BC extends old growth deferral in Fairy Creek

The BC government has approved a legal order to extend temporary protections in the Fairy Creek watershed until Sept. 30, 2026. It applies to the same forest lands that were deferred in June 2021.

The deferral protects almost 1,200 hectares—all the Crown land in the Fairy Creek watershed. The watershed falls within the Pacheedaht and Dididaht First Nations’ territory. The extension feels like a small bit of clearing in a forest of uncertainty.

In June 2021, Pacheedaht, Ditidaht, and Huu-ay-aht First Nations gave notice to the province to defer old-growth logging for two years in the Fairy Creek and Central Walbran areas while they prepared resource management plans.

Over social media, the environmental organization Sierra Club posted that they welcomed the announcement from the BC Ministry of Forests about extending the Ada’itsx watershed logging deferral.

Michael Coon and Jenica Waymen, co-founders of Friends of Fairy Creek, are more skeptical about the announcement. They told Capital Daily that without a ministerial order on record to back it, the extension lacks legislative substance.

“It’s always positive to see logging put on hold so that First Nations can make plans for the future of the ecosystem without trees falling in the meantime,” Torrance Coste, national campaign director for the Wilderness Committee told Capital Daily.

“The [added] time provides the Pacheedaht FN the opportunity to do the extremely important work of developing their resource management plan,” Forestry Minister Ravi Parmar told Capital Daily.

“This allows them to do the work of discovering what forestry looks like on their land.”

He said the nation had been given $500K to do that.

Parmar acknowledged the First Nations were critical of the approach former premier John Horgan had taken and that his successor, David Eby established, and said he was looking forward to developing that relationship.

Horgan faced backlash for his government’s failure to fully consult all of the First Nations communities whose traditional territories were being logged. While some Indigenous nations and individuals supported the protest efforts, others felt left out of the conversation, especially after the provincial government had signed agreements with forest companies.

Pacheedaht Elder Bill Jones became a central, if not controversial figure, during the protests for inviting protestors to the nation’s traditional territory when other members of his community argued they were not welcome.

During what became the longest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history, RCMP conduct fell under a spotlight—leading to dismissed charges, criticism by the BC Greens over use of force, and a federal-level investigation into the protest-policing unit's policies and practices.

While Horgan's government eventually introduced the 2021 deferral on old-growth logging in some areas, it came after months of protests, arrests, and escalating tensions in the area near Port Renfrew between both protestors and FN leadership and individual band members.

Protests there were often referred to as another “War in the Woods,” following the 1993 movement to protect old growth in Clayquot Sound from logging giant MacMillan Bloedel.

One of the most significant criticisms of Horgan’s handling came out of the Old Growth Strategic Review Panel. The panel argued in its findings that the delays in implementing meaningful action on their 2020 review allowed for irreversible damage to irreplaceable ecosystems and undermined public trust.

When he was asked about cross-party contributions to the Fairy Creek announcement, Parmar denied that the accord reached in December between the BC NDP and the Green party had in any way influenced the extension outcome.

“The Green party has some perspectives that they’ve been sharing but this is the work that’s been going on [by the NDP] for a very long time.”

The environment section of the accord they reached articulates the Greens cross-check on a mutual desire to protect old growth in the watershed: “Pending the resolution of existing legal proceedings and community negotiations, and in partnership with the Ditidaht and Pacheedaht First Nations, the Government will move forward to ensure permanent protection of the Fairy Creek Watershed.”

A floundering forest industry

The forestry sector in BC has struggled in recent years with a reduction in access to fibre and the sawmills to process it. The slowdown has led to numerous mill closures and the loss of thousands of jobs across the province.

In 2023, Canfor Corp. announced it intended to build a $200M state-of-the-art mill in Vanderhoof. But last September, its CEO Don Kayne announced the company was closing two of its operations after having lost millions of dollars in recent years.

To alleviate some of the pressure, on Jan. 15 Parmar and Oak Bay MLA Diana Gibson—the minister responsible for jobs, economic development, and innovation—announced $5.1M in provincial support for the forest sector through the BC Manufacturing Jobs Fund.

