Ancient Forest Alliance

Fundraising Update – Please support the Ancient Forest Alliance!

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Fundraising Update – Please support the Ancient Forest Alliance!

DONATE to the ANCIENT FOREST ALLIANCE online or by cheque at: https://donate.ancientforestalliance.org/

The Ancient Forest Alliance – BC’s newest major grassroots environmental group founded just 3 months ago – needs your support GREATLY.

We launched a fundraising campaign on March 22, with a goal of raising $20,000 by June 21.

So far, over 120 generous individuals have contributed over $7000. THANK YOU for your generous support!

Whether you can donate $10 or $1000, your support is great appreciated, and we’ll ensure that your support will go farther with us than with almost any other environmental group in the country.

We’re in the works right now in building the MOST EFFECTIVE campaign for ancient forests and to ban raw log exports this province has ever seen…underway are a whole lot of new activists, new allies, and new strategies not seen before that will ratchet-up this campaign to an unprecedented level to save what are undoubtedly the MOST BEAUTIFUL ecosystems in WORLD, BC’s spectacular old-growth forests with their thousand year old, moss-draped giants trees with trunks as wide as your living room, that tower as tall as downtown skyscrapers…that are being reduced into a sea of giant stumps right now.

This is not an easy campaign, to put it mildly…at risk are several million hectares of endangered ancient forests. Many millions more, most of the biggest and the best, have already been cut. To save what remains and to sustain forestry jobs at the same time through a sustainable second-growth industry under a stubborn government, will be an intensely difficult task…but we will succeed with your help.

DONATE to the ANCIENT FOREST ALLIANCE online or by cheque at: https://donate.ancientforestalliance.org/

Or if you’re in Victoria on Saturday, April 24, come see us at our Earth Day booth at Centennial Square between 1 to 4 pm.

THANK YOU SO MUCH for your support for our new organization!

Ken Wu – Campaign Director
TJ Watt- Forest Campaigner and Photographer
Katrina Andres – Operations Director
Brendan Harry – Grassroots Organizer and Communications Coordinator
Michelle Connolly – Vancouver Coordinator
Tara Sawatsky – Forest Campaigner

Ancient Forest Alliance

Upcoming AFA Events and Hikes!

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Sunday, April 25 – Nature/ Old-Growth Walk in Mount Douglas Park: Oak Bay-Gordon Heads’ Old Growth in its Own Backyard!!! Meet: 1pm in the lower parking lot (at the bottom of the drive up to the top lookout). Join Benna Keoghoe of the Ancient Forest Committee of Oak Bay-Gordon Head, popular CRD naturalists Darren and Claudia Copley, and members of the Ancient Forest Alliance to see the little-recognized and little-appreciated old growth ecosystem in the heart of urban Victoria (including its largest Douglas fir!). This will be a fairly easy walk, about 90 minutes at the most. It is of course recommended to wear suitable footwear and rain gear if necessary. Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=635681862&ref=profile#!/event.php?eid=112498998782690&ref=mf. For more info contact Benna Keoghoe at afc.oakbay@gmail.com

Thursday, April 29 – Vancouver Island’s Biggest Trees and Biggest Stumps – Launch Presentation of the new Oak Bay – Gordon Head Ancient Forest Committee, coordinated by Benna Keoghoe, additional presentation on the Avatar Grove by TJ Watt, BC forest policy and campaign update by Ken Wu. 7:00-8:30 pm, UVic, Clearihue C110. By donation. Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=114312995255977&ref=mf. For more info contact Benna Keoghoe at afc.oakbay@gmail.com.

Saturday, May 1st – Lower Mainland Old-Growth Hike up Sumas Mountain (near Abbotsford at Whatcom Road Exit) – Join the SFU, UBC, and Point Grey Ancient Forest Committees and the Ancient Forest Alliance to see an amazing stand of old-growth forests, including a most massive Douglas fir! Meet at 10:30 am at JJ Bean (Commercial Drive and 6th in Vancouver). Hike will be led by Tara Sawatsky and is moderate and will be 1.5 hours or so round trip. Drivers needed – all those able to drive with extra seats please get in touch. Passengers should chip-in for gas. Contact Michelle Connolly at ancientforestcommittee@gmail.com or Hannah Carpendale at ancientforests@sfpirg.ca

Photographer TJ Watt is dwarfed by one of the huge alien shaped Red Cedar's in the threatened Avatar Grove near Port Renfrew

Earth Day Media Release: Avatar’s James Cameron Invited by Environmental Group to Visit the Endangered “Avatar Grove” of Ancient Trees

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British Columbian environmentalists with the new environmental group, the Ancient Forest Alliance, are inviting James Cameron, director of the blockbuster film Avatar, to visit a spectacular but endangered old-growth forest on Vancouver Island nicknamed the “Avatar Grove” and to endorse its protection.

