Thanks to Everyone who Helped Make our Vancouver Spring Social and Fundraiser a Success!

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The Ancient Forest Alliance is sending an enormous THANK YOU everyone who helped make our May 16th Spring Social and Fundraiser a major success! The event was our first in Vancouver in recent years and allowed us to connect with many of our most generous supporters in the Lower Mainland while fostering awareness around the threats facing BC’s ancient forests and working towards meeting our strategic $20,000 fundraising goal for September 1st. The event helped us raise an amazing $4,000, pushing us almost halfway to our goal!

A significant portion of these proceeds were generated by the silent auction, with items generously donated by the following:

Patagonia Vancouver, Lush Handmade Cosmetics on W 4th Ave, Banyen Books & Sound, Greystone Books Ltd., Burdock & Co, Central City Brewing, The Farmer’s Apprentice, Virtuous Pie, Jamjar Folk Lebanese, Eternal Abundance, Ten Thousand Villages, Unity Yoga Teahouse, Moksha Yoga Vancouver, Figaro’s Garden, Hummingbird Crafts, and Garden Consult Extraordinaire, Michael Denhamer. Thank you also to the Beaumont Studios for hosting our event and providing great service.

The funds generated are being put toward the following campaign activities:

  • Planning expeditions into several remote endangered ancient forests in BC to document their beauty and destruction with professional photos and videos. Read our recent media release on old-growth logging in the beautiful Nahmint Valley near Port Alberni and watch the CHEK TV news report for an example.
  • Commission an economic report on the value of standing old-growth forests.
  • Commission updated mapping on the status of Vancouver Island old-growth forests, based on ecosystem types.
  • Conduct major outreach campaigns to non-traditional allies such as businesses, unions, faith and multicultural groups and engage First Nations allies and councils.
  • Print and distribute a new educational brochure on key old-growth policies needed from the new NDP government to overhaul BC’s backwards forest policies.

The generosity of our growing Vancouver support base, local businesses, organizations, and artists is fundamental and greatly appreciated as we work with determination to protect BC’s endangered old-growth forests while ensuring a sustainable, second-growth forest industry.

Thank you for choosing to support the AFA!

Ken Wu, TJ Watt, Andrea Inness, Joan Varley, Amanda Evans, Tiara Dhenin, Morgan Wheeler and Nova Raye
Ancient Forest Alliance

Ancient Forest Alliance

Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner Andrea Inness walks beside an enormous

NDP under fire for allowing old growth logging near Port Alberni

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WATCH THE CHEK NEWS STORY HERE

They're the giants of the forest — massive, old-growth western red cedars and Douglas firs — and images of these towering trees being cut down have sparked outrage.

“The visuals that we're starting to see come out the latest cutting of old growth forest is really devastating,” says B.C. Green Party forestry critic Adam Olsen. “It's important we're protecting the old stands, especially on Vancouver Island where we have so little old growth left”

Olsen says he's shocked the B.C. NDP government is letting it happen.

“What we're seeing right now is the liquidation of our forests!” says Olsen. “Frankly, this government has continued the exact same policy as the Liberal government did. That's not what my expectation was. My expectation was for them to re-invigorate the forestry industry and make sure we're not liquidating our forests.”

The logging is taking place in Nahmint Valley near Port Alberni.

B.C. Timber Sales, an agency of the provincial government, auctioned off more than 300 hectares of old growth forest to logging companies. Trees hundreds of years old are being cut down, including a tree considered the tenth widest Douglas fir in the province, according to the B.C. BigTree registry, and one of the largest in Canada.

“This Douglas fir is 10 feet in diameter,” says Ancient Forest Alliance co-founder TJ Watt. “There's less than one per cent of the old growth Douglas fir trees remaining today on B.C.'s coast and this is just unacceptable.”

There are guidelines for the protection of 'legacy trees' — defined as exceptionally old or unique stands, like nearby Cathedral Grove, but these trees weren't protected.

“There's over 3,000 hectares in that valley alone of protected old growth forest so it's a balancing act and we acknowledge that people have been waiting for change around that,” says forestry minister Doug Donaldson. “We've inherited a lot of this from the previous government and we're working on addressing those concerns.”

The province says it's working on modernizing the land use plan.

As it stands now, only about 55 per cent of old growth forests on crown land are protected.

See the original story here. 

Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner TJ Watt next to Canada's 9th-widest Douglas-fir tree

Ancient Forest Alliance calls for end to old-growth logging in Nahmint Valley

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WATCH VIDEO NEWS COVERAGE HERE

The Nahmint Valley south of Sproat Lake near Port Alberni is a spectacular piece of Vancouver Island. The mountains are tall and so are the trees, but the conservation group Ancient Forest Alliance says too many of the tallest and oldest trees are being cut down.

The group recently became aware of logging in the area and on a recent trip saw an orange ribbon with “Falling Boundary” written it.

It was near a Douglas fir that was over three metres wide and was the 10th widest Douglas fir tree in B.C. according to the BC BigTree registry.

On a return trip a few days later, it had been cut down.

“We're standing here right beside a Douglas fir tree that was cut down just this past week, larger than the largest one at Cathedral Grove,” said TJ Watt, co-founder of Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA), on Friday. “This Douglas fir is 10 feet in diameter, there's less than one per cent of the old growth Douglas fir trees remaining today on BC's coast and this is just unacceptable.”

The group says it is not against logging at all but insists that remaining old growth trees in B.C. need to be saved.

“It's kind of like shooting the tigers in India right? They used to shoot a lot of tigers now we don't anymore,” said local Port Alberni conservationist Mike Stini. “It's about saving something that's rare and endangered.”

The Ancient Forest Alliance says it is hypocritical that Premier John Horgan who when in opposition visited Avatar Grove near Port Renfrew in efforts to save old growth trees there but now as premier, he is allowing the government agency BC Timber Sales to auction off 300 hectares of old growth forests in the Nahmint Valley to logging companies.

“And B.C. Timber Sales is meant to be implementing what they call best management practices for legacy trees. Legacy trees being those that meet certain criteria in terms of size. This would absolutely fall within that category.” said Ancient Forest Alliance's Andrea Inness.

A statement to CHEK News from the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development reads: “There are 2,760 hectares of old growth protected in the Nahmint landscape unit. Since August 2016, BCTS has awarded five timber sales totalling 319 hectares. On Vancouver Island’s public lands, there are about 520,000 hectares of old growth forests that will never be logged. Government is continuously reviewing practices to ensure healthy ecosystems and that logging is sustainable.”

Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development Doug Donaldson said: “The new government is committed to modernizing the land use planning process, and protecting old growth forests is a vital component of that. As part of Budget 2018, we committed $16 million over three years to modernizing the land use planning process and work has begun. The first step is collaborating with Indigenous Peoples. More information about land use planning will be coming this fall.”

“Over 55 per centof Crown old growth forests on B.C.’s coast are protected. On Vancouver Island, over 40 per cent of Crown forests are considered old growth, with 520,000 hectares that will never be logged. The Vancouver Island Land Use Plan designated areas for protection and areas suitable for resource development, including logging. Logging continues to support jobs in communities such as Port Alberni.” added Donaldson.

But the Ancient Forest Alliance doesn't agree.

“The B.C. government is deceptively playing with numbers by including vast areas of much smaller trees growing on high rocky mountainsides to inflate their old-growth statistics, in order to mask their logging of the very rare monumental stands of the biggest trees in the valley bottoms and low elevations – where over 90 per cent have been logged, including 99 per cent of the old-growth Douglas-firs on the coast.” said TJ Watt.

Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner Andrea Inness walks beside an enormous

People are furious about the destruction of these old growth giants. And you won’t believe who’s approving it.

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Andrea Inness, a forest campaigner with Ancient Forest Alliance, and several other people went on an expedition on May 6, to the Nahmint Valley, which is about an hour outside of Port Alberni on logging roads. Once there, they were horrified to find massive, centuries-old red cedar and Douglas fir trees being cut down.

“We expected to see some logging, but we were all astonished to see how much had taken place. There were near record-breaking trees that we found that were being cut,” Inness said in an interview. “We were shocked at the scale of the logging and so dismayed to see these cedars lying on the ground.”

The B.C. government promises progress by the fall. Let’s hope that includes a move to make it a crime to cut down these majestic, centuries-old trees.

Adam Olsen, the B.C. Green Party critic for forests, said this issue could become a big problem for the government, if they don’t change their policy. More on that further down.

Inness says the group found a tree equivalent to the fifth widest Douglas Fir tree in the country and another that was equivalent to the ninth widest.

“We were just back there (on May 23) and it had been logged,” Inness said. “It was heartbreaking. It’s an absolute failure on the B.C. government’s part to protect these rare and endangered trees.”

Although size isn’t necessarily indicative of the exact age of a tree, Inness said those big trees are between 500 and 1,000 years old. And irreplaceable.

“It’s almost as if the government itself was condoning the slaughtering of white rhinos or the harpooning of blue whales. It’s unbelievable,” Inness said.

The government freely admits that logging is still going on in old-growth forests on Crown land in B.C., but says it is continuously reviewing practices to ensure that logging is sustainable and ecosystems are healthy.

In its election platform, the NDP promised to work with First Nations and communities to “modernize land-use planning to effectively and sustainably manage BC’s ecosystems, rivers, lakes, watersheds, forests and old growth, while accounting for cumulative effects. We will take an evidence-based scientific approach and use the ecosystem-based management of the Great Bear Rainforest as a model.”

The 6.4-million-hectare Great Bear Rainforest was created by a 2016 agreement between the B.C. government and Coastal First Nations to conserve 85 per cent of the forest and 70 per cent of the old growth.

Protecting old growth forests is a vital component of modernizing the land-use planning process, said Doug Donaldson, B.C.’s Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development Minister.

“As part of Budget 2018, we committed $16 million over three years to modernizing the land use planning process and work has already begun,” Donaldson said in a statement. “The first step is collaborating with Indigenous Peoples. More information about land use planning will be coming this fall.”

Donaldson said more than 55 per cent of Crown old growth forests on B.C.’s coast is protected and that on Vancouver Island more than 40 per cent of Crown forests are considered old growth, including 520,000 hectares that will never be logged, but that the land-use plan on the island allows for logging in certain areas and logging supports jobs in rural communities.

But still, felling these giant trees is completely legal, even on Crown land, with permits issued by BC Timber Sales, a government agency that provides the cost and price benchmarks for timber harvested from public land in British Columbia.

 

Arborist-conservationist Matthew Beatty atop a newly fallen western red cedar in the Nahmint Valley near Port Alberni. Photo by TJ Watt.

Arborist-conservationist Matthew Beatty atop a newly fallen western red cedar in the Nahmint Valley near Port Alberni. Photo by TJ Watt

People are furious about the loss of these trees, MLA says

“People are furious about what’s been going on,” Olsen, the B.C. Green Party critic for forests, told National Observer. “People have not responded to any other campaign more abrasively and angrily than they are this one. We’ve received over 4,000 emails on this issue all within a few days.”

Olsen said the Greens would like to see the government stop auctioning off the right to log these trees and to work on developing a sustainable second-growth logging industry. He doesn’t believe the government is getting the highest value possible for these trees and that it needs to look beyond the immediate short-term economic gains of cutting them down.

“With so much of the old growth already cut, … certainly it would be our desire to see the B.C. government taking a different approach,” Olsen said. “It is essentially extending the same unsustainable practices that the former government took to devastating habitat.”

The Ancient Forest Alliance and other B.C. environmental groups are also calling for an end to logging ancient trees.

“We are calling on the B.C. government to implement a comprehensive, science-based law to protect endangered old growth forests,” Inness said. “We want not only a policy that protects the largest trees on the coast, of which these would absolutely qualify, with buffer zones around them, but also, beyond just protecting big trees, we need to protect entire forest ecosystems.”

The environmental groups aren’t alone. The BC Chamber of Commerce said in 2016 that “many local communities economically would stand to receive a greater net benefit in revenues and jobs over the ensuing decades from the protection of key old-growth forests in their region.”

Also in 2016, the Union of British Columbia Municipalities (UBCM) passed a motion calling for the protection of old-growth forest on Vancouver Island because of its “significant economic, social and environmental value as wildlife habitat, tourism resource, carbon sink and much more.”

Even the Public and Private Workers of Canada (PPWC) has called for the protection of old-growth rainforest on Vancouver Island, for forestry companies to transition to second-growth logging and for an end to raw-log exports.

 

Ariane Telishewsky of the Port Alberni Watershed-Forest Alliance sits on top of a massive red cedar stump in the Nahmint Valley near Port Alberni. Photo by TJ Watt.

Ariane Telishewsky of the Port Alberni Watershed-Forest Alliance sits on top of a massive red cedar stump in the Nahmint Valley near Port Alberni. Photo by TJ Watt

Ancient trees play a vital role in climate change, survival of species

These ancient trees play a vital role in climate change – they can store two to three times more carbon than second-growth forests, Inness said. They are also very important for endangered and threatened species.

