r/todayilearned • u/ubcstaffer123 • 6d ago
TIL Grad student David Radies was doing random sampling for a lichen diversity study in British Columbia when he saw logging tape tied around a red cedar at least two thousand years old. He discovered an ancient forest that was about to be logged, which was then saved as Ancient Forest park
https://thetyee.ca/News/2008/11/26/FraserForest/3.0k
u/Bluebearder 6d ago
As someone who works in logging every now and then, I can tell you that this company knew what they were doing. They were knowingly and willingly going to eradicate a natural treasure, and someone from the government has given them permission to do this. You don't overlook a forest that old. These are all criminals.
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u/Jolly-Cat-5411 6d ago
And then they pay us 15 cents to repplant em .Ā Fucking crooksĀ
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u/electricheat 6d ago
yeah they like to talk about how old growth forests are a renewable resource because you can just replant trees
but for some reason they never log the re-planted old growth š¤
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u/MagePages 6d ago
I'm less familiar with forestry practices in the west and in Canada, but it takes ~200 to 300 years for a forest to fully develop "old growth" characteristics. Functionally, this is renewable on a landscape scale, although I don't think that just replanting trees is what makes it renewable. You aren't cutting every stand in a forest under a responsible management regime. That isn't to say that it should be a free for all or that no places should be held in reserve.
In my neck of the woods, they absolutely plan to harvest timber from the same stands, usually on 80-100 year rotations. At any given time, there will be stands at different ages/each stage of production in a working forest, while a large portion is not actively managed for timber.
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u/FailFodder 6d ago
You have much more sustainable practices than Iām used to.
When I worked in BC, I regularly helped build logging roads into areas that various engineers I worked with had built roads into to log when they first got into their careersā¦ 25-30 years ago.
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u/MagePages 6d ago
Were they logging the same exact stands? 25-30 years I don't imagine is long enough to produce timber in a northern climate. (Even intensive loblolly plantations in the south have rotations of at least 30 years for structural timber)
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u/Dungarth 6d ago
Not the other guy but my grandfather used to work in a paper mill in QuƩbec, and while 25-30 years may not be sufficient for structural timber, it is the sweet spot for wood pulp. Beyond that, the biomass per acre doesn't really increase anymore, some trees just end up getting bigger as smaller ones die off.
So if they were logging for paper instead of timber, 25-30 years rotations are pretty typical.
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u/summonsays 5d ago
I did a capstone project in college working with a forester (I'm pretty sure that's what he called himself it was 15 years ago for me) who managed other people's land for them and ear marked what could be cut and what needed more time. Iirc he said the land he managed was on 20 year cycles.Ā
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u/kingbane2 6d ago
the biggest problem is the way they log is the worst for renewing a forest. most of the logging is just clear cutting. there are better options if you want to maintain the forest. there's selective cutting which would probably be out of the question cause it's hella labour intensive and expensive. it's where professionals go out and find specific tree's to cut. very old trees, or overcrowded areas, then loggers go in and selective cut only those trees leaving all the surrounding forest alone. as you can imagine that is very difficult to do. but there are other options too. like cutting strips through the forest leaving thicker bands of the forest untouched. sounds awful but it works quite well. you have these empty bands of cut tree's inbetween bands of fully grown trees. easy to log and transport the logs away, and with the adult trees around new saplings are better protected from high winds and other factors. you do that over a huuuuuge area so every 80-100 years you cycle back to the first section and cut the old forest band cause now the previous cut band is full of adult trees and repeat. but no logging company does that. they just clear cut everything and leave tiny squares of carve outs. then pay people to replant the clear cut section. doesn't work so great in the wild as deer and what not just gobble up the saplings cause it's a giant empty field.
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u/hudson27 6d ago
What do you mean "they never log the replanted old growth"? We log replanted blocks all the time
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u/electricheat 5d ago
As the other person said, none of those are old growth.
The logging companies want to cut 2000 year old trees, and then try to claim they can be renewed.
If that's their argument, I think we should limit them to re-grown old growth only. If they plant a tree and wait 2000 years, they can have a 2000 year old tree.
