Clearcuts Aren’t Sexy! Currently being mauled by fellabunchers and bulldozers, the Little Smokey Endangered Forest is being devastated to provide fiber for Victoria’s Secret and other catalogs.

Local tourism operators and outfitters pleas to Weldwood and Alberta’s government for the protection of this place of staggering beauty and outstanding ecological value adjacent to Jasper National Park have been rebuffed. Weldwood has already begun to build a road to log this area and the adjacent Solomon Valley which is part of the Little Smoky Endangered Forest and helps provide income for local outfitters, contains a host of aboriginal historical and sacred sites and provides habitat to wolverine, grizzly bears and old growth dependent birds.

The Little Smoky Endangered Forest provides habitat for two of Alberta’s threatened caribou herds. Here we’re looking out over some of the most important remaining intact caribou habitat in the proposed protected area. In defiance of local calls to protect this area, Weldwood plans to clearcut this area in 2006.

Logs awaiting pick up in a fresh Weldwood clearcut. Despite their small diameter, these trees are over 100 years old and provide habitat for a number of species that do not thrive in younger forests.