The Nahmint Valley is home to Roosevelt elk, black-tailed deer, cougars, wolves, and black bears, as well as species that live only in old-growth forests, like the marbled murrelet and northern goshawk. Olsen also emphasized that old-growth forests provide productive spawning areas for salmon.

The AFA would like to see B.C. protect all old-growth forests and make the transition to a second-growth forest industry now, rather than when all of the non-protected old-growth forests are gone.

“We need incentives for companies to retool their mills and we also need more incentive to add value to the wood here in B.C. and at the same time, curbing raw log exports,” Inness said. “That would not only sustain the amount of forestry jobs in B.C., but possibly even increase forestry employment in the province.”

A future in which BC’s rare and beautiful old-growth forests remain intact, but with jobs to spare in its economy is a future worth fighting for. This future must include a flourishing second-growth forestry industry and a sustainable transition for First Nations. The B.C. government promises progress by the fall. Let’s hope that includes a move to make it a crime to cut down these majestic, centuries-old trees.

Link to original article: www.nationalobserver.com/2018/05/28/opinion/people-are-furious-about-destruction-these-ancient-old-growth-giants

Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner Andrea Inness stands atop Canada's 9th-widest Douglas-fir tree

Old growth logging intensifies in Nahmint Valley

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Nahmint Valley, BC — Some of the largest trees in Canada are being cut west of Port Alberni as part of old-growth logging currently underway in the Nahmint Valley.

Recent harvesting includes a massive Douglas fir that was cut down earlier in May. This tree measured 31 feet in circumference and 10 feet wide, dimensions that would rank it among the country’s top 10 largest Douglas firs in the BC Big Tree registry, a public record managed by the University of British Columbia.

This discovery was reported to the Ancient Forest Alliance, an organization that works to protect old-growth forests and promote sustainable second-growth forestry practices.

AFA Executive Director Ken Wu said that an estimated one per cent of Vancouver Island’s old-growth Douglas fir trees are still standing, and compared the forestry practices in Nahmint to hunting endangered animals.

“It’s sort of like coming across a herd of elephants and slaughtering them all, they’re so rare these days, these monumental stands,” he said.

The AFA has identified two trees in the valley with dimensions that rank them among the largest of their species in Canada. These include the three-metre-wide Douglas fir that was recently cut down and what the AFA is calling “the Alberni Giant,” a Douglas fir growing deep in the Nahmint forest with a diameter of 3.7 metres (12 feet). They also found a 4.3-metre-wide (14-foot) western red cedar standing in Nahmint.

Some of these trees are thicker than those found in Cathedral Grove, which are provincially protected from harvesting. The grove’s largest tree is an 800-year-old Douglas fir measuring 2.8 metres in diameter, bringing the possibility that the Alberni Giant could be as old as 1,000 years.

“They are vitally important for endangered species and wildlife that need old-growth forest,” said Wu of the giant trees. “They provide clean water for steelhead and salmon in the Nahmint River, they store more carbon per hectare than any other type of forest on earth.”

The Nahmint trees are in 300-hectares of cutblocks that were auctioned for harvest by BC Timber Sales, a provincial agency that manages Crown land for the forestry industry. Nahmint’s largest old-growth fir trees each bring tens of thousands of dollars in marketable wood, according to information provided by the forestry contractor currently working on the cutblocks.

According to the province’s Vancouver Island Land Use Plan, the Nahmint Valley is not an area that should be seeing intensified old-growth logging. The valley falls under the Special Management category, which prioritizes “environmental, recreational and cultural/heritage values.”

“In the Nahmint landscape unit, there are 2,760 hectares of old growth management areas, ungulate winter ranges and wildlife habitat areas that protect old-growth forests,” said the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development in an email to the Ha-Shilth-Sa. “In addition, BCTS conducted a cedar assessment and specifically identified old growth cedar trees to retain from logging.”

The ministry emphasized that there are 520,000 hectares of Vancouver Island’s old-growth forests that will never be logged, comprising 55 per cent of the Island’s old growth forest that lies on Crown land.

But TJ Watt of the AFA believes that Nahmint’s largest trees are being targeted for logging. He said that the cutblocks designated for harvesting are the same parts of the Nahmint Valley that hold the largest old-growth trees.

“We looking to protect the same areas that the logging industry is looking to take,” said Watt. “It’s happening all over the Island, all of the time. Old-growth logging is not a thing of the past, it just often happens in areas that are mostly out of sight and out of mind.”

The Nahmint Valley is in the Hah=uu>i of the Hupacasath and Tseshaht First Nations. The old-growth harvesting has sparked concern from some in these First Nations, including Brenda Sayers, a Hupacasath member who has taken family members to Nahmint in the past.

“I travelled out there quite often when I first moved home. I brought my nieces and nephews to get them acquainted with different parts of our traditional territory,” she said. “I haven’t been out there in a while actually, because it breaks my heart. I don’t know that I could handle seeing the state of the way things are.”

Sayers believes the practice goes against a pledge the NDP government made during the last provincial election.

“In partnership with First Nations and communities, we will modernize land-use planning to effectively and sustainably manage B.C.’s ecosystems, rivers, lakes, watersheds, forests and old growth, while accounting for cumulative effects,” stated the NDP platform in 2017. “We will take an evidence-based scientific approach and use the ecosystem-based management of the Great Bear Rainforest as a model.”

“The province has once again failed our Indigenous people,” said Sayers. “Some people think reconciliation means renaming a street or having cross-cultural workshops to minimise racism. To me, reconciliation is the land, and the government needs to recognize First Nations as the original right holders to the land.”

Minister of Forests Doug Donaldson responded to say that working with First Nations is the first thing the province plans to do as it revises its forestry management.

“The new government is committed to modernizing the land use planning process and protecting old-growth forests is a vital component of that,” he said. “As part of Budget 2018, we committed $16 million over three years to modernizing the land use planning process and work has already begun. The first step is collaborating with Indigenous Peoples. More information about land use planning will be coming in the fall.”

In a document dated Sept. 11, 2017, BC Timber Sales listed best management practices for “legacy trees,” which are exceptionally old and unique stands in the province’s forests.

“BC Timber sales recognizes that legacy trees are often attributed with having important cultural, aesthetic and ecological value,” stated the document. “These trees, when retained, can play an important role in habitat conservation by bridging old-growth characteristics into second-growth stands. In addition, large trees are increasingly supporting the growing ecotourism economy as valuable destinations in and of themselves.”

