Left: Cedar log dump, Clayoquot Sound,
Vancouver Island, British Columbia, 2009,

Canada's commercial trade in vanishing
old growth cedar trees is strangling the
cultural traditions and economic well being
of First Nations and therefore can justly
be referred to as racist.

Stop the Annihilation of the "Tree of Life"

Stop Canada's Trade in Sacred Cedar

Stop the Corporate Cover–up

Boycott BC Cedar

Right: Giant Cedar Stump, Vancouver Island, 2010.
This is industrial Forestry by TimberWest Corp.

The Trashing of
First Nations Heritage

By demolishing the old growth cedar trees, the forest industry is trashing Indigenous Northwest Coast heritage.

Left: Photo on the cover of the 2006 Annual Report of the Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia. It shows Haisla artist Lyle Wilson carving an ancient yellow cedar tree in the Museum. Finding large enough cedar logs to carve is increasingly difficult for Native artists.

Right: One of the most renowned of all Northwest Coast sculptures is the monumental "Raven" by the Haida artist Bill Reid. He found it impossible in 1979 to find a large enough yellow cedar tree and instead had to carve a laminated block. It is ironic that while totem poles and Northwest Coast carvings perform as international ambassadors for Canada, the commercial slaughter of old growth cedar trees continues with no protest.

Northwest Coast Indigenous Peoples believe that red and yellow cedar trees have special healing and spiritual powers and their own creation myths. Cynically, the wood products industry uses Indigenous culture and the carving of cedar to sell its consumer products such as floors, window frames, doors, saunas, patio decking, outdoor furniture and so on. This form of advertising is abusive and indicates how pervasive the wood products industry has become in controlling public awareness of the problem of old growth deforestation in BC.

Right: Webpage from the non native owned Haida Forest Products Company. Red text added.

The company's recounting of "The Haida Story" on its website as a tribute "of respect for these magnificent people" is a form of abusive and racist advertising. The Haida have fought the industrial forest corporations on Haida Gwaii for decades and there protests were the cause of Weyerhaeuser abandoning the Haida Territories in 2004.

Those who engage in the mass extermination of monumental cedar trees – government and industry – are hypocrites to use Haida cedar sculpture on behalf of their immoral commercialism.

On one hand we celebrate and preserve Northwest carving traditions and on the other we sanction the industrial logging of the irreplaceable ancient cedar trees on which these traditions are dependent.

Left: Another example of abusive advertising. Red text added. Photo of native carver on the website of Forestry Innovation Investment, a Crown Agency of British Columbia that promotes the commercial wood products industry. Most of BC's forest products (lumber, panels, specialty products, pulp and paper) are sold outside Canada and this agency falsely claims that BC engages in sustainable forest management in order to gain certification in the international markets.

The certification offered by this agency to source where the BC wood and pulp and paper products come from is phoney. It does not include information about the disappearing old growth cedar trees which provide the "clear" wood products that have the highiest market value. These ancient cedars are essential to both Northwest Coast culture and ecology and require immediate protection.

Left: Real Cedar logo of the Western Red Cedar Export Association. Red text added. The logo features a live green tree when in fact the wood products industry results in the death and extermination of ancient cedar trees. The powerful multinational wood products industry is entrenched in Canada and if the remaining remnants of ancient temperate rainforest are to survive, an international boycott of BC's shameful export of old growth cedar is needed. Instead the Western Red Cedar Export Association openly conducts its dirty trade with Belgium, France, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan and other markets around the world.


Right: Webpage banner advertising "Real Cedar," a marketing scheme by the American dominated organization called the Western Red Cedar Export Association. Red text added.

This "First Uses of Cedar Bark and Logs" appropriation of the history of how First Nations Peoples use cedar in their culture is cynical and must be condemned as abusive advertising.

To promote the unethical and racist trade in vanishing old growth cedar trees, export companies ludicrously claim to be partners with First Nations. They are exploiting and condemning to death the cultures of FIrst Nations by exterminating the ancient cedars, the "Tree of Life."

An especially blatant lie used by government and industry is the often recited slogan: "Working Together To Preserve Heritage." The slogan on the webpage of the Western Red Cedar Export Association (right) is especially egregious as it is accompanied by a photo of the soverign tribal school of the Nuxalk Nation in Bella Coola.


Above: Photo collage of Gitxsan totem poles in 'Ksan Village. Red text added. The photos are used as propadanda, to promote commercial wood products, on the website of the Council of Forest Industries. This abusive advertising is especially offensive due to the long history of the Gitxsan People have of carving totem poles to assert their sovereignty and to protest against the cutting down of their forest resources by government sanctioned logging companies.

This underhanded use of indigenous culture to sell cedar lumber products is unethical. As Aboriginal Heritage, all cedar trees in BCneed to be protected under First Nations jurisdiction and stewardship.