Today, the film Avatar is being released on DVD and blue ray disc to coincide with Earth Day, a release date chosen by Cameron in order to raise environmental awareness. Avatar is the highest grossing film at the box office in world history, generating $2.7 billion (US) in sales internationally (the next highest was the Titanic, also directed by Cameron, which grossed $1.8 billion US).

“Being Earth Day, I thought we’d try to go big and ask the director of the world’s most popular film, which has a very strong environmental theme about protecting old-growth forests, to come and see one of the world’s most spectacular but endangered old-growth forests here on Vancouver Island, and to endorse its protection,” states Ken Wu, co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance. “Vancouver Island’s old-growth forests are the real Pandora here on Earth. We have giant fern-draped old-growth trees almost as large as Home Tree in Avatar, spectacular creatures like bears, wolves, mountain lions, wolverine, and elk in our forests, and enormous blue whales, killer whales, elephant seals, and Stellar sea lions along our Wild Coast.”

Since the film’s release Cameron has been on an environmental crusade, supporting the rights of Amazonian indigenous tribes and earlier this week criticizing the Alberta tar sands industry (https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/798192–james-cameron-slams-alberta-tar-sands) for its environmental destruction. The Ancient Forest Alliance has written a letter requesting that Cameron come to see the Avatar Grove at his convenience (but ideally before logging commences!) and to hopefully endorse its protection.

The Avatar Grove is an exceptionally spectacular and accessible stand of newly discovered old growth redcedars and Douglas firs on public (Crown) lands about 10 kilometers north of Port Renfrew. It was discovered in early December last year by Vancouver Island photographer and “big tree hunter” TJ Watt. Flagging tape marking the area for logging was discovered by Watt and Wu in February.

“The Avatar Grove is just about the most accessible and finest stand of ancient trees left in a wilderness setting on the South Island, including Canada’s gnarliest tree,” stated TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner and photographer. “All other unprotected old growth stands near Victoria are either on steep, rugged terrain far away along bumpy logging roads, or are small, isolated stands surrounded by clearcuts and plantations near human settlements. This area is a wild region on vast Crown lands, in a complex of over 1000 hectares of old-growth forests in the Gordon River Valley – only 5 minutes off the paved road, right beside the main logging road, and on relatively flat terrain. This could become a first rate eco-tourism gem if the BC government had the foresight to spare it. We requested that they enact a Land Use Order to protect it but received a negative reply last week from the Ministry of Forest and Range.”

Avatar Grove is in Tree Farm License (TFL) 46. TFL 46 is being logged by Surrey-based Teal Jones. The Grove is home to dozens of some of the South Island’s largest redcedars and Douglas firs, including several trees with trunks that are over 13 feet in diameter. In addition, what is being dubbed as “Canada’s gnarliest tree” has been discovered in the Grove, an enormous redcedar with a giant woody growth caused by a non-lethal fungal infection, known as a “burl” (see https://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/movie-guide/protestors+save+world+gnarliest+tree/2729171/story.html). So far no cutting permits have been issued to the company by the Forest Service.

According to satellite photos, already about 75% of Vancouver Island’s original, productive old-growth forests have been logged, including 90% of the valley bottoms where the largest trees grow.

Old-growth forests are important for sustaining species at risk, tourism, the climate, clean water, and First Nations traditional cultures.

The Ancient Forest Alliance is calling on the BC Liberal government to protect BC’s endangered old-growth forests, ensure the sustainable logging of second-growth forests which now constitute the vast majority of the landbase in southern BC, and to end the export of raw logs to foreign mills in order to protect BC forestry jobs.

