Wilderness Committee Launches Campaign to Protect All of Cathedral Grove! : WC Mediawire

Western Canada Wilderness Committee, Mid-Island
Box 442, Qualicum Beach, BC, V9K lS9, ph. 250 752-6585, fax: 250 752-7085
email: wcwcqb@shaw.ca

Tuesday, April 11, 2006 for immediate release

Following up on Parking Lot Victory, the Wilderness Committee Launches Campaign to Protect All of Cathedral Grove!

Qualicum Beach, BC, Canada - Following up on last week’s success in which the BC government announced they will scrap the proposed parking lot in Cathedral Grove’s Macmillan Provincial Park, the Wilderness Committee is launching a reinvigorated call for the government to protect the entirety of Cathedral Grove.

About 400 hectares of Cathedral Grove’s ancient and mature trees lie on Brascan’s private lands to the west of the Park, and another 900 hectares of ancient and mature forests lie on public (Crown) lands to the east of the park on the north side of Cameron Lake.

“Many people think that the battle for Cathedral Grove is now over - in fact, it has really just begun. The parking lot proposal threatened 2 hectares of Cathedral Grove. There are still 1300 hectares of Cathedral Grove that deserve protection and that are threatened by logging,” states Annette Tanner, chairwoman of the WCWC’s Mid-Island Chapter.

An agreement announced in Spring of 2005 to purchase 140 hectares of private lands from Weyerhaeuser by the BC government and the Nature Trust of BC, nearly doubled the size of MacMillan Provincial Park. About 30 hectares of these lands include the finest ancient Douglas firs in BC, while the rest consist of second-growth forest and cut-over lands that will grow back in time (helping to provide connectivity to future parkland acquisitions). However, another 400 hectares of Brascan’s private lands covered in some of the BC’s largest ancient trees, still remain unprotected, adjacent to the new acquisition.

“Recently, the BC government is rumoured to be contemplating elimination of their $5 million parkland acquisition fund. $5 million is too small to begin with, to protect enough of BC’s endangered private lands. Instead of eliminating the fund, we encourage the government to greatly expand the fund to $100 million per year, and to put the funds forward to purchase the private lands of Cathedral Grove,” states Annette Tanner.

Only 2% of Vancouver Island’s dry Douglas fir ecosystems on the East Coast (ie. the Nanaimo Lowlands) are currently protected, while only 1% of the original ancient Douglas fir forests remain.

The WCWC will be launching a petition-drive to gather tens of thousands of signatures, a letter-writing drive, and public tours through the unprotected portions of Cathedral Grove this summer to gather public support for the expansion of Cathedral Grove.

-For more information call Annette Tanner, WCWC Mid-Island Chairperson (250) 752-6585 -

Mr. Penner's statement should be carefully read and parsed to determine what exactly he committed to. I am sure he did not use the verb scrap viv a vis the plan to build a parking lot. Did he not say at this point we will not go forward with the plan to build said parking lot. I fear that BCParks may just be engaging in a tactical withdrawal in order to defuse the issue, remove the camp and then proceed with their plans when they think no one is watching. So should we set up a vigilance procedure whereby volunteers check the site every morning for the sign of fallers and have some plans/procedures in place to stop them. Otherwise we need to have in writing a committment from Parks that they will not build this parking lot, now or in the future. Cheers. Keep up the good work. David Boehm, Friends of Cathedral Grove.

Hello, Thank-you for all the hard work you have been doing to save and expand Cathedral Grove.
I have a few suggestions (it is probably something you have already been thinking about). My idea is maybe we could start having a supervised tourism business to Cathedral Grove (i.e. using The cable cars/trams to tour above the Grove so people do not have to trample through the grove), possibly one that is privatized. This would benefit the park as the money collected from this could be used to expand the park. This may cost money in the beginning but to use the little amount that the government gives to (while they still do), make a business for the WCWC. Another idea is a tourist bus service where the bus picks up the tourists from the parks(i.e.to park and ride), and also having a tour guide to teach the tourists about the importance of ancient rainforests, followed by a Fabulous gourmet lunch or dinner awaiting them. If you need any volunteers please let me know I would be very interested.

Congratulations on this important step! As an Ontario resident who has been to Cathedral Grove I know both its beauty and its importance to the local economy. I wish you luck in your struggle to protect even more of this sacred land.