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 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.

This year, members of the Lax Kw'alaams First Nation expect to fill the holds of nine ocean freighters in Prince Rupert with raw logs from B.C.'s north coast -- logs that will then be shipped across the Pacific Ocean to ports in China.

The northern coastal Nation has been active in logging for some time, and with its opening of its own trade office in Beijing two years ago has stepped up its direct efforts to boost trade with one of the world's most rapidly industrializing economies.

Mention old growth trees and logging and most people think British Columbia and Clayoquot Sound. Mention Whistler and most people envision skiing and pristine wilderness.

But a new plan to log Whistler's existing old growth trees could soon see Whistler moving away from eco-tourism and into the old growth logging business.

The B.C. government has downloaded the responsibility of managing B.C.'s forests from the Ministry of Forests to the local municipalities and First Nations, in what has been termed a ‘Community Forest.'

A Community Forest is defined as 'a forestry operation managed by local government, community group, or First Nation for the benefit of the community.'

I'm writing this right now from Peru after having taken part in a 5 day Indigenous Peoples Summit held in Puno, Peru in the high Andes. At that gathering we heard from representatives, including Alberto Pizango, elected representative of the Peruvian Amazonian peoples, about the ongoing protests they were waging, and the repression faced as a result, from their opposition to some of the plans the Peruvian government has for 'developing' the Amazon region and opening it for oil, mineral, logging, and agricultural exploitation, on the homelands of many Indigenous communities. In response, there have been over 50 days of continuous protest, shutting down parts of the Amazon and the Andes.