What You Can Do

This project shows what the public can and cannot see before old forest is logged near Port Renfrew. If that concerns you, here are specific, realistic things you can do. None of this requires accepting any claim of wrongdoing. The goal is open records and full-cost accounting before public forest is cut.

If you live near or visit these forests

• Note what you see. Dates, locations, photos of flagging, paint lines, new roads, slash, or stream crossings near campsites, trails, and rivers are useful records.
• Use the recreation sites and old-growth landmarks you value as concrete reference points when you write to decision-makers. Specifics are harder to brush off than general worry.

Use the Forest Operations Map comment process

British Columbia's Forest Operations Map is a public review and comment channel for proposed cutblocks and roads. It is the most direct procedural opening.

• Find it: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/natural-resource-stewardship/laws-policies-standards-guidance/legislation-regulation/forest-range-practices-act/frpa-improvement-initiative/forest-operations-map
• Look for planned blocks and roads near streams, recreation sites, old-growth areas, and tourism assets.
• When a comment period is open, submit specific questions, not just objections. A reusable set of questions is in reusable-fom-comment-template.md.

Look up logging and records near you

You can check the same public data this project used. A plain walkthrough is in how-to-check-logging-near-you.md. In short: open the recorded cutblocks, old-growth mapping, streams, and roads for your area, see where they overlap, and note which site-level records are not public.

Ask for the records

If the records behind a decision are not public, you can request them.

• Start with a short routing email to the relevant office asking where the records are held. A template is in record-request-bcts-short-first-email.md.
• If that does not work, file a Freedom of Information request. A ready template is in record-request-foi-template.md. Ask for a public-interest fee waiver.
• Log what you get back. A refusal or a "no records" answer is itself a finding.

Push the one policy ask

The ask is narrow on purpose and hard to dismiss:

Before old-growth or high-risk forest is approved, sold, or cut near water, fish, recreation, and remaining old forest, the public should see a full-cost accounting that sets timber and stumpage value against carbon, water, fish, roads, wildfire, restoration, and recreation.

Why it is reasonable: a 2021 study already found protecting this old growth is worth more to the public than logging it once carbon and tourism are counted. See full-cost-accounting-model.md.

Who to contact

• Your MLA and the Ministry of Forests, with the full-cost accounting ask.
• Conservation and science groups who can review and amplify (Ancient Forest Alliance, Sierra Club BC, Pacific Salmon Foundation). See media-and-reviewer-targets.md.
• Journalists who cover BC forestry, once you have a specific local example.

Respect First Nations authority

These are First Nations territories. Conservation finance and revenue replacement matter, and decisions about cultural value belong to First Nations, not outside commenters. Ask for transparency and full-cost accounting without speaking over Indigenous governance.