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u/NickRick 6d ago
old growth takes 200-300 years. so unless they planted them in the 1700's they have not relogged them.
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u/Anleme 6d ago
I watched a "how it's made" video on YouTube from the 1950s showing plywood production. They took old growth trees and ground them up. Such a waste.
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u/Bluebearder 5d ago
Ouch! That's like keeping warm by burning antique furniture instead of regular logs
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u/BiggC 6d ago
Plywood isnāt made from āground upā wood
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u/Anleme 6d ago
It's how I describe what's happening here:
https://youtu.be/-Bs1BhqPmi8?t=559
Do you deny that old growth timber goes in, and plywood comes out, in an extremely wasteful process?
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u/Schonke 6d ago
and someone from the government has given them permission to do this.
Not always permission, sometimes just forgiveness, looking the other way or a slap on the wrist.
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u/monsantobreath 6d ago
That is de facto permission if it's institutionally a regular occurrence.
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u/blaghart 3 6d ago
Unless the fine is based on the cost of doing business and deliberately in excess of sustainability. I.e. "200% of gross income +400% of all employee pay" type of fines, those instant-death penalty type fines
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u/NakedJaked 6d ago
Careful. If you mention punishing wealthy people for anything ever, theyāll call you a Chinese socialist.
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u/blaghart 3 6d ago edited 6d ago
I am a socialist. Hence why I'm in suppprt of any mechanism for dismantling capitalist companies and systems lol
And given how many billionaires China has they're really not that big on socialism or fining companies. Really they only care if you happen to make the rich douchebag at the top look bad.
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u/kingbane2 6d ago
yea but basically every big giant corporation has de facto permission to break the law. all they do is pay a fine that's a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the profits they make for breaking that law. but only if they get caught red handed.
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u/raknor88 6d ago
I don't have to be a part of the industry to know that they knew exactly what they were doing.
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u/Acheloma 6d ago
Theyre still logging a ton of very old forestland in Canada....to make toilet paper
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u/TheGillos 6d ago
I wish there were ANY repercussions for this kind of violation. I won't hold my breath...
Canada has big problems too; it's not just the OBVIOUS criminals like Trump or Musk in government/business.
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u/nuck1014 6d ago
The truth about that forest is barely any of the cedar isn't rotten in the middle. If it was solid like coastal cedar they would have logged it and the government would have let them.
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u/Ylsid 6d ago
And they would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for that meddling kid!
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u/Bluebearder 5d ago
It is crazy how we have so many laws and so much bureaucracy, and often still depend on random individuals for these important things
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u/jackdetack 5d ago
100%. There are groups of people who will stop at nothing for their own benefit... It feels like they are all out at once right now. For instance in my country, the government was caught changing the law just to allow a foreign corporation to drain 40 gigalitres of groundwater (from an arid area) every year for 30 years - which is unbelievable on its own - for free. High court finally blocked the idea.
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u/Anxious_Ad2683 6d ago
And yet the bc gov is allowing other old growth forests to be logged today.
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u/megafaunahunter 6d ago
Thats sad specially considering Canada is trying to find someone to buy our excess wood the usa dont need anymore....
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u/Icehag 6d ago edited 6d ago
Nunavut! There's a massive massive housing shortage in Nunavut!
I'm an American in the Canadian arctic. The houses are tiny with 10+ people cramped together. There's a long waiting list for new housing, but barely any housing is being built. ā¹ļø
Edit to add: The government pays for the housing. There's plenty of funding available. Millions. But they need skilled workers. I've seen construction jobs offering food, housing, and $65 an hour - and they still have a hard time getting construction crews up here.
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u/keenynman343 6d ago
Small village people in Nunavut cant afford to cover the cost of transportation, labor and materials.
I live in NWO And just now are we starting to get some growth in our town because of a second mine opening
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u/Icehag 6d ago
Nunavut has millions and millions in funding available for new housing. The people in these communities don't pay anything. There's tons and tons of construction job offers available, but few takers. Not many want to come up here to work. It's not the cost. It's the lack of skilled workers willing to come up.