The BCTS guidelines for the protection of legacy trees cite a minimum diameter of three metres for western red cedars and 2.1 metres for Douglas fir, well under the width of the largest old-growth trees identified by the Ancient Forest Alliance in the Nahmint Valley.

But the BCTS document noted that all legacy trees might not be protected.

“Legacy trees may need to be felled during or after primary harvesting operations if they constitute a safety hazard (or are affected by other operational factors) that cannot be addressed through pother means,” stated the document.

These other operational factors could include “impacts to cutblock design, in particular in cutblocks that rely on overhead cable harvest systems,” “known First Nations interest,” and the “local abundance of legacy trees,” according to the BCTS document.

Wu believes that what’s going on in the Nahmint Valley shows that these guidelines are not serving their conservationist purpose.

“It has enough loopholes to drive a logging truck through,” he said.

Sayers noted that logging Nahmint’s old-growth trees threatens a “sensitive and valuable ecosystem” that provides protection for elk and deer during the winter.

“I think it’s really a crime against nature,” she said. “Every tree is an individual ecosystem. We believe that they have a spirit and as old as they are, they’ve witnessed to the things that took place in our traditional territory. They have a history, they hold knowledge and they’re sacred to us.”

“I feel bad for the loggers whose job it is to mow these trees down, because they have to live with that,” added Sayers. “They’re removing something that’s been gifted to us, they’re removing that right for their children and grandchildren and future generations.” 

Click to read the original article.

Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner Andrea Inness walks beside an enormous

Massive Cutting of Canada’s Grandest Old-Growth Forests Coordinated by BC Government’s Logging Agency – Near Record-Sized Douglas-firs Found in Nahmint Valley on Vancouver Island

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Hundreds of hectares of the grandest old-growth forests in Canada are being logged at breakneck speeds right now in the Nahmint Valley near Port Alberni, including thousands of old-growth western redcedars – some 4.3 meters (14 feet) in diameter – and exceptionally large Douglas-firs. BC’s 5th and 9th widest Douglas-fir trees, according to the BC Big Tree Registry, were found on the expedition to the area.

Port Alberni – Conservationists with the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) were dismayed last week to discover that the BC government’s logging agency, BC Timber Sales (BCTS), has auctioned off at least 300 hectares of some of the world’s grandest old-growth forests in the Nahmint Valley for logging, with thousands of old-growth trees already having been cut down this spring. AFA campaigners TJ Watt and Andrea Inness, arborist-conservationist Matthew Beatty, and local Port Alberni conservationists Mike Stini and Ariane Telishewsky, came across the new clearcuts and road-building operations with enormous, 12-foot-wide, freshly cut logs of ancient cedars on May 6.

The campaigners also identified an enormous Douglas-fir tree, which they dubbed the “Alberni Giant”, that is wider than the fifth widest Douglas-fir tree listed in the BC Big Tree Registry at almost 11.5 metres (38 feet) in circumference or 3.7 metres (12 feet) in diameter. In addition, they found a Douglas-fir tree 3 metres (9.9 feet) in diameter, making it wider than even the widest Douglas-fir in Cathedral Grove, which is 2.8 metres (9.2 feet) in diameter, as well as a massive 4.3-metre or 14-foot-wide western redcedar.

The cutblocks targeting prime ancient forests were identified by the AFA and are on BCTS-controlled Crown lands and total over 300 hectares in the Nahmint Valley, with some cutlbocks being 30 hectares – or about 30 football fields – in size. The Nahmint Valley is in the territory of the Hupacasath and Tseshaht First Nations bands.

“The BC NDP government is fully in charge of BC Timber Sales’ mandate. For them to let their own logging agency auction off logging rights to some of the largest and oldest endangered trees on Earth is like enabling the slaughter of elephant herds or the harpooning of blue whales. It’s the very opposite of sustainable forest management. The new NDP government needs a serious wake-up call. They need to end the status quo of old-growth liquidation – for starters, BCTS must stop issuing old-growth cutblocks – and instead ensure a sustainable second-growth forest industry,” stated AFA forest campaigner Andrea Inness.

“It’s brutal, what’s happening out there. In advance of our trip I researched where the finest old-growth stands might be located based on Google Earth satellite maps and each one turned out to have a logging cutblock placed on it – cutblocks planned and issued by the BC government’s own logging agency. We visited many spectacular trees on the day we arrived – some trees bigger than even those found in Cathedral Grove – and, by the second day, many of them were already on the ground. It’s a full-on assault. All day long the sounds of chainsaws, drilling machines, and huge trees crashing down boomed throughout the valley,” stated TJ Watt.

The Nahmint Valley is considered a “hotspot” of high-conservation value old-growth forest by conservation groups and is home to Roosevelt elk, black-tailed deer, cougars, wolves, and black bears, as well as old-growth associated species like the marbled murrelet and northern goshawk. The area also supports significant salmon and steelhead spawning runs. The Nahmint is considered by many people to be one of the most scenic areas in BC, with its ancient forests, rugged peaks, gorgeous turquoise canyons and swimming holes, and large and small lakes, and is heavily used by hikers, campers, anglers, and hunters.

“Only about 1% of the original old-growth Douglas-fir stands still remain on BC’s coast, and just about the finest stands are here in the Nahmint Valley. The area is also prime wildlife habitat for so many species. Having explored the forests around Port Alberni for decades, I can say with confidence that the remaining old-growth forests in the Nahmint are a first-rate conservation priority,” said wildlife expert Mike Stini of the Port Alberni Watershed-Forest Alliance.

The NDP’s 2017 election platform states that “In partnership with First Nations and communities, we will modernize land-use planning to effectively and sustainably manage BC’s ecosystems, rivers, lakes, watersheds, forests and old growth, while accounting for cumulative effects. We will take an evidence-based scientific approach and use the ecosystem-based management of the Great Bear Rainforest as a model.” (see page 61 of their platform at: https://action.bcndp.ca/page/-/bcndp/docs/BC-NDP-Platform-2017.pdf). If taken literally and seriously, this would almost certainly result in the protection of the remaining endangered old-growth forest on BC’s southern coast and in the BC Interior, where old-growth forests are far scarcer and more endangered than in the Central and Northern Coast (Great Bear Rainforest) where 85% of the forests (including the vast majority of the old-growth) were set aside in protected areas and under the ecosystem-based management reserve networks.