Companies that belong to the Council of Forest Industries operate 100 production facilities in BC. The Council promotes its products in the international market through trade development, public affairs and community relations. It claims to consider "regional geographic, demographic and historic differences" but omits all Indigenous Peoples.

The Unethical Flogging
of Sacred Cedar

Left: An ancient yellow cedar tree, about 600 years old, destroyed in 2006 for wood products. The yellow cedar tree was cut down in the upper Walbran Forest on Vancouver Island, on public land leased by a logging company. This rare biological treasure could have lived for centuries more.

Right: The same ancient yellow cedar tree was tracked to the supply yard at Meeker Lumber and Errington Cedar Products on Vancouver Island.

Right: The same ancient yellow cedar tree (seen above) was tracked to the supply yard at Meeker Lumber and Errington Cedar Products on Vancouver Island. Meeker Lumber is only one of hundreds of such companies dealing with vanishing old growth cedar. In most cases these companies are marketing the export of raw logs to Asia and the US, a practice endorsed by the BC government.

Yellow cedar, known by its scientific name as "Chamaecyparis Nootkatensis," was discovered on Vancouver Island in the 1790s and named after the Nuu chah nulth Tribes. Yellow cedar is a very slow growing species that can reach great longevity wtih ages well over a thousand years. This beautiful tree was not even named by Europeans until the late 18th century and yet today almost all ancient specimens have been annihilated for lumber. Even the most isolated trees are targeted for helicopter extermination. All yellow cedar sold commercially is old growth and therefor unethical. No second growth yellow cedar available from industrial tree farms.

Right: Old growth yellow cedar logs being advertised for sale by Alcan Forest Products on its website (accessed June 2012). White text added. Hundreds of lumber dealers in BC specialize in the commercial trade of old growth cedar logs, called "export clears," for the international market in wood products. Though old growth trees are rapidly being exterminated, dealers lie about their abundant stocks and openly flog their shameful wares.

Cedarland Forest Products boasts that it "supplies fine grained, old growth no defect clears." Coastal Cedar Direct: "We carry old growth clears, tight knot, and yellow cedar in the widest variety of dimensions and patterns."

Left: The Taiwanese president of the Vancouver based T. F. Specialty Sawmill standing in front of his large stock pile of yellow cedar lumber. (accessed 2010). White text added. The photo is on the website of the Vancouver Island Association of Wood Processors and is intended to appeal to the Asian market for yellow cedar.

This killing of ancient, irreplaceable and rare trees is comparable to the killing of endangered species such as Blue Whales. It is a disgraceful form of ecological vandalism that is annihilating for future generations both Indigenous heritage and biological diversity.

Left: "Unethical Flogging." Red text added, Webpage of Island Cypress, an industrial forest destruction company owned by Vancouver Island Association of Wood Processors. (Accessed 22 March 2011.)

Demolishing the last surviving ancient yellow cedar trees on the Northwest Coast is a racist act. Yet due to government corruption, the forest industry openly engages in its unethical flogging of sacred cedar trees, especially to the insatiable Asian market. It is shocking that no laws exist in Canada to stop this rampant commercial greed which is exterminating First Nations heritage and forest biodiversity.

Below: Photos on the Island Cypress website promoting the greedy profiteering of the forest industry. Laying waste to ancient rainforest biodiversity has become an epidemic everywhere in the world. The corporate rape and pillaging of Nature has no bounds, including using Native carving and art to advertise commercial wood products.

Sacred Yellow Cedar
Demolished by Greed

Sacred Yellow Cedar
Abusive Advertising

Sacred Yellow Cedar
Demolished by Greed

Sacred Yellow Cedar
Demolished by Greed

Sacred Yellow Cedar
Abusive Advertising

Sacred Yellow Cedar
Demolished by Greed

Canada's Shameful Export
of Old Growth Cedar

Left and right: Canadian Lies. Red text added. Photos on the website of Canadian Overseas Log & Lumber Co.

This company boasts that it sells "endless logs from industrial tree farms" and "great piles of old growth logs." Each webpage includes a photo titled "For Sale" (below).

A logger stands beside an ancient big tree, cut down for commercial profiteering with no regard for its endangered status.

Above left: Forest industry advertising. Website photo on CDS Lumber Products Company website, 2007. Photo caption: "Our lumber comes in almost every grade, but our primary grade is clear" (i.e. old growth).

Above right: BC cedar boom photo on the website of "Cedar Direct," a New Zealand company that imports BC cedar for the global wood products market. Photo caption: "From the forest floors of British Columbia to homes of distinction worldwide."

