How To Check Logging Near You

This project focused on Port Renfrew, but the method works for any area in British Columbia. Here is how to see what the public data shows near you, and what it does not. All of these are official, free, public sources.

The layers to open

• Recorded harvest (Consolidated Cutblocks). Where logging has been recorded, with a year per block. Shows the footprint and how recent it is.
• Forest age (VRI). Stand age. Lets you see young regrowth versus older forest.
• Old-growth mapping (TAP and OGMAs). The province's old-growth priority layers (old forests, big trees, ancient forest, priority deferrals) and legal Old Growth Management Areas. Shows the old forest at stake.
• Streams and forest roads (Freshwater Atlas, road tenure). Where roads cross water, which is where culvert, sediment, and fish-passage records should exist.
• Fish records (PSCIS, fish observations). Where crossings have been assessed and where fish are recorded.
• Forest Operations Map. Proposed cutblocks and roads, with public comment periods.

Most of these are searchable through the BC Data Catalogue and the BC government's mapping tools. The Forest Operations Map and the BCTS Timber Sale Status portal (for.gov.bc.ca/mof/wapr/bcts02) are good public entry points.

What an overlap means, and what it does not

When recorded harvest, old-growth mapping, streams, roads, and recreation sites stack up in the same place, that is a reason to ask for the records behind the decision. It is not, by itself, proof of harm, illegality, or that any law was broken. Treat overlaps as questions, not verdicts.

The four kinds of statement

When you read any map or table, including this project's, notice which kind of claim you are looking at:

• Fact: something the official data directly records (a cutblock, a road, a year).
• Screening fact: a real pattern from inventory or GIS that is not a legal or field-confirmed result (for example, stand age as a proxy for old growth).
• Missing-record finding: a specific record the public cannot see (a site plan, a culvert record, a sale appraisal).
• Question: what the gap should make you ask.

What records to ask for

If a block near you is planned or recently cut, the site-level records that are usually not public include: the site plan, stream classification and riparian prescriptions, road and culvert records, fuel hazard and slash records, the sale appraisal and stumpage assumptions, and any old-growth retention rationale. The Freedom of Information template in record-request-foi-template.md lists these and can be adapted to any block.

Why old growth is the sharp case

A replanted clearcut grows back as trees, not as old forest. Coastal old-growth structure takes roughly 250 years to develop, while managed second growth is cut again at about 60. So old-growth logging is effectively permanent on any human timescale. That is why the public-value question is sharpest for old growth, and why full-cost accounting before old-growth harvest is the central ask. See forest-succession-and-recovery.md and full-cost-accounting-model.md.