Several environmental groups, including the Ancient Forest Alliance, Sierra Club BC, and Wilderness Committee, are calling on the BC government to implement a series of policy changes that can be rolled out over both short- and longer-term timelines. This includes a comprehensive, science-based law to protect old-growth forests and financial support for sustainable economic development and diversification of First Nations communities, known as “conservation financing,” while supporting First Nations land use plans. While these longer-term solutions are being developed, an interim halt to logging in old-growth “hotspots” – areas of high conservation value – must be implemented to ensure the largest and best stands of remaining old-growth forests are kept intact while a larger plan is developed.

There are also a number of policies that can be readily implemented more quickly. For example, the NDP government should direct BCTS to discontinue issuance of old-growth cut blocks and support the implementation of conservation solutions in such rare and endangered forests. In addition, there needs to be an effective big tree protection order with buffer zones and forest reserves such as many Old-Growth Management Areas that currently exist only on paper should be made legally binding and the system should be quickly expanded to protect additional endangered old-growth forests. Finally, annual funding needs to be directed to establish a park acquisition fund, which would allow the BC government to purchase and protect private lands of high conservation, cultural or recreational value.

“So far, the new NDP government has, disappointingly, supported the destructive status quo of high-grade old-growth forest liquidation, raw log exports, mill closures, and unsustainable forestry in general. They need to break away from the old unsustainable mindset that has driven the increasing collapse of both ecosystems and rural communities in this province. When it comes to forestry, the NDP have not distinguished themselves from the BC Liberals in terms of any new laws or regulations, and it’s very unwise for them to think they can take the environmental movement for granted and test its patience with excuses, heel-dragging, and PR spin while the destructive status quo rages on. Today there is a viable, potentially sustainable, second-growth forestry alternative that the government can foster, while protecting endangered old-growth forests and supporting the economic diversification of First Nations and rural communities,” stated Ancient Forest Alliance executive director Ken Wu.

More Background Info

Old-growth forests are vital to sustaining unique endangered species, climate stability, tourism, clean water, wild salmon, and the cultures of many First Nations. On BC’s southern coast, satellite photos show that at least 75% of the original, productive old-growth forests have been logged, including well over 90% of the valley bottoms where the largest trees grow. Only about 8% of Vancouver Island’s original, productive old-growth forests are protected in parks and Old-Growth Management Areas. Old-growth forests – with trees that can be 2000 years old – are a non-renewable resource under BC’s system of forestry, where second-growth forests are re-logged every 50 to 100 years, never to become old-growth again.

On BC’s southern coast (Vancouver Island and the southwest mainland), 75% of the original, productive old-growth forests have already been logged, including over 90% of the valley bottoms where the largest trees grow. 3.3 million hectares of productive old-growth forests once stood on the southern coast (with an additional 2.2 million hectares of bog, subalpine forests, and other low productivity old-growth forests of low to no commercial value with stunted trees), and today only 860,000 hectares remain, while only 260,000 hectares are protected in parks and Old-Growth Management Areas. Second-growth forests now dominate 75% of the southern coast’s productive forest lands, including 90% of southern Vancouver Island, and can be sustainably logged to support the forest industry. See “before and after” maps and stats of the southern coast’s old-growth forests at: www.ancientforestalliance.org/old-growth-maps.php

In order to placate public fears about the loss of BC’s endangered old-growth forests, the government’s PR-spin typically over-inflates the amount of remaining old-growth forests by including hundreds of thousands of hectares of marginal, low productivity forests growing in bogs and at high elevations with small, stunted trees, together with the productive old-growth forests where the large trees grow (and where most logging takes place). They also leave out vast areas of largely overcut private managed forest lands – previously managed as if they were Crown lands for decades and still managed by the province under weaker Private Managed Forest Lands regulations – in order to reduce the basal area for calculating how much old-growth forest remains, thereby increasing the fraction of remaining old-growth forests. See a rebuttal to some of the BC government’s PR-spin and stats about old-growth forests towards the BOTTOM of the webpage: https://16.52.162.165/action-alert-speak-up-for-ancient-forests-to-the-union-of-bc-municipalities-ubcm/

In recent times in BC, the voices for old-growth protection have been quickly expanding, including numerous Chambers of Commerce, mayors and city councils, forestry unions, and conservation groups across BC who have been calling on the provincial government to expand protection for BC’s remaining old-growth forests.

BC’s premier business lobby, the BC Chamber of Commerce, representing 36,000 businesses, passed a resolution in May of 2016 calling on the province to expand protection for BC’s old-growth forests to support the economy, after a series of similar resolutions passed by the Port Renfrew, Sooke, and WestShore Chambers of Commerce. See: https://16.52.162.165/media-release-historic-leap-for-old-growth-forests-bc-chamber-of-commerce-passes-resolution-for-expanded-protection/

Both the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM), representing the mayors, city and town councils, and regional districts across BC, and Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities (AVICC), representing Vancouver Island local governments, passed a resolution in 2016 calling on the province to protect the Vancouver Island’s remaining old-growth forests by amending the 1994 land use plan. See: https://16.52.162.165/media-release-ubcm-passes-old-growth-protection-resolution/

The Public and Private Workers of Canada (PPWC), formerly the Pulp, Paper, and Woodworkers of Canada, representing thousands of sawmill and pulp mill workers across BC, passed a resolution in 2017 calling for an end to old-growth logging on Vancouver Island. See: https://16.52.162.165/conservationists-applaud-old-growth-protection-resolution-by-major-bc-forestry-union/

Each year, a significant portion of the provincial timber harvest is carried out on BC Timber Sales (BCTS) controlled land through its timber sales program. BCTS, a division of the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development (FLNRO), is the BC government’s logging agency that plans and directly issues logging permits for about 20 percent of the province’s merchantable timber on Crown lands, which fall outside of forestry tenures. Under this system, logging rights are granted through competitive auction to the highest bidding company for each timber sale, which provides benchmark costs and prices from the harvest of Crown timber in BC in order to set stumpage rates for tenure holders. The remaining 80 per cent of the province’s annual timber harvest occurs under the timber tenure system through tree farm or forest licences within Timber Supply Areas, woodlot licences, First Nations woodland licences, community forest agreements, or other tenures.

As the BC government retains full control over which cut blocks are auctioned each year through BCTS, the new government should use this control to quickly phase out issuing timber sales in old-growth forests and support implementation of conservation steps. The government should also review alternative ways to set benchmarks, considering broader socio-economic and ecological criteria, and consider how BC Timber Sales can be used to enable solutions for conservation and forestry that support communities.