Left: A photo of a log boom on the Fraser River near Vancouver in 2009. The number "12805" is by the Canadian Overseas Log & Lumber Company. Such log exports have continued to soar and in 2012 reached record levels.

BC's export of logs, lumber, chips and pulp is exterminating forest biodiversity while the logging industry spews out "renewable resource" lies.

Forest Industry Deception:
"Chain of Lies"

Right: "Chain of Lies" by Greenpeace (click for pdf)

"The Kimberly-Clark Corporation, the world’s largest tissue product manufacturer and the maker of Kleenex brand tissue products, positions itself as an environmentally responsible company, one that goes out of its way to meet and exceed standards of ecological sustainability. In various published corporate materials and correspondence extending as far back as 1998, Kimberly Clark has committed to not purchase fiber from coastal temperate rainforests in British Columbia, Canada.

This position forms a key pillar of the company's 'Corporate Policy on Sustainable Use of Natural Resources,' adopted in December 1991. Since then, in a variety of publications . . . the company has constantly pointed to the fact that it does not use wood fiber sourced from coastal temperate rainforests as a show of corporate commitment to the environment.

Extensive research conducted in 2005 and 2006 by Greenpeace reveals that these claims are false and that, in truth, Kimberly Clark is obtaining large amounts of wood fiber that originate from coastal temperate rainforests via their wood chip suppliers.

The chip suppliers, located largely in Washington, USA, regularly purchase logs from brokers who ship logs from rainforests, like those found on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada . . . "


Right: Advertising photo offered in high resolution on the website of the BC Canada Pavilion for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. It shows the 13 massive cedar arches in front of the Pavilion which are intended to promote BC Wood, an international lobby group for wood products that was a major sponsor of the BC Pavilion both in Beijing and in a similar pavilion in Torino in 2006.

The largest-2010 ever B.C. forestry trade mission will be in China from Oct. 28 to Nov. 8 to increase lumber sales and strengthen industry-to-industry commercial relationships, Minister of Forests, Mines and Lands Pat Bell announced today. “In recent years, we’ve made great strides in demonstrating the benefits and breaking down barriers to wood-frame construction in China,

Fraserview Cedar Products:
"Chain of Lies"

"Export Clears"

"Beauty"

"Sustainability"

"Our Products"

"Cedar Adds Value"

"Environmentally Friendly"

Above: Weyerhaeuser's massive industrial log depot, Longview, Washington, 2008. Much of BC's old growth forest biodiversity ended up here. "The chip suppliers, located largely in Washington, USA, regularly purchase logs from brokers who ship logs
from rainforests, like those found on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. . . " Chain of Lies, Greenpeace

Culprits in the Extermination
of Heritage Trees

Left: Old growth forest ruination on Vancouver Island by Macmillan Bloedel.

Culprit Corps & Orgs: Canada Wood, Canada Wood China, Shanghai, Canada Wood China, Beijing, Canada Wood Korea, Canada Wood Japan, Canada Wood Taiwan, Canada Wood United Kingdom, Canada Wood France (Europe), BC Wood, Coast Forest Products Association, Council of Forest Industries, Forest Products Association of Canada (aka Canadian Pulp & Paper Association), Western Red Cedar Export Association



Right: "Spear Flower," a giant self loading and self dumping log barge owned by Trans Pac Fibre Corp (Alcan). The photo is used as advertising on the corp's website. Red text added. Based in Vancouver, Trans pac specializes in log exports to Korea, China and Japan that are "high grade, and oversized (old growth)."

The rapacious deforestation of BC for Asian markets is deplorable. There needs to be an international convention to protect local communities from being stripped of their resources by transnational corporations. In 2005 angry BC citizens, fed up with the endless export of raw logs, protested against the Spear Flower, the evil Black Ship, while it was being loaded in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island.

These photos from the Port of Vancouver website are blatant ads for the unethical corporations which are destroying BC's ancient forest biodiversity.

Contrary to this 2011 propaganda, industrial forestry is not sustainable and will never replace what is being lost to greed and profiteering.

Endless Export of Wood Chips

Endless Export of Clear Wood

Endless Export of Raw Logs

Endless Export of Raw Logs

Endless Export of Raw Logs

The practice by the commercial cedar industry of appropriating First Nations' totem poles and other monumental structures built of cedar such as native schools is deplorable. The "Real Cedar" website uses a photo of the Nuxalk's Acwsalcta School in Bella Coola, a community that for decades has been at the centre of protests against the logging industry. Unbelievably, even today the Nuxalk are forced to defend their land at Talyu – site of one of the richest carving traditions on the Northwest Coast as attested by works in museums across the world – from the ravages of heli logging by an affiliate of Interfor (International Forest Products). The Western Red Cedar Export Association boasts that it "provides western red cedar to Belgium, France, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan and other markets around the world." These countries must be informed that cedar trees are pillaged in BC at the cost of aboriginal land rights, culture and irreplaceable rainforest biodiversity.

