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By Jack Graham [[link removed]] | Deputy Editor, Funded Projects

"Division in our souls"

Stepping through the pristine temperate rainforests of Haida Gwaii in Canada feels like entering a mystical realm.

Mammoth red cedar trees tower above as you navigate a complex web of tree branches above a carpet of soft, luminous moss. Some of these ancient forests near Alaska are thought to pre-date the last ice age.

Yet after a century of intense logging, few old-growth trees remain and such ecosystems are increasingly rare.

Temperate rainforests on the islands of Haida Gwaii store vast amounts of carbon, on Graham Island, Canada. July 25, 2024. Thomson Reuters Foundation/Jack Graham

I travelled to the Pacific archipelago to report on a new dilemma facing the Haida people. [[link removed]] The Indigenous guardians fought logging for years, but now they control its future, after a landmark deal in May winning recognition of their land title.

"Always before it was industry pushing, and us putting up rules to make sure to save our culture," said Tyler Hugh Bellis.

A forestry advisor to the Council of the Haida Nation, or "handsomest Haida", Bellis said they will be able to manage the forests as a collective instead of individual businesses.

For decades, the Haida opposed the industry through protests and roadblocks, but now the council itself owns a company which does most of the logging on the islands, called Taan Forest.

"We put so much of our identity into the battle and fighting against logging," traditional carver Gwaai Edenshaw told me.

"It kind of created a division in our souls."

Source: Gowgaia Institute (2023) • Chart: Jack Graham

Sustainable logging?

After a deal between the council and the province of British Columbia, logging has reduced since 2010 and Taan protects cultural and natural features like traditional medicines and riverways.

It is also one of just three firms in BC certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), strict global standards which place extra demands on sustainability.

Yet about half of the harvest is still old growth forests – trees which are more than 250 years old – which store far more carbon than equivalent second growth forests, and are vital to supporting the islands' biodiversity, including more than 6,800 plant and animal species [[link removed]].

"These forests are never ever coming back. They are ancient. They have value beyond anything anybody can imagine. And we continue to decimate them to make a bit of money," said Rachel Holt, an independent ecologist in British Columbia for 30 years.

The Haida people I listened to had a range of views about logging, but tended to agree on one thing: whatever shape forestry management takes, they want to benefit from it as a community. This might include value-added industries like sawmills to process wood and sell higher-value products.

Industrial logging has extracted about 16 billion Canadian dollars ($11.8 billion) of logs in today's money from the islands, according to the non-profit Gowgaia Institute. Yet very little of that value has been enjoyed by the local people.

At his carving studio, Edenshaw said it might eventually make more economic sense to protect the forests than fell them, such as by using carbon markets to fund conservation.

"The question is, do we need to log to have money?" he asked.

See you next week,

Jack

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