The City of Vancouver and a contractor are facing a lawsuit by advocates over a plan that would see up to a third of the trees in Stanley Park cut down.
The city’s park board had begun cutting down thousands of trees last summer in a bid to mitigate what it said was “imminent” fire and public safety risks posed by dead and dying trees that were affected by a Western hemlock looper moth infestation.
Its plan is to eventually cut as many as 160,000 trees in Vancouver’s largest park, mostly Western hemlock trees, which adds up to around a third of all trees present there.
However, four advocates from the Stanley Park Preservation Society say the park board’s plan is not backed up by science and was pushed through without appropriate consultation.
They have filed a lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court alleging the city and its contractor B.A. Blackwell & Associates was negligent in going ahead with the tree-cutting plan.
The advocates are seeking an injunction to stop the city’s plan to cut trees, which they say is currently on pause for the spring and summer.
“Our ability to enjoy our lives and enjoy the park is being hindered by the devastation of the forest,” said Michael Caditz, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
“It’s no longer the quiet peaceful wilderness, or semi-wilderness, that it once was, but rather now it’s being heavily damaged.”
Caditz says that the looper moth infestation — which sees the caterpillar form of the moth feast on leaves and pines of the Western hemlock tree — is a natural process, and trees that have been defoliated do not pose a threat of falling down and exacerbating wildfire risk.
“The defoliated hemlock trees, if and when they die, are not a fire risk because they’re just decomposed, wet, spongy matter,” the advocate said.
A western hemlock looper moth outbreak has killed as many as 30 per cent of Stanley Park’s 600,000 to 700,000 trees, according to the Vancouver Park Board’s manager of urban forestry.
Caditz added that the clear-cutting of trees in the park was creating “wind tunnels” that would cause wind to damage existing trees and leave patches of forest liable to dry out from sun exposure, which he alleges would increase wildfire risk.
He added that the park board never opened up their plan to cut down the trees for public consultation. The park board has previously said the decision was an operational one that needed to be made due to the wildfire risks faced by the four-square-kilometre park.
“There was no opportunity for other experts or for stakeholders to give a different view, and it was just railroaded through,” Caditz added. “And that’s one of the reasons why it was negligent.”
City reviewing lawsuit
None of Caditz’s claims have been tested in court.
In a statement, a City of Vancouver spokesperson said that its staff was reviewing the lawsuit and could not comment further as the matter was before the courts.
The spokesperson added that around 7,200 trees impacted by the moth infestation have been removed or treated by workers between October 2023 and March 2024.
An estimated 160,000 trees in Vancouver’s Stanley Park are being cut down because of a looper moth caterpillar infestation. Some experts say the tree cull is necessary, but there’s concern it’s too many trees and could create wildfire corridors.
A city information page states that they have planted over 25,000 seedlings in the park comprising a variety of species, as part of their reforestation efforts following the logging.
They say a report from the contractor B.A. Blackwell & Associates advocates a “careful approach” that focuses on risk mitigation to ensure the park’s health going forward.
CBC News has also reached out to the contractor for their response to the lawsuit.