Lichen, logging, land rights: Complex forces play out in fate of ancient B.C. forest

A forest and logging cut blocks on northeastern Vancouver Island are pictured in this June 11, 2025, handout photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Handout — Joshua Wright (Mandatory Credit)

A shaggy, cool-green lichen hangs from the trunk of a tree in a forest on northeastern Vancouver Island, growing on the bark like coral on a rocky sea floor.

Lichenologist Trevor Goward has named it oldgrowth specklebelly, and while the slow-growing lichen is a species at risk in its own right, he says it is also an indicator of forests that are “the oldest of the old.”

“It’s what it tells us about the forest that we walk through,” Goward says, comparing ancient forests to libraries and museums. “They are the continuity from the past.”

Old-growth advocate Joshua Wright photographed oldgrowth specklebelly this summer in a forest about 400 kilometres northwest of Victoria.

The forest is “strikingly beautiful,” he says, with towering yellow cedars growing for hundreds of years on mountain slopes next to an ecological reserve.

Wright and Goward prize the forest in the Tsitika River watershed for its age and biodiversity, and a provincially appointed panel identified it as ancient, a rarer subset of old-growth, and recommended that it be set aside from logging in 2021.

But if a plan by the provincial logging agency, BC Timber Sales, goes ahead, the site will be auctioned for clearcut logging by the end of September.

The area was stewarded by several Indigenous nations that are part of the broader Kwakwaka’wakw or Kwak’wala-speaking peoples before colonization.

Today, the plan to log it reveals differing opinions among Kwakwaka’wakw leaders on how to protect old-growth forests, while raising questions about which Aboriginal rights holders the B.C. government chooses to listen to, and why.

The situation also shows how stewardship has been blurred by time, mixed lineages, and the division of Indigenous communities and lands under federal legislation that created First Nation reserves and band councils recognized by the Crown.

Ernest Alfred, elected councillor of the ‘Namgis First Nation, visited the ancient forest in July.

He says it is “surrounded by clear cuts,” an industrial logging method that removes all or nearly all of the trees in an area.

“To take out what has already been sort of left alone, to me is just criminal,” he says.

“Who’s benefiting, and at what cost?” Alfred asks. “Because the environmental damage is far more reaching than monetary value for our people.”

‘My accountability is to the Tlowitsis’

B.C.’s system to defer logging in old-growth forests requires support from First Nations, and the Forests Ministry says the sale of the Tsitika River cut block aligns with resource management planning by nations on whose territory it is located.

The 34-hectare cut block is listed on the BC Timber Sales schedule for auction by Sept. 30, which notes the logging method would be clear cutting.

The Forests Ministry says the planned cut block is in territories of the Nanwakolas Council, a group comprised of six Kwakwaka’wakw First Nations.

The council backs the logging plan.

Dallas Smith, board president for the Nanwakolas Council and acting chief of Tlowitsis, one of its member nations, says the area around Tsitika Mountain Ecological Reserve is part of his nation’s territory.

The council’s new resource management plan takes into account environmental, economic and cultural perspectives, Smith says, adding Nanwakolas has a program to protect monumental cedar trees used for cultural purposes.

“I think the development of natural resources always has to be sustainable. Should we be cutting all the old growth? No,” says Smith, whose father has served as chief for decades.

“But there is still old growth that has some values that are replicated in other places that we’re comfortable with the development of.”

The ‘Namgis First Nation is not part of the Nanwakolas Council. But Alfred is among several Kwakwaka’wakw leaders who say their ancestors also stewarded the area, and they want the ancient forest spared.

“We have long-reaching lineage all over northern Vancouver Island,” he says.

Alfred is a registered member of the ‘Namgis First Nation. But he says his relatives belonged to the Tlowitsis and Mamalilikulla nations, which are part of the Nanwakolas Council, as well as the Ma’amtagila, another Kwakwaka’wakw nation.

“Just because we’re not card-carrying members does not mean that we don’t care where our grandparents came from,” he says, referring to Indian Act status cards.

Alfred says the effects of logging extend across Kwakwaka’wakw territory, with silt and debris flowing to the coast, affecting salmon streams and beaches where northern resident killer whales rub themselves on the shallow, pebbled shores.

Ma’amtagila hereditary chief Rande Cook says his nation has what he describes as an ancient peace treaty with the orcas, binding them to protect the site.

“It was our jurisdiction and obligation to make sure that all those areas were protected through the ancient treaty,” he says.

“It brings us right into the Tsitika (watershed) because of those rubbing beaches.”

However, the B.C. and federal governments do not recognize the Ma’amtagila as a band following its amalgamation with the neighbouring Tlowitsis Nation 80 years ago.

Cook says the Ma’amtagila never gave up their rights or title, but their voices have been excluded from decisions about activities in their territory.