Former co-Leader of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand (1995 to 2009) Jeanette Fitzsimons

New Zealand Shows the Way for BC to End Old-Growth Logging

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New Zealand Shows the Way for BC to End Old-Growth Logging

The co-leader of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand (1995 to 2009), Jeanette Fitzsimons, who successfully worked for an old-growth logging ban in that country by 2001, says the same can and should be done in British Columbia.

“After decades of protests, arrests, meetings, negotiations, and public mobilizations, New Zealanders by 1999 were sufficiently fed up with the logging of our old-growth forests. This made it possible that, once a new Labour government came to power tied to a governing agreement with the Green Party, we were finally able to implement a legislated ban on logging of our native forests on Crown lands, while directing the vast majority of the logging industry to focus on the tree plantations instead,” said Fitzsimons.

“I would encourage the new BC NDP government and the BC Green Party to put this issue front and centre, and work to swiftly bring an end to the logging of old-growth forests on Vancouver Island and in regions of your province where old-growth forests are endangered,” continued Fitzsimons.

Fitzsimons’ comments come after a recent trip to New Zealand by the Ancient Forest Alliance’s executive director, Ken Wu, who returned to Canada in April after speaking at a series of forestry and green building conferences about the importance of protecting BC's old-growth forests and halting the importation of endangered old-growth wood from BC into New Zealand. While in New Zealand, Wu chatted with Fitzsimons to learn how the New Zealanders’ experience could apply in BC.

“On my trip, I saw that New Zealanders overwhelmingly ‘get it’, that to log their last old-growth forests would be akin to shooting the last herds of elephants for ivory or harpooning the last blue whales. It makes no ethical or economic sense when there is an alternative, namely logging their extensive plantation forests. The alternative here in British Columbia is the fact that second-growth stands constitute most of our productive forests lands, and can be sustainably logged. If protecting ancient forests can be done in New Zealand, it can and should be done in British Columbia,” stated Ken Wu, Ancient Forest Alliance executive director.

Fitzsimons contributed to the development of legislation that finally ended old-growth logging on public (Crown) lands in 2001 and additional restrictions on logging native forests on private lands as co-leader of the New Zealand Green Party, which had a Confidence and Supply Agreement with the New Zealand Labour government between 1999 and 2002.

Similar to New Zealand, there is now a Confidence and Supply Agreement between the Greens and the labour-orientated New Democratic Party (NDP) government. The Ancient Forest Alliance believes the current situation presents the best opportunity in BC’s history to protect its endangered old-growth forests.

The BC Greens promised in their 2017 election platform and still today support an end to the logging of endangered old-growth in BC. The NDP promised in their 2017 platform to manage BC's old-growth based on ecosystem-based management approach of Great Bear Rainforest (BC's north and central coast where 85% of forests were protected based on science), but since then has not acted on this promise and has continued with the status quo of old-growth forest liquidation, as well as mass raw log exports to foreign mills. The Ancient Forest Alliance and other conservation groups are mobilizing the public to put pressure on the NDP government to implement legislative and policy changes to protect endangered old-growth forests while ensuring a sustainable, value-added, second-growth forest industry.

The Ancient Forest Alliance is calling for a science-based Old-Growth Protection Act, financing for First Nations’ sustainable economic development and diversification in lieu of old-growth logging, and incentives and regulations to develop a sustainable, second-growth forest industry. By logging second-growth forests that now dominate most of BC's productive forest lands and increasing the number of jobs within the province to manufacture the wood into value-added products, BC will be able to sustain and even enhance forestry employment levels while protecting its remaining endangered old-growth forests. See the 10-point recommendations for forest policies the AFA has sent to the BC government: https://16.52.162.165/news-item.php?ID=1183

“A full transition into an exclusively second-growth forest industry is inevitable in BC when the last of the unprotected old-growth forests groves are all logged,” said Wu. “What we're saying is let’s make that full transition sooner – much sooner, given the late hour for our ancient forests, before the logging industry has finished them off.”

On Vancouver Island and on BC's southern coast, about 25% of the region’s original, productive old-growth forests currently remain, with the other 75% now being second-growth forests. In terms of low-elevation, valley bottom old-growth forests where the biggest trees grow, well over 90% has been logged. Only 8% is protected in parks and Old-Growth Management Areas. See maps and stats from 2012 at: https://16.52.162.165/ancient-forests/before-after-old-growth-maps/

BC’s old-growth forests are vital to sustain unique endangered species, climate stability, tourism, clean water, wild salmon, and the cultures of many First Nations.

 

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

From the 1970’s through the 1990's, New Zealanders rallied, petitioned, wrote letters, climbed and sat in trees, negotiated with logging companies, and mobilized thousands of citizens to get their endangered old-growth beech, rimu, tötara and kauri forests protected. Most logging of publicly owned native forest was halted in the late 1980’s; however some logging of old-growth temperate rainforests continued on the South Island’s West Coast. By the late 1990's a major campaign spearheaded by the environmental group, the Native Forest Action Council, resulted in widespread public awareness and sympathy to end old-growth logging, while enclaves of opposition remained among some logging companies and their workers. The election of a Labour government in 1999, supported by the Greens in a Confidence and Supply Agreement, created the opportunity to get a legislated ban on old-growth logging.

By 2001, when the legislation took effect, some 6 million hectares of primary or old-growth forests remained in New Zealand, just over 40% of 14.2 million hectares of primary forests that covered the islands at the time of European colonization.

Today the New Zealand economy logs over 30 million cubic metres of wood each year (about 40% of BC's annual cut of 75 million cubic metres), almost exclusively from plantations established largely on agricultural and pasture lands, including Douglas-fir (a dominant species for BC's coastal logging industry), radiata pine (from California), and eucalyptus trees, largely non-native species. British Columbia’s second-growth forest industry could be substantially more environmentally-friendly than that of New Zealand’s if properly regulated with a sustainable rate of cut and higher forest practices standards, as our second-growth forests are comprised of native species (and should remain that way).

The ancient forest protection movement has also been around in BC since the 1970’s and hundreds of thousands of British Columbians have protested, written letters, been arrested and jailed, and put their time, energy, money, and freedom on the line to get these forests protected.

In recent times in BC, the voices for old-growth protection have been quickly expanding, including numerous Chambers of Commerce, mayors and city councils, forestry unions, and conservation groups across BC who have been calling on the provincial government to expand protection for BC’s remaining old-growth forests.

