VANCOUVER ISLAND — A $5,000 reward is being offered to anyone with information on who is responsible for poaching an 800 year-old red cedar on Vancouver Island, the Wilderness Committee and the British Columbia Government Employees Union (BCGEU) announced today."We are offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to a conviction because someone needs to stand up for BC's parks," said Gwen Barlee, Policy Director with the Wilderness Committee, in a release.

The ancient cedar, located in Carmanah Walbran Provincial park, was the victim of poachers last year. Although the poachers only managed to cut through 80 per cent of tree before giving up, the cedar was so badly damaged that BC Parks staff cut it down for safety reasons.

The poachers then returned to cut up and haul out most of the felled tree -- all that remains is a stump.

"Hopefully the reward will result in someone coming forward to the RCMP, and these poachers will answer for this criminal act," said BCGEU president Darryl Walker. "These kinds of incidents are the unfortunate result of having too few eyes and ears on the ground to protect our public parks."

British Columbia has only 10 full-time permanent park rangers to patrol 1,000 parks and protected areas covering 14,000,000 hectares, the Wilderness Committee and BCGEU stated in their release. In the summer months, they continued, 87 additional part-time park rangers are hired, but even at the temporarily increased numbers there is just one park ranger to patrol 10 provincial parks.

Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park is 16,450 hectares in size.

Information on the red cedar poaching should be directed to the Lake Cowichan RCMP detachment.