The Walbran Valley lies on the southwestern coast of Vancouver Island by the world-famous West Coast Trail. With record-sized red cedars, Douglas fir, and Sitka spruce trees, the Walbran is among BC's most spectacular remaining ancient rainforests. Cougars, wolves, black bears, and Roosevelt elk roam the valley, as do 'species at risk' including marbled murrelet seabirds, Queen Charlotte goshawks, Vaux's swifts, Keen's and Townsend's long-eared myotis (bats), red-legged frogs, and threatened runs of steelhead trout and coho salmon. The Walbran is in the traditional territory of the Pacheedaht First Nation.

For well over a decade, the Walbran Valley has been a focus of concern. Due to intense public pressure, in 1994 the BC government protected the 5500 hectare Lower Walbran Valley. However, they left the 7500 hectare Upper Walbran Valley - with the most spectacular red cedar and Douglas fir forests - open to logging, with giant clearcuts now marring several parts of the valley.

The Western Canada Wilderness Committee is working hard to educate and mobilize the BC public on this most important wilderness issue. American logging giant Weyerhaeuser and BC-based Teal Jones are now logging the upper valley. About 40% of the Upper Walbran has already been logged, while the remaining 60% contains some of BC's most magnificent ancient forest. Traditionally, campaigns for wilderness preservation have focused on intact, pristine valleys. However, with 87% of southern Vancouver Island's ancient forests already lost and no pristine valleys remaining south of Barkley Sound, all of what remains here is precious!

Pristine areas are being logged at breakneck speed - read the press release (August 2, 2002) Upper Walbran Big Tree Derby winners announced (November 18, 2002) Recent Walbran Valley Images (May 2003) Record-size Douglas Fir Discovered (May 26, 2003) Seattle Times reports on Weyerhaeuser's logging of the Upper Walbran (June 3, 2003) )

Logging our ancient forests and replanting them with young trees does not replicate the original, structurally-diverse habitat needed by old-growth dependent species like marbled murrelets and goshawks. Second-growth tree plantations lack the lush understories, the large-diametre woody debris (standing and fallen dead trees), the multi-layered canopies (trees of different heights), and the well-developed moss/soil layers on the branches in the canopies of ancient forests. Nor does "variable retention" logging (which is essentially clearcutting while leaving a few individual trees or small clusters of trees standing) replicate the natural disturbances of windthrow and forest fires.

Conservation of our old-growth biodiversity will only be achieved through the full protection of our most important ancient forests like the Upper Walbran Valley, and by a major reduction in the rate of cut in other, non-protected areas so that forests are allowed to become old-growth again by the time cutting resumes. To retain forestry workers' jobs, the BC government must ban the export of raw logs, establish extensive Community Forest tenures, and create log markets where wood is made available for purchase by value-added manufacturers who employ more people per volume of wood used.

What can YOU do to help save the Upper Walbran Valley

The WCWC believes that an educated and involved citizenry exerts the ultimate pressure on government for better laws and policies. The involvement and support of thousands of people like YOU is the fundamental basis for protecting the environment and, in fact, of all positive social change.

1. Do letters help? Yes!!! The government knows that every letter you write represents another 500 people who feel the same way but haven't gotten around to writing. Letters are indicators to government about how much of a risk it is for their ability to stay in power if they allow the continued destruction of ancient forests. Phoning the government and leaving your name, address, and opinion also greatly helps. Call and phone:
   
   Premier Gordon Campbell
   Legislative Buildings, Victoria, BC V8V 1X4
   Email: premier@gov.bc.ca
   Phone: (250) 387-1714
   Fax: (250) 387-0087
   
   And your Provincial MLA Representative (Member of the Legislative Assembly)
   
   Find your MLA and his/her contact info at: www.legis.gov.bc.ca/mla/3-1-1.htm
   OR call Enquiry BC at: (250) 387-6121 in Victoria; (604) 660-2421 in Vancouver, or 1-800-663-7867 elsewhere in BC
   
   
2. Visit the valley. Take a group of friends. Get everyone to write a letter while there.
   
   
3. Write a "letter to the editor" to your newspaper. After the front page, the letters section is the most widely read part of a newspaper. Informing the maximum number of people is vital in winning any campaign.
   
   
4. Organize a slideshow presentation, with letter-writing during the break, for your church, class, community group, or any other organization to which you belong. Call us at 250-388-9292 if you want us to give a slideshow, or give your own presentation (you can call us for info and advice).
   
   
5. Attend rallies and protests. They help garner media attention and build the movement by creating a public face for those involved in the campaign.
   
   
6. Be ethically selective of what wood and paper products you buy. Weyerhaeuser and Teal-Jones are the two companies logging the Upper Walbran Valley.
   
   
7. Volunteer with the WCWC - in the office, in the campaigns, doing research.
   
   
8. Donate and/or become a member of the WCWC (Make cheques out to "WCWC" and mail to 651 Johnson St., Victoria, BC V8W 1M7 or call us at 250-388-9292). The more members we have behind us, the more power we have to influence the world. We've achieved great success over the years through our members and donors, including defeating the Working Forest Initiative recently, and protecting the Carmanah Valley, Sooke Hills, South Moresby, Stein Valley, and much of Clayoquot Sound.
   
   
9. Get your friends and family to do all of the above.