By Keven Drews

B.C. Timber Sales won’t log a 4,000-hectare watershed in Clayoquot Sound for at least five years, say government officials and environmentalists.
The Crown corporation recently informed five B.C. environmental groups that it has deferred operations in the Upper Kennedy Valley, a watershed dominated by untouched old-growth forests, until March 15, 2012.
“It’s a good first step,” said Maryjka Mychajlowycz, forest watch campaigner for the Friends of Clayoquot Sound. “It’s not everything we asked. We asked to have the intact areas removed from the logging plans entirely.”
Mychajlowycz said B.C. Timber Sales’ deferral doesn’t include the Lower Kennedy Valley, where logging could begin on 7,000 hectares of partially logged old-growth forests as early as next year.
The Upper Kennedy watershed is located off Highway 4, on the west side of Sutton Pass, almost half-way between Port Alberni and Tofino. It is home to the Clayoquot Valley Witness Trail.
Last November, representatives of B.C. Timber Sales told the Clayoquot Sound Central Region Board about the government’s Preliminary Forest Stewardship Plans, which focused on 11,000 hectares of the 20,000-hectare Kennedy watershed.
Almost immediately, representatives of the FOCS, Western Canada Wilderness Committee, Greenpeace, Sierra Club of B.C. and Forest Ethics reacted.
Joe Foy, campaign director for the WCWC, said environmentalists wouldn’t allow the area to be logged without “one heck of a fight.”
B.C. Timber Sales and the environmentalists then held a series of conference calls.
March 14, B.C. Timber Sales sent the five environmental organizations a letter, citing the environmentalists’ concerns as reason for the deferral.
A representative from the Ministry of Forests was unavailable to comment on why the province had specifically deferred the operations Monday.
Mychajlowycz said she hopes government, First Nations and environmentalists can work on a plan that will make the deferral permanent.
“Our current goal is to get all the intact valleys into a conservancy setting. The ultimate goal will be to have no old-growth logging.”