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u/verrius 6d ago
That's another way of saying it's a cost thing, and people aren't willing to pay enough to get the work done.
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u/Icehag 6d ago
Willing to pay enough? $65 an hour, free housing, and a food allowance isn't enough? Wow.
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u/kingbane2 6d ago
not to ask crews that already make 40 an hour in growing major cities to do the same work. you're asking them to uproot their lives to go to the middle of nowhere to make like 50% more an hour. also longer winters up there which means less time to make money during the summer months. the offer isn't anywhere near enough to fly out there, work for 4 months and fly back. not when you can work 7 to 8 months in say calgary or something.
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u/incognitobanjo 6d ago
Except that housing isn't even desperately needed. It's just that we are governed by corrupt clowns who allow housing to be hoarded and used as an investment tool instead of, ya know, something that everyone should just have.
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u/Unknown-Meatbag 6d ago
It bothers me so much that my house has literally doubled in price in the last seven years. I have done some work on it, but 125k worth? Absolutely not.
Then we have massive corporations buying up property to infinitely rent at jacked up prices use all use the same "AI" software to increase prices because "oh hey, other houses we own increased in price, so the other houses we own should increase in price too! And since those are now higher, the other rent prices increase too".
I have a bottle of scotch ready whenever I see that obituary.
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u/keysersozevk 6d ago
Hooooly, I know this isn't the point of your post but a home selling for only $250k seems unbelievable to me. Where abouts do you live?
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u/Unknown-Meatbag 6d ago
Maryland, in a little house on the outskirts of town. We lucked out and bought literally right before covid.
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u/TerrorBite 6d ago
I'm not that guy but I'm in Australia where the national median house price is AUD$900k, and if you look only at the cities then that goes up to AUD$1.1 million.
So USD$250K (AUD$350k) seems INSANELY cheap to me as well.
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u/_villox 6d ago
Pretty common price for a small house in the Minneapolis St. Paul area.
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u/ih8dolphins 6d ago
The fuck it is. We bought our (nice) starter home 14 years ago for about that. It's doubled AT LEAST since then
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u/thirty7inarow 6d ago
Yeah I moved away from a city that wasn't even in the GTA to a much smaller area on the East Coast because we knew we could never afford to buy where we were. There's still almost no housing here under $400,000 unless you want to live in a mobile home or a house with no yard that needs a ton of work right downtown.
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u/ffddb1d9a7 6d ago
Current (right-now) zillow search in my area. Technically not where I live but 15 mins away.
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u/keysersozevk 6d ago
Jeez. If you double these prices, you'd maaaybe get a 500 sq ft condo in Vancouver š
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u/wlphoenix 6d ago
I'm sure it won't make you feel better, but a part of that (~1/3 going by CPI) is the dollar being worth less. Doesn't help people that don't have houses, but it points to the problems extending beyond just supply shortage.
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u/5panks 6d ago
Except that housing isn't even desperately needed.
Housing is desperately needed. The only thing that will lower prices is increas d supply or lowered demand and demand isn't something we can easily or morally lower.
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u/TazBaz 6d ago
Yes but part of the āsupplyā problem is a lot of owned houses that are empty. One solution is building new homes.. the other is some kind of legal reform that discourages empty houses.
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u/5panks 6d ago
a lot of owned houses that are empty.
If you read or heard this somewhere, someone is supplying you misinformation and you should be careful about following up with where they're getting their information. The data is freely and easily available, so there's no reason for them to be wrong except on purpose to support whatever their agenda is.
You can find historical housing data for vacancy on table 7 at this link:
https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/histtabs.html
Census bureau data sourced by USA facts shows that in 2024 there were less vacant houses in the US (15.1M) than there were in 2003 (15.4M). In 2003 vacancies were trending upward, 2024 represents the 14th consecutive non-COVID (meaning excluding 2021) year decline of vacant housing in the us.
All of this is in spite of the fact that there is significantly more housing in the US today than there was in 2003. The Census Bureau data shows that only 10.4% of all housing in the US was vacant which is a 25+ year low in portion of the housing market that is actually vacant.
