It’s November 04 2026, and big old-growth trees are falling in Foster Creek.
Wildsight Conservation Specialist Eddie Petryshen has received satellite images showing logging underway in previously mapped at-risk old-growth forest, removing even more endangered caribou habitat and connectivity.
Satellite imagery showing logging in the Foster Arm, 2026 Planet Labs PBC All rights reserved, via Stand.earth
Wildsight visited the ancient rainforest this spring, when Petryshen first noticed new cutblock proposals in mapped old-growth deferrals. Foster Creek is a stand of rare, old and ancient rainforest on the Kinbasket Reservoir, in the imperilled Inland Temperate Rainforest. The Province’s own Old Growth Technical Advisory Panel (TAP) had previously recommended for immediate deferral.
When our team walked these forests in July, we passed under cedars so large it took several people to encircle them. Many of these trees are several times older than Confederation.
What are old-growth deferrals?
In 2021, the Old Growth Technical Advisory Panel mapped British Columbia’s most at-risk old-growth forests and recommended that the Province defer logging in them while longer-term protections were developed. The Foster blocks were among them. The Howard-Foster to Encampment area is likely one of the largest intact low-elevation old-growth forests left in the Columbia North Mountain Caribou herd’s range. Wildsight staff visited the site in July, documented BC Timber Sales’ cruise plots and flagged road centrelines through the proposed blocks.
How did this logging get approved?
When we reached out to BC Timber Sales—a department within the provincial ministry of forests—to ask about old-growth logging plans that shouldn’t be happening, they quietly removed the deferrals from the provincial database. The agency sold the blocks and issued cutting permits shortly after. Now the logging has started.
Why is logging the Foster rainforest so wrong?
This signals we’re willing to continue logging a lot of our last old and ancient forests. This is a very out-there place, but that’s where this kind of thing is happening. And that’s what’s challenging for the public to see, it’s in these wild places at the back end of valleys where we’re still doing logging like it’s 1970.Eddie Petryshen
Wildsight has been pushing BC Timber Sales and the provincial government to cancel the planned logging since May of this year. The three Foster Creek cutblocks cover 120 hectares between Revelstoke and Valemount.
More than 100 hectares of the blocks overlap deferrals recommended by the TAP. According to the province’s own Vegetation Resource Inventory, the trees are 350 to 367 years old, and some cedars measure 2 metres across. The blocks sit within a 6 square kilometre patch of old and ancient forest that extends into the neighbouring Foster Arm Protected Area.
The creation of new logging roads, and reactivation of old ones, puts added pressure on the Columbia North caribou herd, which is in danger because of habitat loss.
Will the BC Conservatives step in?
Wildsight is calling on the new provincial government to halt the logging and do what the NDP government failed to do: implement protected status for all remaining at-risk old growth. Studies consistently show BC’s Inland Temperate Rainforest is imperiled, and we’re at an ecosystem tipping point.
“Foster Creek is emblematic of a problem because we know better. The public understands why old forests are important, the province and BCTS don’t seem to understand that,” Petryshen says.
Like all deferrals, these were only ever meant to be temporary, and many were never fully implemented—only mapped. The NDP government promised to convert them to permanent protections, but never did.
“There’s nothing but goodwill protecting those deferrals,” Petryshen explains. “There’s no legal mechanism saying these deferrals need to be implemented.”
Wildsight sent letters to the NDP government this spring to let them know BCTS was unilaterally removing deferrals, alerting the deputy minister of forests and others in the ministry, but never got a reply.
What’s the long-term answer?
Wildsight is now asking the BC Conservatives to implement the Old Growth Strategic Review, to halt work on the Foster cutblocks, and to defer harvesting and development in all blocks in timber sale TA2933 under Part 13 of the Forest Act. With no new minister of forests yet appointed after the October 24 provincial election, Wildsight is urging the incoming government to make Foster its first old-growth decision, and honour its election promise to protect “original old growth” and the rarest ecosystems.
What can I do right now?
You can sign our Action Alert right here. It takes less than a minute and tells provincial decision-makers to stop the current and future old-growth logging. Press send, and your voice will be heard!