 

 

Ancient Forest Alliance

Protect Haro Woods

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Haro Woods is a 9 hectare urban forest in the municipality of Saanich, near the University of Victoria. In this second-growth stand of Douglas firs, western redcedars, shore pine, and arbutus trees are substantial numbers of deer, threatened red-legged frogs, raptors, and owls. It is heavily used as a recreation area by local residents, who have also been lobbying for its protection as a park for several decades.

Currently the Capital Regional District is interested in locating a new sewage treatment facility on top of the forest. While a sewage treatment facility is vital, it should be located in an already cleared location, not on top of a native ecosystem.

See a map of Haro Woods and more details at: https://www.saveharowoods.ca/save-haro-woods-map.html

Please write a quick letter expressing your concerns that sewage treatment facilities should be located in an already cleared location, not in Haro Woods, to the Mayor of Saanich Frank Leonard and to the Saanich municipal council at:
mayor@saanich.ca
council@saanich.ca

Ancient Forest Alliance

Forest industry pays for many services

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NOTE: The following letter to the editor by Dave Lewis of the Truck Loggers Association, who support raw log exports and apparently the demise of union jobs in the forest service, fails to mention that the long-term decline in the coastal forest industry over the span of 20 years is due to the depletion of the old-growth resource (the biggest, best, and most accessible trees in the lower elevations), that ancient forests are worth more standing economically when factoring in tourism, hunting, angling, non-timber forest products, and carbon storage (according to a 2007 SFU study on the Fraser TSA), and that the government’s elimination of processing requirements without any incentives to stimulate investment in second-growth processing and value-added manufacturing has contributed greatly to the demise of a huge section of the industry and the workforce (ie. manufacturing – which Dave Lewis cares little about it seems…) – Ken Wu

 

No one wants to see others lose their jobs. However, it is a reality in tough times.

Politicians and unions cannot hide from the pain of a shrinking forest industry and it seems that those who oppose activities that would increase forest revenues also oppose cuts to that budget.

It wasn’t long ago that the forest industry contributed over $2 billion in direct annual revenues to the government but this year the government will have a deficit of about $300 million from declining forest revenues.

You cannot spend what you don’t have and you should not spend money on what you don’t need. It is the forest industry that provides the money for not only Ministry of Forests staff but also for schools, health care and a myriad of social programs.

Without forest revenues, Ken Wu and Carole James can expect a lot more losses than simply forest service jobs.

Dave Lewis, executive director

Truck Loggers Association

Vancouver

Ancient Forest Alliance

TOMORROW Slideshow of the Avatar Grove, San Juan Spruce and Red Creek Fir

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Slideshow of the Avatar Grove, San Juan Spruce, and Red Creek Fir
Wednesday, April 21
2:00 pm
Coastal Kitchen Cafe (17245 Parkinson Rd.), Port Renfrew

See a truly spectacular slideshow by Ancient Forest Alliance campaigners TJ Watt and Ken Wu about the endangered Avatar Grove, Red Creek Fir, and San Juan Spruce near Port Renfrew, and on how we can sustain forestry jobs at the same time!

Guest Speaker: KEN JAMES, Youbou Timberless Society

Waterfalls flow from streams running through towering ancient red cedars in the logging threatened Avatar Grove near Port Renfrew

Stand up for Avatar Grove

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Vancouver Sun – Letters to the Editor
Stand up for Avatar Grove

I recently visited Avatar Grove, a spectacular area of old-growth forest near Port Renfrew. This area is not only devastatingly beautiful but also provides important wildlife habitat and is prime location for eco-tourism.

But the area has recently been flagged for logging and while specific logging plans are unknown, the threat is a real one, just as it is for most of the remaining old-growth of Vancouver Island and B.C.’s south coast.

When will the B.C. government support our future and that of our wilderness, rather than pushing stubbornly forward with short-term corporate profit?

Logging Avatar Grove would be senseless — the immediate destruction of an ecosystem that has been forming for hundreds of years. We can’t let this happen. We need a strategy to protect our endangered old-growth forests and ensure sustainable logging of second growth, as well as a ban on raw log exports to support sustainable forestry jobs.

Many people stand behind Avatar Grove, supporting its protection not only in its own right but as a symbol of other such areas that are currently threatened. With enough public support, we can ensure that Avatar Grove and other endangered old-growth forests remain standing.

Hannah Carpendale

Vancouver

Ancient Forest Alliance

Upcoming AFA Events

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1.
Save the Nanoose Bay Forest!