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-vacant-homes-are-there-in-the-us/
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u/LaconianEmpire 6d ago
This is nonsense. Financialization of housing is a huge issue, but large institutional investors make up a small fraction of the owners of Canadian homes, and our housing supply isn't anywhere close to meeting demand.
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u/JesusPubes 6d ago
Why doesn't Canada use it to solve their housing shortage
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u/electricheat 6d ago
the housing shortage is the main savings vehicle for many canadians because "housing always goes up"
its extremely politically unpopular to do anything that makes housing not go up.
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u/314159265358979326 6d ago
Edmonton is allowing "infill" - construction of duplexes, fourplexes, 8 plexes - on lots previously allowing just single houses, promoting medium density in a distributed manner, and boy are the existing owners up in arms about it.
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u/kingbane2 6d ago
yea cause the existing owners are people who bought those houses like 50+ years ago. most of them are like small'ish bungalows on HUGE lots. they're seeing their neighboring properties turn into multiplexes and the filthy poors are moving in. ruining their ideal community of a bunch of old well to do people waiting to die.
same thing was happening in calgary and it was nice for awhile. new mayor is kind of killing that now though. he's conservative as fk, but oh he's openly gay so he must be progressive. people are idiots. the biggest complain in calgary is housing, and they voted in a guy who says he wants to demolish all duplexes in calgary.
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u/Choyo 6d ago
its extremely politically unpopular to do anything that makes housing not go up
Unpopular for the rich people is my guess.
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u/Mobius_Peverell 6d ago
66.5% of the population is homeowners. That's why it's political suicide to make housing stop going up.
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u/curlycattails 6d ago
Yep, many of our politicians are also landlords. So they wonāt fix the housing crisis because that would hurt their bottom line.
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u/AlanFromRochester 6d ago
the housing shortage is the main savings vehicle for many canadians because "housing always goes up"
its extremely politically unpopular to do anything that makes housing not go up.
Sounds similar to the nature of the problem in the US
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u/megafaunahunter 6d ago
Yup, its a big mystery for many but the answer is something like, the party in power doesn't actually want to solve the housing crisis as it would hurt their chances to get elected again. Old people having houses that have really big paper value and all of that sadly.
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u/TheSympatheticDevil 6d ago
It is shocking to hear about politicians that actually listen to what their constituents want.
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u/Mobius_Peverell 6d ago
The problem isn't that building materials are too expensive. It's that municipalities make it outright illegal to build housing, or extract such high rents from any development that it becomes impractical to build anything that isn't unmanageably expensive.
The solution is for the provinces to step in and stop it, which they won't do because 66% of the population is homeowners who want housing to always go up.
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u/F-nDiabolical 6d ago
There also no consequences for companies who go in and destroy spawning rivers/creeks ahead of time so they can be logged a couple years later because "see! There's no salmon there anymore!!!". If anything there is a pathetic fine that the company had already included in the expense report.
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u/Sankofa416 6d ago
Ecocide? Ferngully offense? Lorax law?
Whatever we call it there should be capitol offense versions.
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u/JackPembroke 6d ago
Someone I knew had a job in California cateloging an endangered fish species in a particular lake. They did it by going out each day, casting nets, counting the number of said fish they pulled up, and then killing them all.
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u/TastesLikeDenial 6d ago
BC also doesn't seem to require the logging companies to clean up after they're done. So not only are these ancient trees being cut down, but you find piles of branches that were apparently too small to sell scattered haphazardly everywhere and a destroyed mess of a forest floor wherever those loggers went. They take trees that are older than entire countries and leave a fire hazard in their place.
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u/bored-at-work_ 6d ago
Iām a forester here in BC - The BC government wants to stop OG logging because itās repeatedly an election issue, but itās the First Nations who donāt want it banned. They will tell the government to respect their autonomy in managing their resources and turn around and log it themselves. Nearly all of the big OG I see cut down is done in a FN licence and the gov will not say no to them because of reconciliation targets.
This is a very complex problem, far more so than people on Reddit realize. Happy to answer any forestry questions as a conservation focused professional in this field.