BC’s premier business lobby, the BC Chamber of Commerce, representing 36,000 businesses, passed a resolution in May of 2016 calling on the province to expand protection for BC’s old-growth forests to support the economy, after a series of similar resolutions passed by the Port Renfrew, Sooke, and WestShore Chambers of Commerce. See: https://16.52.162.165/media-release-historic-leap-for-old-growth-forests-bc-chamber-of-commerce-passes-resolution-for-expanded-protection/

Both the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM), representing the mayors, city and town councils, and regional districts across BC, and Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities (AVICC), representing Vancouver Island local governments, passed a resolution in 2016 calling on the province to protect the Vancouver Island’s remaining old-growth forests by amending the 1994 land use plan. See: https://16.52.162.165/media-release-ubcm-passes-old-growth-protection-resolution/

The Public and Private Workers of Canada (PPWC), formerly the Pulp, Paper, and Woodworkers of Canada, representing thousands of sawmill and pulp mill workers across BC, passed a resolution in 2017 calling for an end to old-growth logging on Vancouver Island. See: https://16.52.162.165/conservationists-applaud-old-growth-protection-resolution-by-major-bc-forestry-union/

In order to placate public fears about the loss of BC’s endangered old-growth forests, the government’s PR-spin typically over-inflates the amount of remaining old-growth forests by including hundreds of thousands of hectares of marginal, low productivity forests growing in bogs and at high elevations with small, stunted trees, together with the productive old-growth forests where the large trees grow (and where most logging takes place). They also leave out vast areas of largely overcut private managed forest lands – previously managed as if they were Crown lands for decades and still managed by the province under weaker Private Managed Forest Lands regulations – in order to reduce the basal area for calculating how much old-growth forest remains, thereby increasing the fraction of remaining old-growth forests. See a rebuttal to some of the BC government’s PR-spin and stats about old-growth forests towards the BOTTOM of the webpage: https://16.52.162.165/action-alert-speak-up-for-ancient-forests-to-the-union-of-bc-municipalities-ubcm/

Old-growth groves, such as at Cathedral Grove by Port Alberni, Meares Island and the Rainforest Trails in Clayoquot Sound by Tofino, Avatar Grove and the Walbran Valley by Port Renfrew, Prince George’s Ancient Forest Trail, Victoria’s Goldstream Provincial Park, and Vancouver’s Stanley Park, attract millions of tourists from around the world who come to marvel at the giants, which bolsters regional eco-tourism industries in BC. In fact, Port Renfrew, historically a logging town that now promotes eco-tourism, has been rebranded as the “Tall Trees Capital of Canada” in recent years due to its proximity to the Avatar Grove, Central Walbran Valley, Big Lonely Doug (Canada’s 2nd largest Douglas-fir), Eden Grove, Red Creek Fir (the world’s largest Douglas-fir), Harris Creek Spruce (an enormous Sitka spruce), and San Juan Spruce (previously Canada’s largest spruce until the top broke off last year). 

Port Alberni Watershed Forest-Alliance activist Jane Morden surveys old-growth logging by Island Timberlands on McLaughlin Ridge in the China Creek drinking watershed of Port Alberni.

Conservationists Disappointed the BC NDP’s Budget Fails to Allocate Land Acquisition Funding for Endangered Ecosystems and Old-Growth Forests

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For immediate release
February 20, 2018

Victoria, BC – The Ancient Forest Alliance is disappointed the NDP government’s provincial budget, released today, fails to include even modest funding for a provincial land acquisition fund vital for protecting endangered old-growth forests and ecosystems on private lands, despite repeated requests from conservation groups and thousands of concerned citizens. A land acquisition fund could be used to protect the endangered old-growth forests on Mount Horne above the world-famous Cathedral Grove, for example, and hundreds of other forests, grasslands, and wetlands across the province in danger of development.

Such a fund currently exists among various regional districts, including a $3.7 million/year annual fund at the Capital Regional District of Greater Victoria, and previously existed under the NDP government of the 1990s and on a diminished scale under the BC Liberal government until 2008, when the province cancelled dedicated, annual provincial funding for the initiative.

Since July of last year, the Ancient Forest Alliance has repeatedly sent briefing documents to Environment Minister George Heyman and Forest Minister Doug Donaldson, outlining the urgent need for a dedicated provincial fund to purchase private lands of high conservation and recreational value to add them to the province’s protected area system. Reports by the University of Victoria Environmental Law Centre and by environmental lawyer, Erin Grey, were also sent, detailing various funding mechanisms readily available to the province for a land acquisition fund.

As a start, the group asked the BC government to commit even modest funds in the February 2018 budget for a land acquisition fund for new protected areas and to begin exploring dedicated funding mechanisms that can be implemented during a subsequent legislative session, such as redirecting the province's unredeemed bottle deposit funds (worth an estimated $5 to $15 million/year) toward private land acquisition.

After repeated requests to meet with Environment Minister George Heyman and Ministry of Environment staff since August, the Ancient Forest Alliance received only one reply in October, saying the Minister would be open to meeting requests after the New Year. Two more meeting requests have since been made and subsequently ignored by the Minister’s office. The groups did secure a meeting with Forest Minister Doug Donaldson last October to discuss Crown lands; however, the land acquisition fund for private lands is primarily within the mandate of Environment Minister Heyman. Green Party MLAs also met with the Ancient Forest Alliance last summer, shortly after the provincial election, and expressed support for the organization’s various proposals.

“The NDP’s failure thus far to commit even a few dollars in their $55 billion budget to a provincial land acquisition fund and the silence we’re being met with by the Environment Minister are not good signs,” said Ken Wu, Ancient Forest Alliance executive director. “Let’s hope this government doesn’t think they can take the conservation movement for granted and can ignore our calls for long overdue, major policy changes to protect old-growth forests and threatened ecosystems.”

“It’s increasingly clear we now need to significantly mobilize public opinion – even under an NDP government. Otherwise, they may attempt to keep us in the margins,” said Andrea Inness, Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner. “Over 3,000 messages have already been sent to the BC government from our supporters, asking them to create a provincial land acquisition fund, enact policies to protect old-growth forests on Crown land, and ensure a sustainable, second-growth forest industry…yet the NDP government seems unmoved at this point. We need to redouble our efforts, meaning more British Columbians will be speaking up for a land acquisition fund and old-growth forest protection by emailing, phoning, and meeting with their MLA and demanding this issue be made a priority.”