The Coastal Douglas Fir ecosystem covers about 5% of Vancouver Island, located along the Island’s southeastern coast, and is one of Canada’s top 4 most endangered ecosystems. It is characterized by Garry oak, arbutus and Douglas fir trees, camas, manzanita shrubs, alligator lizards, sharp-tailed snakes, and numerous species at risk.

One of the most significant remnants is near Nanoose Bay north of Nanaimo and is currently threatened with logging. On its 60 hectares are numerous old-growth Douglas firs and redcedar veteran trees, second-growth forests, and sensitive wetlands. This area represents one of the rarest opportunities for the BC Liberal government to protect this endangered forest type for free, as it is on public (Crown) lands, whereas as most of the ecosystem is now largely privately owned and would have to be purchased for protection (in fact, most of the zone is covered by the cities of Victoria, Nanaimo, Duncan, and by farmland now).

Please quickly write a letter asking the BC Liberal government (Forest Minister Pat Bell pat.bell.mla@leg.bc.ca – be sure to include your home mailing address so they know you are a real person) to save the Nanoose Bay Forest through a new “land use order” that prohibits logging, and ask them to also do the same for all other parcels of Crown lands within the Coastal Douglas fir ecosystem.

Visit the website for more info at: https://www.nanoosebayforest.com/action.htm

Contact Annette Tanner at wcwcqb@shaw.ca or Kathy McMaster info@nanoosebayforest.com to get involved!
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2.
Slideshow of the Avatar Grove, San Juan Spruce, and Red Creek Fir
Wed., April 21
2:00 pm
Coastal Kitchen Cafe (17245 Parkinson Rd.), Port Renfrew

See a truly spectacular slideshow by Ancient Forest Alliance campaigners TJ Watt and Ken Wu about the endangered Avatar Grove, Red Creek Fir, and San Juan Spruce near Port Renfrew, and on how we can sustain forestry jobs at the same time!

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3.
$4000 raised so far – $10,000 goal for April 22 – Please help us!

Since March 22 when the Ancient Forest Alliance launched its fundraising drive, about 60 generous individuals have donated $4000 to us. However, we are still far short of our goal of $10,000 by Earth Day on April 22, and $20,000 by June 21. Whatever amount you can afford, we can assure you that YOUR support with the Ancient Forest Alliance will go farther with us than with virtually any other major environmental organization in the country. We are the BUSIEST environmental group for the LEAST funding right now! YOU can help us make this a sustainable organization by supporting us…

See our full funding appeal at: https://16.52.162.165/support.php

Currently we need funds to:
– Buy a new digital projector to give slideshow presentations – they cost about $1000.
– Print 100,000 copies of a new educational newsletter that will go into “swing ridings” in BC that will exert disproportionate pressure on the BC Liberal government to change their backwards forest policies. This will cost $5000 for the printing alone.
– Undertake expeditions into endangered ancient forests on Vancouver Island and elsewhere to document their beauty and their destruction.
– Organize Days of Action in front of BC Liberal MLA offices – right now the BC Liberal government contends that Vancouver Island’s endangered old-growth forests don’t require any protection and that raw log exports to foreign mills should continue.
– Establish new Ancient Forest Committees (activism teams) in swing ridings in BC that exert a disproportionate amount of pressure on the BC Liberal government.
– Build vital support among businesses, faith groups, unions, and First Nations

You can donate ONLINE with your credit card at: https://donate.ancientforestalliance.org/

Or you can MAIL in your cheque (made out to “Ancient Forest Alliance”) to: Ancient Forest Alliance
706 Yates Street
PO Box 8459
Victoria, BC V8W 3S1

With YOUR support we will change the history of this province for the best!

For our ancient forests and a sustainable future,

Ken Wu, TJ Watt, Katrina Andres, Michelle Connolly, Tara Sawatsky, Brendan Harry
Ancient Forest Alliance

Old-growth forest clearcut new Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island

Expected layoffs in B.C. government’s Ministry of Forests bad timing says NDP

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On the heels of issuing layoff notices to 294 public service workers Monday, the B.C. government is planning for another round of cuts in the Ministry of Forests by early summer.

At a time when lumber prices are booming but the industry is far from recovering, it’s either the worst time to slash jobs — according to the leader of the Opposition — or an opportune time to cut, according to an industry leader.

