Tag Archives: negative stumpage

Potentially Embarrassing Questions About BC’s Stumpage Rates

By Roy L Hales

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During a recent interview, Campbell River film maker Damien Gillis said “there would be a great deal of outrage” if the public knew the degree to which we subsidize logging old growth forests. These subsidies come in the form of lower stumpage fees for the remote areas where most of our surviving ancient forests still persist.  Gillis also informed me this is a central issue in the United States’ softwood dispute with Canada. After the interview, I drew up a series of potentially embarrassing questions about BC’s stumpage rates.

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Inside One Of British Columbia’s Disappearing Old Growth Rainforests

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Most of us have seen historical photographs of the great forests that once stood in British Columbia. Though his family has worked in the forestry sector for a century, Damien Gillis’ first view of a forest like this came during a six-day-trek into the Incomappleux Valley. The award winning Campbell River documentary film maker (Fractured Land, Oil in Eden) says, “it was like nothing I’ve seen before, just the way the ecosystem is really a cycle of life, death and rebirth right before your eyes.” Some of the trees he saw had been saplings around the time of the Roman Empire. The resulting documentary, Primeval: Enter the Incomappleux offers viewers a rare glimpse inside one of BC’s disappearing old growth rainforests.

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