T’S unfortunate to say it takes a
crisis to push forest companies
and the government into explor-
ing more environmentally sensi-
tive ways of logging but that’s
the way it is.

Until conflicts over land use in the
Clayoquot Sound area on Vancouver
Island arose, it was business as usual
for MacMillan Bloedel and Fletcher
Challenge Canada. Now that the for-
est companies are under the micro-
scope and scrutiny of public opinion,
they have been forced to institute
some changes in their operations.

While the Clayoquot Sound Sus-
« tainable Development Task Force (see
article opposite page) is trying to put
together some long-term strategy on
logging and other economic activity,
the forest companies have been frus-
trated in their planning for long-term
fibre needs.

In December of 1988 the Task Force
agreed that MacMillan Bloedel (MB)
could begin logging in the Tofino
Creek watershed as long as it explored
alternative logging techniques. Mean-
while, Fletcher Challenge, it was
agreed, would have to defer logging in
Sulphur Pass, where it had built
roads, and Shelter Inlet until recom-
mendation was made by the Task
Force.

The decisions have had a great
effect on MB’s Kennedy Lake Divi-
sion, where 170 IWA-CANADA Local
1-85 members, working for the com-
pany and its contractors, have been
wondering, with uncertainty, about
their long-term futures.

Kennedy Lake Division is situated
in MB's Tree Farm Licence #44 which
takes in Crown forest lands in the
Alberni’s, Nahmint watershed, Wal-
bran, Carmanah Valley, and Clayo-
quot Sound areas.

The allowable cut from the area,
including small business contractors
who operate under the authority of
the Forest Service, is some 2.8 million
cubic metres annually. The Kennedy
Lake Division alone covers more than
51,000 hectares.

MB has based its cutting plans on
an average tree crop rotation of 80
years. Most of the old-growth forests,
estimates the company, will be cut in
about 50 years.

In order to placate the Task Force
and public while the process to
develop plans for long-term logging
are in the air, MB has introduced
some moderate alternative logging
strategies in the Tofino watershed.

IWA-CANADA union activist Clive
Pemberton, an engineering crewman
for the company has been working with
management and the workforce to
introduce some experimental tech-
niques in the harvesting of old-growth
timber.

Although MB is presently engi-
neering its settings for grapple yard-
ing, which is not environmentally
friendly because of excessive road
building and soil erosion, it is looking
into the long-line harvesting system,
according to divisional engineer John
Smith.

“We haven't been harping too loudly
for long-line systems on a setting-by-
setting basis because we're getting
bogged down with the Task Force on
short-term logging and not getting on
with the larger, long-term strategy
issues,” says union committee chair-
man Tony Bennett.

8/LUMBERWORKER/SEPTEMBER, 1990

© Standing on a giant spruce which has been left to rot are [WA members Tony Bennett
(1.) and Clive Pemberton. When MB was logging nearby it did not fall the giant tree near
acreek bed. The company had to come in later and “jack” the tree over to prevent it from
being blown backwards into the watercourse.

Although MB has no company pol-
icy in writing regarding long-line sys-
tems, in the summer of this year it did
undertake a long-term operability
plan to determine optimum yarding
systems.

“Long-line yarding systems will
become inevitable because if we don’t
do something about it, there will be
government regulations coming down
that will make it absolutely prohibi-
tive to be building roads on 60% slopes
or 70% side-slopes,” says Joe Duck-
worth, a professional forester and pro-
ject supervisor for MB’s Estevan
Division in TFL #44.

MB's loggers are working in close
quarters with the road building crew
because long-term logging plans have
yet to be given approval.

“We can’t plan because we don’t
know where we’re going,” says Smith.

The company is unable to formu-
late a five year management working
plan which will examine, in depth,
various types of harvesting systems.

Brother Pemberton, the union’s
plant committee secretary, says the
company has permitted experimenta-
tion by allowing larger buffer zones or
“yiparian strips” between settings
which will allow the deforested areas
to retain certain old-growth charac-
teristics.

To allow for greater harvesting,
more course woody debris is being
left, and in the bush timber is being
left near scrubby rock bluffs, and
certain snags not prone to wind-throw
are being left in the buffer zones.

The falling crews are carefully con-
sulted before selectively falling the
“feathered edges”, which effectively
cut down about 70% of merchantable
timber and leave the standing old-
growth buffer zone.

Clear-cutting is used in the rest of
the setting for obvious safety reasons.
The engineering crewmen organize the
timber falling to allow for efficient
harvesting which will not jeopardize
the safety of workers.

All snags leaning into a setting are
dropped while those leaning to the
outside of a setting are left at the
faller’s discretion.

Forestry researchers and biologists
have, in recent years, realized the
importance of snag retention as a
method of preserving wildlife species.

Research has shown that over 90
wildlife species, including owls,
eagles, and furred animals, make their
home in or near snags.

Two test areas in a Tofino Creek
study are now being felled with
“feathered edges”, effecting about
17% of the openings.

The fallers and engineering crewmen
carefully examine standing trees near
water courses for resistance to wind-
throw and place the fallen timber in a
direction that won’t disrupt the natu-
ral course of the stream flow through
the setting’s flood plain.

Although MB receives a govern-
ment subsidy from the Forest Service
to use its tree puller, it has chosen not
to use it. As a result some trees left
standing near watercourses have blow

MacBlo under observation
in Clayoquot Sound

over to create environmental pro-
blems.

Brother Bennett, a driller blaster
on the road building crew, says MB is
experimenting with various road
building techniques in the rugged ter-
rain which has tough, seamy rock. At
present, however, there is little end-
hauling being done as the vast major-
ity of the blasted rock is sidecasted.

“We need more involvement in
reducing shot rock,” says Bennett.
“That means we need more experi-
mental blasts which could brig. up
road building costs.”

“With public pressure the comy
and the Forest Service are starting to
move,” says Bennett.

Both Bennett and Pemberton,
along with local union officer Dave
Haggard, have been consciously
trying to bring out the IWA-CANADA
forest policy to deal with issues that
arise. It has acted as a general guide-
line for the advancement of alterna-
tive falling and road building tech-
niques.

Divisional engineer Smith that,
MB is getting cost appraisal on a
mult-purpose long-line yarding sys-
tem in Washington state whic will
help minimize road building. At pres-
ent, MB has the ability to adapt its
grapple yarder to an extended drop
carriage system.

Brother Pemberton says the Forest
Service has been decimated so much
during government cutbacks in the
1980’s that it is not much of a pres-
ence at all in the woods anymore.

“We all need the objective view of a
strong Forest Service to oversee all
engineering aspects of logging activ-
ity,” says Pemberton.

© To preserve scenic values such as Vir-
gin Falls in Tofino Creek, MB has set
aside some old growth forest in the sur-
rounding areas.

Although the Forest Service is the
second largest harvester of lumber in
the Clayoquot Sound area, via its
direct responsibility for contractors,
harvesting under the government’s
Small Business Forest Enterprise Pro-
grams, which removed 5% of MB's
annual allowable cut in 1987, it has

enn