Flying over squares of clearcuts and various shades of green marking conifer plantations in north central British Columbia, the pilot followed directions from David DeWit, a leader of Wet’suwet’en Nation. DeWit’s map of their territory’s traditional trails reflected markers on the ground: circles carved into trees, which offered proof of the Nation’s history in this area.
As the helicopter approached Caas Tl’aat Kwah (also known as Serb Creek), a 1,600-hectare (about 3,953-acre) watershed, the forest became a blanket of deep green, cleaved only by yellow-green wetlands threaded with glacial blue streams.
“We want to conserve it for future generations,” said Charlotte Euverman, the Wet’suwet’en woman leading a fight to save this area, which includes a traditional feasting site. “We have to leave them something.”
Like most First Nations here, Wet’suwet’en never signed treaties with the Canadian or provincial governments. Nevertheless, the latter took the land and leased forested acreage to logging companies. Today just 20% of British Columbia’s old-growth forests remain.
In 2020, after decades of activist pressure, the province identified about a quarter of the remaining old growth as at high risk for logging and recommended a pause while deciding their fate. Yet today, logging has been deferred in less than half of the high-risk area.
Now Caas Tl’aat Kwah is in the crosshairs of a debate over the scope of First Nations’ agency, biodiversity loss and protection – and the role industrial logging plays in amplifying Canada’s forest fires, the effects of which are being felt across the globe.
In summer 2023, more than 150,000 sq km (58,000 sq miles) burned across the country, an all-time record, carrying smoke across the continent and air pollution all the way to Europe and China.
Caas Tl’aat Kwah is not yet accessible by road, so the helicopter ride was the first opportunity for Nation member Sandra Harris to see it, despite the fact that her great-grandfather, Jack Joseph, once had a cabin there. The pilot set the helicopter down upon a boggy meadow, and DeWit, who is acting director of the Office of Wet’suwet’en, led the way through the trees to a newer cabin, where he gave a framed photo of Joseph pride of place.
Harris explained the significance of seeing the land, saying: “We have a lot of stress in our lives with racism, working with colonial systems that are so unkind to our ways.” The land is healing, she said.
“Today, we can feel our ancestors,” Harris said. “We remember our stories when we are able to put our feet on the land … There’s lots of good medicine there for us.”
Reducing fire severity
Conventional wisdom has long held that increased fire severity is due not just to climate change but also dense overgrowth from fire suppression. The prescription has been to thin forests and set controlled burns. But a growing number of scientists now say that approach fails to recognize the role of industrial logging in increased fire severity: it kills complex communities of life that stabilize the water cycle.
Logging makes an area much, much drier, and loggers often leave slash piles that are super dry and prone to ignition. While British Columbia requires logging companies to replant within a year, young plantations are extremely flammable.
One scientific paper looked at 1,500 fires in western US states over 30 years and found that protected forests with higher levels of dense growth actually had lower fire severity than intensively managed areas of commercial logging. Another found that plantations planted after logging – rather than dense old growth – “were significant drivers of wildfire severity”. Another found that clearcutting was a key factor leading to “frequent, high-severity fire”.
Other studies suggest that old growth reduces fire severity by retaining moisture and helping to generate rain. In an intact forest, dense, layered canopies of multiple species slow rain when it falls, and roots provide pathways for water to move underground, where it eventually supplies local waterways.
Trees transpire water vapor and release particles that help form rain. Old trees transpire even through the dry season because their roots tap deep groundwater. As they pull up water, seedlings and weaker trees can access it through the soil and mycorrhizal fungal networks, says University of British Columbia forest ecologist Suzanne Simard, author of Finding the Mother Tree. Because trees feed mycorrhizas, most of the latter die after clearcutting and can no longer distribute water.
When Canada requires logging companies to replant, they typically install just a few marketable species. Deciduous trees are less flammable – but also less marketable – so standard operating practice is to kill deciduous sprouts with herbicide, says Simard. Herbicides can also kill living matter in the soil, making it far less able to absorb water, and in turn increasing drought and landslides.
Protecting endangered species
The flanks of mountains rising from Serb Creek’s wetlands contain interior cedar hemlock and Engelmann spruce subalpine fir ecosystems, with trees up to 350 years old. The province considers the watershed to be the jurisdiction of British Columbia Timber Supply (BCTS), a commercial arm of its Ministry of Forests.
Under the 2020 old-growth plan, the Wet’suwet’en notified BCTS that they support a logging deferral, which the Ministry of Forests acknowledged in a 2023 letter. However, recent maps accessed by Sierra Club BC show that BCTS had already mapped some of the area for potential cuts. The Ministry of Forests would not make someone available for an interview. But a spokesperson wrote in an email: “Deferrals will remain in place until a long-term forest management approach is implemented.”
Wet’suwet’en Nation is comprised of five clans, each made up of several houses. To the Wet’suwet’en, Caas Tl’aat Kwah is the jurisdiction of Kwen Bea Yex (House Beside the Fire) of the Laksilyu (Small Frog Clan). Euverman is a member of Kwen Bea Yex, and she explained her motivation to protect the watershed.
“Coastal tailed frog is my biggest reason. The frog is on our crest,” she said.
A species of special concern under Canada’s Species at Risk Act, the frog is ancient. It is one of just two tailed frogs in the world, and its “tail” is actually used for making more frogs. Other species who survive in the Caas Tl’aat Kwah watershed include wolverine, grizzly, wolf, mountain goat, moose, bull trout, cutthroat trout, western red cedar, whitebark pine and arboreal lichen, which feed endangered caribou.
In recent years, British Columbia and Canada have both passed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which requires “free, prior, and informed consent”. However, Canadian and provincial governments do not give Nations veto power over development projects within their territories.
Local people are concerned because BCTS could ultimately decide to log Caas Tl’aat Kwah. The Ministry of Forests spokesperson wrote: “If the temporary deferral is lifted … BC Timber Sales will … plan any potential future harvest [logging] in a way that would preserve the area’s biodiversity, wildlife, cultural values and recreational opportunities.”
One of the most challenging aspects for the Wet’suwet’en, says Harris, is that provincial rules change every couple of years, with each new government. In fact, British Columbia is holding an election next month, which could change priorities yet again. Wet’suwet’en laws, on the other hand are unchanging. “Our stories help us learn our laws, what our responsibilities are,” said Harris. “That doesn’t change.”
Jens Wieting, senior forest and climate campaigner with Sierra Club BC, has seen “countless examples” of this reality. “A Nation is successful at opposing logging, only to confront the same struggle a few years later – and sometimes losing,” he said.
DeWit is skeptical that the province’s old-growth plan could be protective. Instead, he wants Wet’suwet’en to protect Caas Tl’aat Kwah according to its own governance traditions. That requires members of Kwen Bea Yex to decide that it’s needed for cultural and ecological purposes and off-limits to commercial logging, he says. The House would then secure agreement from its Clan, followed by all the Clans. Then they’d have a feast, which would ratify the agreement.
Meanwhile, the fires continue. In August, 353 fires were burning across British Columbia, including a “wildfire of note” in Wet’suwet’en territory. Racism and colonialism have left deep wounds, says Harris. But DeWit sounded an optimistic note, saying: “When we heal the land, we will heal the people.”
This is an edited version of an article that was collaboratively published on Mongabay. Reporting for this story was supported by the Science Media Centre of Canada and the Sitka Foundation.
• This article was amended on 24 September 2024 to correctly refer to the Wet’suwet’en Nation, not the Wet’suwet’en First Nation, as originally written.
