The Quadra Project: challenging the way people think about forestry

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Prior to embarking upon a literary career, in 1985, Ray Grigg taught English, literary history, fine arts and comparative world religions in British Columbia’s High School system. Since then, he has written a long list of books on Taoism, Zen and environmental issues. Grigg was also the author of a column called ‘Shades of Green,’ which ran in the Campbell River Courier-Islander for 15 years. A little over half a year ago, he started writing a series of articles called ‘the Quadra Project.’

“What I'm trying to do is revision the way in which we understand forestry taking place on Quadra Island. We have to move outside the notion of annual allowable cut to ecological restoration and also carbon sequestration,” explained Grigg. “This has been one of the primary recommendations of the old growth strategic review panel by Merkel and Gorley who were charged with the responsibility of redesigning what forestry should be like in British Columbia. That was in 2019.”

Grigg blames the subsequent protests at Fairy Creek on BC Government’s failure to honour its promise to implement this report.

He says the corporatization of logging has led to the decimation of the forest industry and gutted mills throughout the province.

Logs from Quadra Island, for example, are not processed on Quadra, but exported to foreign markets in Japan, China, Taiwan, the United States etc.

“The other, I think more pressing issue, is that we are in the middle of the six major species extinction in the history of the planet and we are also confronting an ecological climate crisis,” said Grigg. “What we need to do is we need to think in terms of carbon sequestration, and that is the greatest positive contribution that Quadra Island could make, and I think Cortes Island and many communities in British Columbia, towards solving the carbon climate crisis. We need to change our whole way of understanding how forests work.”