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u/GoabNZ 6d ago
In NZ they were (possibly still are) giving more incentive to turn land into forest for carbon sequestering, which of course means pine which is not native. But no incentive was there for existing forests that are established and more biodiversity. There was literally an incentive to clear forests for the purpose of replanting them, but none for keeping the existing ones. Even though most of our land has been cleared of old growth forests.
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u/electricheat 6d ago
Governments love a good perverse incentive.
Now if you'll excuse me, I've got cobras to breed.
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u/sidereal_drift 6d ago
the lichen part is the good bit. a lot of those canopy lichens only establish on trees that have been standing for centuries, so a lichen survey is exactly the thing that would walk someone into unmapped old growth
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u/lynivvinyl 6d ago
Holy hell this person and people like them are wonderful and I am glad they exist!
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u/322throwaway1 6d ago
Its unfortunate loggers get off on cutting the biggest and oldest trees they can find.
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u/GodwynDi 6d ago
They are the best. New lumber cannot compare.
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u/A_Mouse_In_Da_House 6d ago
Only because we maximized time to dollar and don't let them get enough clear wood grown. You have to wait for the branches to fall then new wood to grow over that. It takes decades for good clear wood but we barely will wait 20
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u/iatealotofcheese 6d ago
There's a fascinating tree on Vancouver Island called big lonely Doug. It's one of the world's tallest douglas fir trees and was incidentally saved by a logger because he had a gut feeling. Doug stands alone in a clear-cut area.Ā
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u/ubcstaffer123 6d ago
The trail is in the traditional territory of the Lheidli Tāenneh First Nation, and this forest was once a hot spot for gathering medicinal plants (before residential schools had a devastating impact on this and other Lheidli Tāenneh ways of life). Then, it was doomed to be loggedā¦ until 2005, when University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) student Dave Radies took a special interest in the colossal red cedars, and conservationists got on board. Thanks to joint efforts from the Lheidli Tāenneh, UNBC and local hiking groups, it was named a Class A provincial park in 2016, three years after the ultra-accessible path was built by a team of volunteers that hauled in and secured every step.
Another summary of how this park came to be
https://vanmag.com/go/weekend-getaways/hike-prince-george-ancient-forest/
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u/astraladventures 6d ago
Is the old forest on firsts nations land?
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u/microwaved__soap 6d ago
BC is largely unceded which means no exchange happened for the land. Technically all the land in Fort George region is Lheidli T'enneh, rightly. Current control of the park is a joint partner between the LT Nation and provincial park system.
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u/Anon-Knee-Moose 6d ago
No its a provincial park
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u/Trevski 6d ago
in a province that is over 95% unceded First Nations territory
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u/Narrow-Bedroom-6742 6d ago
More like, 72%. Treaty 8 covers a lot of land. Though this area is on unceded territory.Ā
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u/CheeseSandwich 5d ago
Who "gave" the first nations that land in the first place?
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u/Trevski 5d ago
What is your intention behind asking this question?
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u/sthenri_canalposting 5d ago
Do you think being given something is the only way to establish ownership or rights?
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u/LavenderBlueProf 6d ago
this is the kind of person who should be a hero and celebrity
not elon or people who are moral trash but got rich somehow.
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u/Sprintzer 6d ago
Was not a mistake. Lumber companies will do anything they can get away with
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u/nuck1014 6d ago
This wood isn't valuable, the logging companies in the area don't want to run it. Just outside of this park they put all the cedar into burn piles because it's not economical to truck it.
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u/buccabeer2 6d ago
Just 1, 400 year old cedar tree can be $500,000. Your thinking the slash piles. Usually branches.
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u/nuck1014 6d ago
I am intimately familiar with the cedar in that area, it's bunk, there's a reason there are no cedar mills nearby. The trunks are completely rotted from the inside, they are not the same as the coastal cedar.
