Old-Growth

I had never experienced the grandeur of old-growth until I visited the North American National Parks. Old-growth trees, some as old as 700 years, exist only within the protected boundaries of these parks. The mountains of New Hampshire, where I have spent so much time hiking, have trees that at most are only 100 years old. Long ago, the old-growth in those mountains had been logged.

Tonight we are camping in the Port Alberni Forest District outside Pacific Rim National Park on Vancouver Island. The scenery here is striking, but in a different way than that of the National Parks. Here the awe is in the destruction. Our van is parked between what was once three giant cedar trees. Just the rotting trunks remain. All around are huge driftwood logs and parched stumps. The mountains which surround us are battle scarred. Trees here have been carried away and all that is left are the eroding logging roads.

I wish I were camping among the giant cedars which once stood here instead of their discarded remains. I wonder if any of the other campers are also saddened by what has happened here. Somehow a cedar chest doesn't seem worth destroying an old-growth ecosystem. If people understood the impact to nature, I wonder whether they would chose to spare the lives of trees and the animals that depend on them.

The cedar forests are not going return. More economically desirable trees are being planted in their place; trees that grow quicker so that in 80 to 120 years they too can be chopped. Even if some of these new forests were left alone to replenish themselves it would take up to 1500 years to complete one life cycle from seedling, to mature tree, to fallen tree to dirt.

Eventually no one will remember what it is like to experience an old cedar forest. Only 10% of British Columbia's old-growth forests remains today. Other than in a few isolated pockets, the remaining trees are destined to be cut. It horrifies me that people today are making irreversible decisions that will affect generations for more than a 1000 years. Hopefully people will take action to preserve what little is left of these old-growth forests before it is too late.