Of the 294 notices issued yesterday, 204 are in the Forests Ministry and 38 in the Integrated Land Management Bureau. The remaining 52 positions are in the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources.

The government intends to cut “no more than five per cent” of the 30,000-member civil service — a maximum of about 1,500 full-time equivalent positions — over the next three years.

In a letter to employees Monday, deputy minister Dana Hayden said the sooner the upcoming cuts are identified, the better. “Consequently, the workforce adjustment process for 2011/12 will likely occur before this summer.”

After more than three years in a down market cycle for the forest industry, lumber prices are up substantially — mainly because supply was taken off the market — but the industry is not expected to ramp up overnight, said John Allan, president of the Council of Forest Industries.

B.C. lumber production is down by 37.4 per cent in the last two years.

Allan said the ministry can absorb the cuts and continue to carry out its duties, including enforcement. “I’m frankly not concerned.”

But NDP Opposition leader Carole James slammed the government in question period yesterday, saying it doesn’t make sense to cut forestry workers when the government is trying to open new markets for lumber and diversify the industry. “I think it’s short-sighted and not looking long-term at growth,” said James in an interview.

Government should have run a deficit for at least another year, depending on the economic recovery, so it wouldn’t have had to make such deep cuts and lose so many experienced staff, she said.

The cuts, which include 22 compliance and enforcement staff, will have an impact on the forests ministry’s ability to monitor whether companies are following the law and protecting the environment, she said.

Ken Wu, of the Ancient Forest Alliance, agrees, saying enforcement in B.C.’s forests is already “way down” from the level in the early 1990s. “They never had enough people to begin with,” said Wu.

Rick Jeffery, chief executive officer of Coast Forest Productions Association, said the cutbacks won’t have any impact on the quality of B.C. forest management, however.

The annual allowable cut hasn’t been harvested in the last three years and that trend will likely continue, he noted. “One can ask whether we need as many bodies looking after ministry business if the amount of business they have has significantly dropped.”

Darryl Walker, president of the B.C. Government and Service Employees’ Union, said the cuts have already gone too far, and the government appears to have no plan.

“In this day when forestry is in jeopardy — the great industry and engine that drove the building of this province and we seem to be giving up on it — I just don’t understand it,” Walker said.

The Forests Ministry budget drops to $595 million in 2011/12, from $641 million this year.

More people should be working in areas such as research in the ministry, not fewer, Walker said.

“It will turn around and we will want to rebuild the forest industry and yet we’re not doing anything to prepare young people for it.”

Benna Keoghoe stands next to a giant Douglas fir measuring 6ft in diameter growing in Mount Doug Park located within the Oak Bay/Gordon Head swing riding.

Environmental activist targets Oak Bay-Gordon Head riding to launch tree campaign

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You don’t have to drive hours out of Victoria to find old-growth trees or, for that matter, politicians who are hanging onto their seats by a thread.

Environmental activist Ken Wu, of the Ancient Forest Alliance, led media representatives into Mount Douglas Park on Friday to see a 400-year-old Douglas fir measuring two metres in diameter.

The tree is located in the riding of Oak Bay-Gordon Head, where Liberal Ida Chong edged out the NDP candidate in last year’s election.

Environmental activist Wu chose this particular Douglas fir in this particular swing riding to launch a new campaign to save old-growth forests in B.C. The Ancient Forest Alliance is not a charity and therefore is permitted to condemn or endorse politicians and political parties.

“Whoever would think that we have an old-growth forest in the heart of urban Victoria and in the swing riding of Oak Bay-Gordon Head?” said Wu.

The group is calling on the Liberal government to protect remaining old-growth forest, ensure the sustainable logging of second-growth forest, ban raw log exports, and assist in retooling of old-growth sawmills for value-added wood manufacturing.

The dozen or so swing ridings in B.C. are the focus of the group’s campaign, he said. “All it would take would be a shift of seven or eight ridings in the province to cause this government to lose power,” Wu said. “What we’re doing today is taking the ancient forest movement to a whole new level.”

Without the neutral approach required by charities, he said, “we can go straight now to their sensitive areas … so they’ll either have to change their policies or lose the election.”

The organization will focus on public education and will not break the law in order to get its point across, Wu said.