The European Union has drafted a resolution to ban the import of illegal timber and regulate the greedy wood products industry under an act called "Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade." Canada has a figleaf, however, claiming its eradication of old growth forests is legal. As long as the international industry – along with its government accomplices – gets away with lies and greenwash, there will be no change until the ancient rainforests are gone.

Right: Advertising brochure in Chinese to promote the Cowichan Lumber Company's export of cedar clears (click to enlarge). Between the photos of commercial cedar yards and lumber piles is a photo of a living ancient cedar tree.

Although not identified in the text, this is the famous 800 year old "Eike Cedar," the mascot of Tofino in Clayoquot Sound. A dedicated community effort led to its protection and restoration in 2003. How ironic that one of the last big trees to survive the logging massacre around Tofino is used as an icon for industry.

Members of the Western Red Cedar Export Association provide western red cedar to Belgium, France, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, China, Japan and other markets around the world.

Boycott members of the Western Red Cedar Lumber Association:

Delta Cedar Products
Downie Timber
Enyeart Cedar Products
Gilbert Smith Forest Products
Haida Forest Products
Interfor
Northwest Forest Products
North Enderby Timber
Meeker Lumber
OrePac Building Products
Power Wood Corp
Quadra Wood Products
Selkirk Specialty
Sawarne Lumber
Shakertown
Skana Forest Products
Twin River Cedar Products
Western Forest Products

Service Affiliates:
BW Creative Wood Industries
Cedar Shed Industries
Pacific Engineered Timber
Partners and Retailers:
Cabot Stain
Maze Nails
PPG Machine
Applied Coatings
Weiss Cascade
Bear Creek Lumber
Lakeside Lumber
Liberty Cedar
LS Cedar
Prairie Cedar
Riverhead Building Supply
Rona Corporation
Selectwood Sound Cedar
Specialty Wood Products
Taylor Forest Products

Canadian
Engineered Wood Assoc. of BC
Professional Foresters BC
Shake and Shingle Assoc.
BC Lumber Trade Council
BC Wood Specialty Group
Be Constructive

Canadian Mill Services Assoc.
Canadian Plywood Assoc.
Canadian Pulp & Paper Assoc.
Canadian Wood Council
Cariboo Lumber Manufacturers Assoc.
Cedar Shake and Shingle Bureau
Council of Forest Industries
Forest Products Assoc. of Canada
Interior Lumber Manufacturers Assoc.
Northern Forest Products Assoc.
Truck Loggers Assoc.
Wood Promotion Network

American
American Forest & Paper
American Wood Council
Cedar Shake and Shingle Bureau
Forest Products Society
National Assoc. of Home Builders
North American Wholesale Lumber
Northeastern Retail Lumber
Pacific Lumber Inspection Bureau
Temperate Forest Foundation
Western Wood Products

Canadian Government
Forestry Innovation Investment
Natural Resources Canada

Boycott members of the Vancouver Island Association of Wood Processors:

AON Reed Stenhouse
Aquila Cedar Products
B&C Contracting
BC Coastal Forest Products
Barker Manufacturing
Black Bear Enterprises
Canadian Bavarian Millwork
CAOBA Enterprises
Centurion Lumber
Coastal Pacific Forest Products
Ditidaht Forest Products

Dove Creek Timber Sawmill
E. Laughren Contracting
Errington Cedar Products
Forest Lumber Company
General Hill Lumber
Imperial Forest Products
Island Pacific Wood Products
Island Cypress
Island Imports
Island Timber Frame
Island West Forest Products
Jemi Holdings Group
Live Edge Design
Long Hoh Enterprises
Macdonald Inspection Services
Malahat Ecoforest Products
Masse Sales
Metfor Forest Management
Millinear Lumber
O&H International
Oceanside Wood Products

Pacifica Reclaim
Quadra Island Forest Products
Redtree Cedar Products
Rocky Mountain Salvage
Ross McPhee Contracting
Scopa Holdings
Terry Ryan Consulting
TF Sawmill
The Woodland Flooring Company
Timbre Tonewood
Top Notch Log Construction
Urban Milling
West Forest Timber
West Wind Hardwood
Wood's Good Sawmill
Ye Old Dogwood Lumber

Boycott members of the Western Red Cedar Export Association:

Cedarshed Industries
Cowichan Lumber Ltd.
Downie Timber
Errington Cedar Products
Interfor
Saran Cedar Ltd.
Terminal Forest Products Ltd.
Teal Cedar Products
Western Forest Products
Tyee Timber Products

 

 

Above: Huge piles of cedar pulp on the Fraser River, outside of Vancouver, 2010.

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