For more than a quarter century, logging companies at the government's blessing have been on a tear through British Columbia's expansive interior forests.

In the name of "salvaging" economic value from forests attacked by mountain pine beetles, beginning with a smaller outbreak centred in the Williams Lake area in the 1980s and followed by the much larger beetle epidemic that erupted a decade ago, millions more trees have been logged than would otherwise have been the case.

The Great Bear Rainforest is one of the last of its kind in the world. That's why so many British Columbians, and others around the globe, have stood up with the region's First Nations to safeguard it.

Together, our voices helped convince decision-makers to commit to saving the Great Bear Rainforest in 2006. But today, on the sixth anniversary of that promise, half of this rare, old-growth forest is still being logged. No matter which way you cut it, protecting 50 per cent of a forest won't save the whole.

The Coastal Douglas fir (CDF) is one of the most threatened plant ecosystems in Canada. Only one per cent of old growth trees remain.

Today, sadly, there are even fewer old growth Coastal Douglas fir trees left on Vancouver Island then a week ago.

That's because logging has started on the 160-acre Nanoose Bay Forest, or DL33 as government officials like to call it. This forest is full of big Douglas firs, sensitive marshlands and swamps, and it is home to over 30 threatened plant and animal species.