subzone, which is intimately shaped by the forces of the sea. This subzone is often referred to as the "spruce fringe forest" and is characterized by the dominance of sitka spruce, which is specially adapted to withstand the magnesium salts of sea spray. Other characteristic species include leatherleaf polypody fern and evergreen huckleberry. Just inland

2080-641: The premier and cabinet ministers of the ecological values of the valley. McAllister made the campaign international at the Sierra Club ’s Annual General meeting in San Francisco. He brought up National Geographic to photograph the celebrity sitka spruce grove and show off Vancouver Island as the worst clear-cut devastation in all of the Pacific Northwest. Consequently, Nat Geo's Jim Blair photograph of Mt Paxton, clear-cut entirely right down to

2132-471: The productive riverside flats. Some of the western redcedar in the area are well over 1,000 years old, and Canada's tallest tree, a Sitka spruce named the Carmanah Giant, measured at 95.836 m (314 ft), estimated to be around 400 years old, lives along the lower reaches of Carmanah Creek. However, trails to the Carmanah Giant and many other portions of the park are currently inaccessible due to

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2184-753: The protection of nature and financial management. There are also around 20 to 30 contract door-to-door canvassers, who distribute the Wilderness Committee's educational materials and solicit donations and memberships. There are also up to 100 volunteers who work in the mailing rooms, build trails and help with rallies and events throughout the year. Most employees work from the headquarters in Vancouver with other campaign staff and contract canvassing staff also working from field offices in Victoria, Winnipeg, and Toronto. The Wilderness Committee's Mid-Island Branch, headquartered in Qualicum Beach, Vancouver Island, BC

2236-478: The provincial park website warns of the lack of trail maintenance, and states that trail maintenance is "ongoing", there is no indication of trail improvement. The rugged road into the main entrance of the remote park is currently being boxed in due to the rapid growth of alder trees that effectively narrow the single dirt lane from either side. The roads into the park are active dirt and gravel logging roads. The constant traffic of fast-moving, heavy machinery disrupts

2288-456: The publication of “Carmanah: Artistic Visions of An Ancient Rainforest”. Protests and civil disobedience led by First Nations kwaabaaduw7aa7tx hereditary chief, Peter Knighton, and conservationists like Randy Stoltmann and members of the WCWC in response to, among many things, logging company fallers working "accidentally" inside the riparian zone in order to illegally harvest the valuable giants:

2340-488: The right, duty and the ability to stand up for the public interest and protect Canada and Earth's bio-diversity . The Wilderness Committee's educational work about pressing environmental issues reaches up to 5 million Canadians per year through door-to-door canvassing, rallies, petition drives, educational publications and the media in order to gain public support and bring about changes in government policy. A strong research and mapping program and strategic alliances support

2392-495: The sea near Kyuquot was featured as a triple page foldout in their Old Growth Forests issue. After climbing out of the Carmanah the Nat Geo photographer and McAllister were marooned as close to hurricane-force winds and torrential rains caused massive mudslides on the steep slope of the big clear-cut. A MacMillan Bloedel helicopter was brought in to rescue them. About that time McAllister sent Jup Weber, MP for Luxembourg, forester and

2444-514: The success of the land defender's and activist's civil disobedience and the public support of the ongoing protests of the early 1990s, the province conceded, bought the tree farm licences off of MacMillan Bloedel (note: the provincial government paid MacMillan Bloedel $ 83.75 million for their lost tree farm licences in the Carmanah Walbran, including the interest "that has accumulated since the parks were created in 1991 and 1995. That amount

2496-448: The trail and are succumbing to rot in others. Whole portions of the trails are inaccessible due to the ecosystem's dwindling ecological integrity; both the protected reserve and non-protected adjacent areas are affected by industrial resource extraction projects such as clearcutting . When ecological integrity is compromised, symptomatic indicators of ecological instability, such as soil erosion, tree blow-downs and flash floods, occur. While

2548-556: The treetops of the Carmanah Valley. The Wilderness Committee Carmanah Valley campaign ultimately resulted in Provincial Park protection for the whole valley. By 1990 the Wilderness Committee had become the largest membership-based, citizen funded wilderness preservation group in western Canada, largely through its outreach efforts. Wilderness Committee campaigns have helped gain the protection of many important wilderness areas, (2) including critical wildlife habitats and some of

2600-625: The uneven road-bed, which then becomes laden with sharp rocks, potholes and washboard ripples; spare tires are a must when travelling to the park. Access to the Upper Walbran is perhaps even more dangerous due to active logging in the unprotected portions of the Walbran, near places like the Walbran's Castle Grove , however, the park may still be reached on back roads from Port Alberni , Lake Cowichan , or Port Renfrew . Randy Stoltmann and

2652-471: The world's last large tracts of old growth temperate rainforest and boreal forest. Notable achievements include playing a key role in gaining protection for South Moresby - Gwaii Hanas (BC), Caribou Mountains Park (AB), South Atikaki (MB), Carmanah Valley (BC), Pinecone/Boise/Burke (BC), Manigotagan River (MB), Stein Valley Nlaka'Pamux (BC), Sooke Hills (BC) and the designation of Clayoquot Sound (BC) as

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2704-507: Was fixed as of January 1, 1999 and interest will accumulate on the principal until such time as it is paid in full.") and created Carmanah Pacific Provincial Park in 1990. The remainder of the Carmanah Valley and the lower part of the area drained by Walbran River were added in 1995 to form the current park. This area lies within the coastal western hemlock (CWH) biogeoclimatic zone. Biogeoclimatic zones can be further divided into subzones, of which this park contains three. Immediately adjacent to

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