2021: Fairy Creek Old Growth

By Jim Pojar

Introduction

Fairy Creek is a small, forested, mostly intact watershed tributary to the San Juan River, on southwestern Vancouver Island. The Fairy Creek valley is slated to be logged starting this year. In preparation for this, licensee The Teal-Jones Group was planning to build roads into the watershed this spring. However, blockades have for seven months prevented the logging company from building roads and logging in Fairy Creek. Teal-Jones is now seeking a court injunction to remove the blockades.

Context: Climate and Biodiversity Crises

We are living in the grip of two global environmental crises: the climate emergency and the loss of biological diversity. Humanity has only two to three decades to avoid the 1.5 °C threshold and forestall runaway climate warming. “Limiting global warming to 1.5 °C as stipulated in the Paris Climate Agreement scientifically implies a complete net decarbonization of the world’s energy and transport systems, industrial production, and land use by the middle of this century.” Climate policy-makers have been focusing on fossil fuels and on curtailing emissions from carbon-hungry infrastructure and industries, while low-balling the importance of the massive carbon stores in nature, especially Earth’s remaining primary forests.

Not only are we in the midst of an intensifying species extinction event, the world’s ecosystems are being dismantled. The relentless loss of biodiversity continues to damage the functioning and resilience of ecosystems and their ability to provide the goods and services needed by human societies.

(2021) Fairy Creek Old Growth.pdf