Filmmaker and conservationist Joshua Wright was hiking in the Black Creek valley south of Gold River last summer when he came across one of the biggest yellow cedar trees he had ever seen.
“It felt like I had died and gone to heaven,” said Wright of trekking through one of the last intact old-growth forests on Vancouver Island. “It was a stunning place.”
Wright recorded the cedar’s diameter at 2.79 meters, revealing a size that should have guaranteed the tree’s legal protection, along with a one-hectare logging buffer under the Forest and Range Practices Act. The provincial legislation states that any yellow cedar tree measuring over 2.65 metres in diameter must be protected.
Knowing the area had been approved for clear-cutting by the province, Wright returned to the valley in June. To his dismay, he found that not only had logging occurred in the valley, but the forestry operation had also harvested the cedar tree.
“It’s hard to see something so beautiful and so intact one year and then next year see that a place that has existed quietly since the last ice age just be ripped apart,” said Wright, who also recorded the calls of the federally threatened bird species, the marbled murrelet, in the forest.
Wright reported the incident to the Ministry of Forests and it launched an official investigation.
The Mirror contacted the ministry for a response, but because the investigation is ongoing, it could not provide more details at this time.
The Forest Operations Map website for the province shows that the yellow cedar was harvested in a region where Matchlee Ltd. Partnership, majority owned by the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation, has a non-renewable forest license.
The Mirror contacted the nation and is awaiting a response.
Dr. Rachel Holt, a distinguished land ecologist, said the province’s old-growth rainforests are exceptionally rare and play a crucial role in supporting British Columbia’s rich biodiversity.
“Every time somebody looks (in these ancient forests), we find new species we didn’t know are there,” Holt said. “Their value is beyond value.”
In 2023, the province launched a $300-million conservation financing program to protect the oldest and rarest trees in B.C. The funding was intended to help First Nations and the province conserve critical habitats, manage climate change and advance efforts to protect more of B.C.’s land and waters, in line with the Old Growth Strategic Review.
However, both Holt and Wright agreed the provincial government is failing to meet its promised conservation goals for coastal ancient forests, nor is it implementing the necessary paradigm shift in the forestry sector to protect the remaining old growth.
The province is in a “dark age” regarding its forest policy, according to Holt, who emphasized that old-growth trees, such as this cedar, cannot be recovered and are certainly should not be considered a renewable resource.
“(The province) doesn’t even consider the other values forests provide,” Holt noted. “We really are behind the times in terms of valuing all the services that are provided by forests, as well as their inherent right to survive if they’ve been standing there for hundreds and hundreds of years.”
For Wright, the memories of what he observed in the Black Creek Valley continue to weigh heavily on his mind. He said he first visited the forest so he could remember how it was.
“That’s the same reason I returned when they began cutting it down. I wanted to hold myself accountable to that place and witness what happened to it,” Wright said. “And now it haunts me.”