Cook says he believes in “fighting tooth and nail” to protect remaining old growth.

He says cedar, in particular, underpins his culture and practice as a visual artist.

“What is the future of Kwakwaka’wakw art or art of the northwest coast if we don’t have cedars? How do we continue to be storytellers?” he asks.

“I really believe we cannot be a living culture unless we have a living forest.”

Smith says Tlowitsis leadership communicates with the nation’s band members on a regular basis, including hereditary chiefs, and listens to their perspectives.

“When it comes to the day-to-day management of lands and resources, my accountability is to the Tlowitsis people,” he says.

“As people bring concerns, we try to act upon them as efficiently and as clearly as we can.”

Smith has not heard directly from Cook or Alfred, he adds.

‘It’s still the government choosing’

Asked about forestry consultation, the Forests Ministry says the Nanwakolas nations have an internal process intended to capture differing views.

“Within each community a range of views are held over many issues and striking the right balance is the objective,” the statement says.

But Wright, the advocate who spotted the oldgrowth specklebelly lichen in the forest, says decisions to log old growth start with the provincial government.

“Whether or not the First Nation is on board with it, it’s still the government choosing to target the most at-risk areas,” he says.

Wright says the B.C. government continues to approve logging in some of the most ecologically important old-growth forests, despite promises to protect them.

September marks the five-year anniversary of the launch of what the government described as a “new approach to old forests,” coinciding with the release of an independent report on old-growth management in the province.

The following year, in 2021, another provincial advisory panel identified 26,000 square kilometres of unprotected old forests at risk of permanent biodiversity loss, including the ancient forest in the Tsitika River watershed.

The B.C. government implemented logging deferrals in areas where First Nations agreed with the plan, saying the pause would allow for long-term planning.

But Smith says Nanwakolas Council took a different approach, working directly with the province to manage old growth in keeping with Tlowitsis values and goals.

Cook, meanwhile, says Ma’amtagila members identified several cut blocks and sent a letter to the province in July 2021 asking for those forests to be withdrawn from the BC Timber Sales schedule. They were denied.

“We submitted our own deferral areas. It wasn’t accepted, but at least it just shows we’re expressing interest and wanting to care for our territory,” he says.

“We’re not recognized by the Crown, so it made it difficult, but we’re doing stuff like that anyway … based under rights and title,” Cook says.

Tlowitsis and Ma’amtagila “have always been distinct neighbouring nations with kinship and resource-sharing practices,” the Ma’amtagila letter says.

“Please do not utilize any confusion you might have over overlapping territories for continued operations without our consent.”

Cook is a plaintiff in a civil claim filed against the B.C. and federal governments and Tlowitsis Nation in B.C. Supreme Court in late 2023, claiming the Ma’amtagila have always been a distinctive people who never ceded their rights or title.

Rather, in 1945, the lawsuit says Tlowitsis and Ma’amtagila leadership agreed to an “administrative amalgamation” resulting from factors related to colonization.

The band was to be governed by representatives of both nations, but the lawsuit says Tlowitsis leadership signed a resolution in 1998, removing the name Ma’amtagila and claiming Ma’amtagila chiefs had ceded their authority.

The claims have not been tested in court.

Smith, the acting chief of Tlowitsis, says changes were joint decisions.

“The Tlowitsis and Ma’amtagila leadership at the time simply dropped the name Ma’amtagila and we were all Tlowitsis,” he says.

‘When do you stop cutting?’

The Forests Ministry says about 334 square kilometres of the old growth recommended for deferral was logged between November 2021 and last February, while 234 square kilometres had already been logged before November 2021.

Goward, the lichenologist, says the societal and ecological value of old-growth forests is skyrocketing as they disappear in B.C. and around the world.

“The question becomes, well, when do you stop cutting the treasure?” he asks.

Cook has taken what he describes as a political stance by salvaging discarded cedar to create his carvings, rather than buying it from the logging industry.

“Sometimes it’s not the most beautiful wood, but with my practice now, I’m trying to create a narrative, a story through my work, based around regeneration.”

Brian Wadhams is another plaintiff in the Ma’amtagila lawsuit and, like Cook, he says he worries about how little old-growth cedar is left standing.

“There’s so much that comes from that one valuable tree that makes us who we are as First Nations people, from our masks, to our songs, to our dances, to the canoes, to the totems and all of the things that are important to us,” Wadhams says.

The 73-year-old with relatives from both the Tlowitsis and Ma’amtagila nations says he’s seen swaths of old-growth logged since his early years hunting and fishing with his father and uncles on northeastern Vancouver Island.

“I think about that all the time and, you know, it breaks my heart. In my lifetime, I’ve seen a lot being destroyed,” Wadhams says.

“All we want to do is reconnect back to our land, reconnect back to the resources that we have, manage it sustainably so it lasts for generations to come.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2025.

Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press