The B.C. government has launched an investigation into complaints that Western Forest Products’ logging practices damaged caves and other sensitive limestone karst landscapes near Gold River on Vancouver Island.
The logging represents a violation of an order prohibiting logging activities that “damage or render ineffective” karst features, the Canadian Cave Conservancy asserts in a letter to the compliance and enforcement section of the Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations.
In the Chilliwack River Valley, cavers are also complaining about lack of protection for two gated caves — Iron Curtain and Renaissance — but say the same concerns relate to karst landscapes across the province.
“There is no mechanism for managing those caves,” said Phil Whitfield, president of the B.C. Speleological Federation and member of the Explorers Club.
The caving community is also concerned that a March 2014 report by the provincial Forest Practices Board into karst management on northern Vancouver Island let the forest industry off the hook and did not aggressively look for problems. “I get the impression the Forest Practices Board just doesn’t take seriously the responsibility to look after the long-term public interest in good management of the forests,” Whitfield said.
Limestone karst — perhaps the world’s most fragile landscape — is formed by naturally acidic water seeping through the subsurface calcium carbonate rock. This process can form caves or caverns, passageways, and fantastic but easily damaged speleothems such as columns, curtains, flowstone, soda straws, stalactites and stalagmites.
Limestone makes for more productive rainforests, draining away extensive rainfall while the dissolved cracks in the bedrock give tree roots a good foothold against powerful winter winds. Karst also reduces the acidity of rainfall, providing improved habitat for aquatic life, including resident and migratory fish.
Conservancy president Rick Coles of Shawnigan Lake says in his letter that the best practices for protecting and managing karst “clearly have not been followed and forest practices have obviously damaged the natural settings of the karst features and have most probably damaged the biophysical elements as well.”
He added that despite cavers working with government and industry since the 1970s to improve forest practices on subterranean karst landscapes, “we still see far too many cases of the type described.”
The conservancy believes that logging of these known karst areas occurred from 2008 to 2014:
• Hisnit Inlet — logging over a karst spring draining sinkholes, large pile of slash dumped on the spring, large sinkhole buried by road.
• Aston Creek — selective logging resulting in large cedar across roof of cave, blowdown left several mature trees across 20-metre cave entrance.
• Crumble Caves (two caves and three sinking streams) — harvesting to within 10 metres of both cave entrances. Cave blocked with debris from a snag felled into the area. A short sink cave was completely buried by logging. Trees left over the cave expected to blow down due to prevailing winds.
• Thanksgiving Ridge — active sink holes identified and flagged were filled by road work.
The man behind the allegations is Martin Davis, the conservancy director who unsuccessfully sought the Village of Tahsis mayoralty in the Nov. 15 civic election. He also took photos of logging debris at the cave/karst entrances.
“I work for a tree-planting company on and off, so I get to see a lot of stuff,” he said, adding he is an enthusiastic recreational caver.
Western Forest Products spokesperson Amy Spencer said the company is not aware of the complaints but that “we do take these types of concerns from the public, and sustainable forestry management, very seriously.”
The threats to caves and karst in B.C. do not end with logging practices.
Whitfield said the problem is that unless a cave is within a park or designated a formal recreation site it lacks legal protection. And getting that designation can take years due to consultations with aboriginal groups.
People have broken into both Chilliwack caves, and in one case photos were posted to Facebook — with no legal action taken, he said.
“There was nothing anybody could do to prosecute these people or go back and protect the cave,” he said. “No ministry had jurisdiction. That gap remains wide open.
“You can start collecting and selling speleothems if you want to in a cave on Crown land and there is no agency that says we have the jurisdiction to protect that resource.”
The simple answer, he argued, is to amend the regulations to generally make it illegal to damage a recreation feature on Crown land.
Government spokesperson Vivian Thomas said in Victoria that the ministry has not been made aware of any recent request to amend regulations and has not received any correspondence from the B.C. Speleological Federation.
In addition to caves being protected if they are within parks or recreation sites, they are “automatically protected under the Heritage Conservation Act if they have historical or archaeological value,” she added.
Six forest districts on the coast have provincial orders that “forestry activities not damage or render ineffective karst caves, significant surface karst features, and important features and elements within high or very high vulnerability karst terrain.”
Whitfield countered that the federation last approached the ministry in 2010 when “we sent our submission to an array of ministers, but we never received a response from any of them then, so that avenue has seemed a waste of time.”
The Heritage Conservation Act “would cover so few of the significant caves of B.C. that it is not all that useful,” he argued, adding it may provide some protection for Renaissance Cave, where aboriginal remains were found.
The 2014 Forest Practices Board report into karst management “did not determine that any caves or significant karst features had been damaged or rendered ineffective by forestry activities.”
Whitfield noted much of damage documented in the Western Forest Products cases had occurred before the Forest Practices Board wrote its report.
Board chairman Tim Ryan, the former vice-president of timberland operations for Ainsworth Lumber, said he is unaware of any specific concerns about logging at Gold River but that his office is prepared to look at “new and better information.” He noted the report also recommended the government update its 11-year-old handbook and improve guidelines for training, skills and qualifications for conducting karst field assessments.
