Popular perception holds that illegal logging is a problem in tropical countries, not North America. But Canada's nonprofit group Wilderness Committee would like to direct your attention to this giant stump in Carmanah-Walbran Provincial Park in British Columbia, near Washington State.
After illegal loggers failed in their attempt at felling this 800-year-old cedar last year-they cut through 80 percent of the 9-foot-diameter tree before fleeing in the face of park staff, according to MSNBC-park authorities finished the job for safety reasons. After that, the at-large poachers returned on multiple occasions to hack at the felled behemoth and haul it away piecemeal, taking chunks of cedar worth thousands of dollars.
Wilderness Committee has taken the Canadian government to task for skimping on park protection over the years. The group said in a press release recently that officials in British Columbia have cut funding for BC Parks-the oversight body-nearly on an annual basis for the past 10 years, and today BC Parks employs 10 full-time rangers to monitor 1,000 protected areas.
"There should be measures in place to stop this kind of thing," said Torrance Coste, Vancouver Island campaigner with the Wilderness Committee. "We entrust BC Parks with places that are valuable to us, but our government doesn't give them the resources to look after these areas."
Park authorities have nothing to go on in the investigation, and Canadian officials are pointing fingers at who's to blame. Canada's New Democrat Party criticized the Liberal Party for inadequately protecting the parks, MSNBC reported, but Environment Minister Terry Lake responded that, "To suggest that anyone is able to protect all of those areas to the level that the member suggests is fiscally irresponsible."
Today, the remains of the cedar reside in the park's parking lot, and the area around where it once stood is damaged-the undergrowth stomped, a ditch filled with debris and steel cables strewn about. And then there's that dead 9-foot-wide stump.
Photos: Torrance Coste
