Environmental groups outraged by the logging of old-growth trees near Cathedral Grove protested outside the offices of Island Timberlands on Tuesday.

As many as 45 protesters congregated at the Island Timberlands offices in Nanoose to voice their opposition to the company's ongoing logging of old-growth trees near MacMillan Provincial Park and Cathedral Grove.

For the past two weeks, the company has used a helicopter to remove ancient trees from a cliff face near the popular Cathedral Grove, a stand of towering old-growth trees located inside MacMillan Provincial Park.

According to the Arrowsmith Parks and Land-use Council, the activity contradicts assurances by the company that it would refrain from logging its lands adjacent to the popular park and forest walk off Highway 4.

In a letter to the land-use council on March 26, Island Timberlands president Darshan Sihota wrote: "I can assure you that we have no near-term harvesting plans on our lands adjacent to MacMillan Park."

Company spokeswoman Mackenzie Leine said the cliff that's being logged isn't actually adjacent to Cathedral Grove. She refused to specify its proximity but said the logging "is a part of our regular Cameron operations, which is based out of the Alberni Valley."

Leine also said that Island Timberlands had its own terrain specialist determine that there would be no problem with erosion or landslides.

Berni Pearce of the Arrowsmith Parks and Land-use Council said logging the cliff, which is less than a kilometre from the park boundary, will destabilize the soil.

Once they're logged, the roots will rot away and without the roots the soil will wash away. In turn, the water will course downhill and lead to more flooding in Cathedral Grove.

Because of the high water table, Cathedral Grove floods annually. Each year, it's getting noticeably worse and removing the trees will aggravate the problem, said Annette Tanner, spokeswoman for the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. Removing the trees on the cliff will also expose Cathedral Grove to more wind, she said.

"At this point, so much damage has been done to the basin that it really cannot stand anymore," Pearce said. "It's a situation now of wound upon wound, invasion upon invasion. We should have stopped long ago. We must stop now."

Arrowsmith Parks and Land-use Council received 26 endorsements from organizations and people for its campaign against the latest round of old-growth logging in the region.

Among them was the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, which took its concerns to the front doors of Island Timberlands yesterday.

"It was so last minute," Tanner said. "We weren't expecting them to do this. We expected them to stop or to not log, especially after our correspondence with the board of directors."

Despite its haste, the protest against Island Timberlands and the provincial government attracted people from as far away as Germany.

"We heard the horror of the helicopters all through the grove and in the park, all week and into the weekend, and saw how the helicopters removed one of Cathedral Grove's last few remaining patches of old-growth forest growing out of the steep, rocky terrain above the world-famous park," Tanner said.

Tanner added that repeated requests for the B.C. Liberal government to undertake a comprehensive provincial old-growth strategy to inventory and protect what remains have gone unanswered during the past six years.

In the meantime, "Island Timberlands continues to log and flag the last remaining old growth trees in the Grove," Tanner said.