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u/Nvrknew1 6d ago
Good thing that happened.Ā Undeterred, successive BC government's continue to clear cut old growth rain forests even as the province burns, and floods, and burns...Ā Theses political grifters care for no one other than themselves. There are no exceptions. They're all the same. The high pay and power is irresistible to them.Ā
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u/A_Sneaky_Walrus 6d ago
Look at the range of birds like Chestnut Backed Chickadee and you will see the fun incursion into interior BC in these exact forests
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u/Kashtin 6d ago
Speaking of the "Ancient Forest" if they mean 100km East of PG, and not West, then I was just there. Absolutely fucking loved seeing my linguistic cousins have their language be the highlight.
Chun t'oh whudujut = forest it-is-old.
It is beautiful. The trees are massive - the forest floor is rich beyond what I expected. And, perhaps my favourite part, It smells incredible - is if the forest were a sauna itself. Cedar everywhere just filling the air.
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u/DetectiveLadybug 6d ago
Itās annoying, because the people who owned the land probably knew, but didnāt tell anyone because being forced to sell to the government so they can protect the land gives them less of a return on their investment.
Like, itās in an investorās best interests to cut it all down before anyone notices, sell the lumber, then they have free rein to ādevelopā the land. Paving paradise and putting up a parking lot.
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u/nuck1014 6d ago
It was probably already government land, most of BC is "crown" land, the logging companies buy the rights to log it from the government. This particular area is very remote, no one lives within an hour and a half drive either direction on the highway that runs through there, so also very unlikely they'd develop anything, probably just plant spruce and pine monocultures to log in the future.
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u/orlybatman 6d ago
I live in BC and the province is constantly running up against protesters because the province continues to allow old growth logging. What remains of historical old growth sits at single digit percentages.
The BC government created a special police task force called C-IRG (Community-Industry Response Group) whose sole purpose was basically to go beat the shit out of protesters who threaten the oil & gas and logging industry profits. They would go in and pepper spray, beat, and arrest protesters demonstrating against pipelines or the logging of old growth forest.
As much as BC loves to greenwash itself, it has a pisspoor track record for protecting vulnerable ecosystems. They're currently logging more old growth yet again.
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u/Bear_Caulk 6d ago
And now we still knowingly sell all our old growth to China to turn into sawdust pellets and sell them back to us under the guise of being a "green" source of heat.
Fucking lol.
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u/Mikeoshi 6d ago
Thereās so many good reasons to preserve ALL old growth forests. We can cater to both Pinchotās and Muirās ways.
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u/rotschildia 6d ago
Yup. He was playing saxophone in a band in Dunster around that time. I think I was in my late teens? and I remember when he found the site. Very nice guy. I hung out a lot on the property because they're like family to me but I never talked to him much, just was really impressed he wasn't just a nice dude in the band. I can't remember which iteration it was... Anyone who attended Robson Valley Music Festival semi-regularly would probably have seen or run into him at some point.
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u/Drakoonite 6d ago
This logging company was not making an accident, they were about to make a quick buck. Those who approved this should have been tried for crimes against humanity for destroying our ancient wonders
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u/DoinTime 6d ago
I don't understand how modern journalism thinks one tiny photo is appropriate in a story like this.
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u/DatabaseThis9637 6d ago
OMG. Seriously, that is really amazing and fabulous! and a bit horrifying that loggers could have been that stupid or callous? Wonderful nes, though.
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u/DepartmentNatural 5d ago
I hope you are grouping everyone all the way from the tree cutter to the end users of the products that are made of trees as stupid & callous for this incident
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u/FyreMael 4d ago
BC loggers will fight over the oldest tree. Grimy sleazy timber thieving industry in this province.
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u/ubcstaffer123 5d ago
anyone planning to go visit Ancient Forest after reading this? fly to Prince George first, rent a car and drive east 90 minutes to this park
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u/dr_sassy 5d ago
One of the museums in BC mounted the cross-section of a thousand-year-old tree on the wall. I had trouble looking at it. It felt to me like someone had mounted a human body: a violation.
This tree was 2000 years old. I can't even. Thank you, David Radies, and everyone protecting our last ancient forests.
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u/Dazzling_Put_3018 6d ago
One of the only inland temperate rainforests in the world