In the past month, Parmar has toured logging companies and sawmills in the Northern Interior around Fort St James, Prince George and Houston, Quesnel, Williams Lake, Vanderhoof (location of Dalchako Timber, a Canfor partner), Smithers, and Burns Lake.

In response to the pressures the sector is facing, the province also launched a review of BC Timber Sales. At the launch event, Parmar told the media: “Our work to get more value out of our forests is a top priority as we grow the BC wood-manufacturing sector.”

New border tariffs would add to existing ones

There are already punitive tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber going to the US, so the additional 25% tariffs the Trump administration has threatened—these tariffs were delayed until next month after nearly beginning on Feb. 4— could spell disaster for a sector already in trouble.

Wood, pulp and paper, metallic mineral, and energy products combined, make up approximately 67% of the total goods BC exports to the US In 2023, forest product exports represented 20% of BC’s total commodity export value—$6.2 billion to the US alone. Last year, industry leaders met to discuss the threat Marty Warren, the national director for the United Steelworkers said the Canadian forest industry is already feeling from American duties on softwood lumber imports, which have been part of a long-standing cross-border dispute.

Last year, the US increased duties levied on softwood from Canada to 14.5% from 8.05%.

Fairy Creek isn’t the only place that still needs protection

“There are several million acres of other irreplaceable old-growth forests in BC that also deserve the same breathing room, and many of them are still being destroyed because the government hasn’t done enough to pursue similar deferrals in them,” Coste said.

He indicated the province has committed to protecting 30% of BC’s forests by 2030, which would require protecting the equivalent of three Fairy Creek-sized areas for the next five years. But the need for wood fibre never stops.

Opening up access to more fibre, the province recently launched the Bulkley-Morice Forest Landscape Planning Project, one of five new provincial projects that are part of that same project to protect timber supply in the province. The Bulkley Timber Supply Area (TSA) is in the eastern drainage of the Skeena River and covers approximately 736K hectares. That TSA includes old growth forest.

A Jan. 13 agreement between Lake Babine and West Fraser’s Pacific Inland Resources Sawmill in Smithers that guarantees fibre supply from that First Nation falls under this multi-project umbrella.

Officials talk tariffs with log truckers

Eby and Parmar met last month with the Truck Loggers Association Convention in Vancouver. To the association, he acknowledged that the tariffs could cause a projected 100K job losses and a provincial loss of $60 billion in GDP.  It would mean, he said, “a profound loss in export-focused communities in the natural resource sector” like forestry.

He told association members that, as a means to maintain consistency of production in the forestry industry in these troubling times, he purposefully added the aim of enabling the “harvest of 45,000,000 cubic meters (in allowable cut) per year to Parmar’s mandate letter. In 2023, the actual cut fell to 36.2 million cubic metres, far below the annual allowance of 58.6 million cubic metres, reflecting a large gap between allowable and actual cuts and an industry falling behind.

S oftwood lumber remains one of the most enduring US-Canada trade disputes

The US has long argued that Canadian lumber producers receive unfair subsidies from the provincial government (through timber harvesting rights or land use policies), which allows them to sell lumber at lower prices that undercut American producers.

The premier explained to the association delegates how in past decades, the government had ongoing anxiety around how BC should manage timber sales. Fluctuations in production could have meant small changes to its commitments outlined in the 2006 Softwood Lumber Agreement (SLA) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). He said, in the past, they wanted to avoid the Americans using these minor negotiations as an excuse to implement even higher duties against Canadian timber.

When the SLA expired in 2016, the American softwood industry requested investigations into alleged Canadian overloading (timber dumping) in the market, which led to the ongoing imposition of duties on Canadian softwood lumber products. The relationship in the industry across borders has been particularly contentious since.

Eby admitted that the tariff threat has only increased those tensions. The tariff threats will likely heat up once more in the coming weeks as the US sets a new March imposition date.