The Forest Quietly Removed from BC’s Old-Growth Deferral List

Most of Vancouver Island has been logged. Now, one of the last ancient forests, in the Tsitika River

watershed, is on the chopping block.

A new old-growth logging controversy is unfolding in British Columbia, dividing Indigenous leaders and pitting the provincial government against scientists and conservation groups.

The Tsitika River watershed, on northeast Vancouver Island, is home to ancient rainforests and an abundance of wildlife, including bird and lichen species at risk of extinction.

Most old-growth forests surrounding the mountainous watershed have already been clear cut. The remaining forest was deemed to be at such high risk of biodiversity loss that the B.C. government placed it in an old-growth deferral area, off limits to logging.

But last year, the government quietly removed a large tract of the cedar and hemlock forest from its old-growth deferral list.

And then in March, the government agency BC Timber Sales auctioned off 24 hectares for clearcutting.

“We complain about Brazil, but we’re worse,” Royann Petrell, a birder and retired professor of chemical and biological engineering at the University of British Columbia, told The Tyee.

Read the entire story here: https://thetyee.ca/News/2026/04/22/Forest-Quietly-Removed-BC-Old-Growth-Deferral-List/