As part of their proposal for forestry reforms, the Ancient Forest Alliance and several other major conservation groups are requesting the BC government implement a series of policy and legislative changes to protect endangered old-growth forests and forestry jobs. Besides a land acquisition fund for private lands, these policies also include a science-based plan to protect old-growth forests on Crown lands, financial support for First Nation sustainable economic development and diversification in lieu of old-growth logging, and incentives and regulations to ensure a value-added, sustainable, second-growth forest industry. While these long-term solutions are developed, more immediate steps can be taken, including converting “non-legal” Old-Growth Management Areas – those that exist only on paper – into legally-binding protections, implementing the Big Tree Legal Order currently under development by Ministry of Forests staff for the past six years to potentially protect the biggest trees on the coast with buffer zones, and discontinuing issuance of old-growth cut-blocks by BC Timber Sales, the province’s logging agency.

Background Information

The Ancient Forest Alliance is calling on the BC government to establish an annual $40 million provincial land acquisition fund to purchase and protect private lands in BC. The proposed fund would rise to an annual $100 million by 2024 through $10 million increases each year and would enable the timely purchase of significant tracts of endangered private lands of high conservation, scenic, and recreation value to add to BC’s parks and protected areas system.

Such lands could include contentious old-growth forests located on Cortes Island, Horne Mt near the iconic Cathedral Grove, Cameron Valley Firebreak and McLaughlin Ridge near Port Alberni, and eastern Vancouver Island, as well as endangered grasslands, wetlands, and ecosystems throughout BC on private lands.

Many regional districts in BC have land or “park” acquisition funds, including the Capital Regional District of Greater Victoria (CRD). The CRD’s fund generates about $3.7 million each year and, with its partners, has spent over $35 million to purchase over 4,500 hectares of land since its establishment in the year 2000, ensuring the protection of such iconic natural areas as the Sooke Hills and Potholes, Jordan River surf lands, Mount Maxwell on Saltspring Island, and lands between Thetis Lake and Mount Work. Like the CRD’s land acquisition fund, the proposed $40 million provincial fund could be used as leverage to raise additional funds from private land trusts, environmental groups and private donors.

In 2015, the Ancient Forest Alliance commissioned a report by the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre, entitled Finding the Money to Buy and Protect Natural Lands, which detailed over a dozen mechanisms used in jurisdictions across North America to raise funds for protecting land (found online here).

Of these potential revenue streams, the Pop for Parks program is the most readily available funding source in BC. Under this program, the annual $5 to $15 million in unredeemed container deposits that currently go to beverage companies in BC could be readily redirected to protect green spaces for British Columbians to enjoy. According to a report released last year by environmental lawyer Erin Grey, supported by West Coast Environmental Law's Environmental Dispute Resolution Fund, Pop for Parks: How to Fund B.C.’s Urgent Need for Land Conservation and Encourage the Beverage Industry to Improve its Recycling Rates, there are no legal or financial barriers to implementing the Pop for Parks program in BC – only a lack of political will. (See the report online here).

So far, the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities (AVICC), numerous municipal councils and the Islands Trust, and 19 environmental and recreation organizations, including the Ancient Forest Alliance, Sierra Club of BC, Wilderness Committee, BC Spaces for Nature, CPAWS BC, and BC Federation of Mountain Clubs, have pledged their support for a provincial land acquisition fund to be funded by the Pop for Parks mechanism.  

Forestry Union President Calls on NDP to Protect BC Forests & Forestry Jobs

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Doug Donaldson understands better than most how neglected B.C.’s forests are, and how that neglect is mirrored in troubling job losses and missed employment opportunities in rural towns and First Nations communities.

As B.C.’s forests minister, he is also the MLA for the vast Stikine riding where Highway 37 is a gateway to old-growth forests that have been logged for decades with one goal in mind: to strip them of their trees and send virtually every log out of the province, in raw, unprocessed form.

Donaldson’s riding is also home to a mothballed pulp mill, idled sawmills and troublingly few value-added mills, including one — Kyahwood Forest Products — that is First Nation-owned, employs mostly First Nation people from the small community of Moricetown and that ought to be the norm in B.C., not the exception.

Donaldson knows all of this. He also knows that just 10 days after Premier John Horgan named him to cabinet, the Somass sawmill in Port Alberni closed, ending good-paying jobs for 80 people at a mill whose history traces to the 1930s.

Western Forest Products, which put those people out of work, is B.C.’s biggest coastal forest company and a major exporter of raw, unprocessed, old-growth logs.

Donaldson and his NDP colleagues were silent on Somass’s closure. In contrast, just months earlier, Horgan travelled to a recently closed sawmill in Merritt, where against a backdrop of a large sign reading, Closed by Christy Clark, he lashed out at the Liberals for failing to help a “community in distress.”

Well the time for posturing is over. Horgan is premier. He and his forests minister, whose file now includes “rural development,” must act. It’s up to them to lead on the forestry and rural-revitalization files.

Were it not for the efforts of my union, at least one other sawmill in the same riding that includes Port Alberni would be down by now. We see no signs of action from the government. What is its plan, if any?

During the last term of the Liberal government, more raw logs left B.C. than at any other four-year span in the province’s history. In 2016 alone, enough unprocessed logs left the province to frame 134,000 homes. More troubling, we see that de facto log exports are regularly occurring in the Interior of the province, where “have” regions become the sources of logs for the “have-nots.” The Merritt mill closure was partly caught up in that ugly reality.

Perpetuating the status quo translates into a wholesale assault on our coast’s diminished forests, rural communities and First Nations, a reality that Scott Fraser, Port Alberni’s MLA and Minister of Indigenous Affairs and Reconciliation, understands better than most.

Donaldson, Fraser and all their cabinet colleagues have signed mandate letters that explicitly commit them to implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

I’ve read that document. I see what’s happening on First Nation lands. I know that we can and we must do better as an industry and as a society by bringing First Nations into true partnerships with resource industries. But I’m starting to seriously wonder whether the same can be said of this government.

It’s time for bold action by government, driven by a vision of what is socially, economically and ecologically just. Here’s what my union believes is possible and that’ll have the ultimate support of many First Nations, environmental organizations and some forest companies:

More old-growth forests protected. An end to raw-log exports. Increased forest-industry employment based on getting greater value from every log we cut, rather than shipping it off in unprocessed form. New, First Nation-area-based tenures that anchor new joint ventures where First Nations are majority partners.

By staying silent on mill closures and allowing raw-log exports to continue unchecked, our government is allowing our pockets to be fleeced.

Last year, Horgan tried to exploit the Merritt mill closure to his political advantage. Today, the buck stops with him, Donaldson, Fraser and the rest of the NDP cabinet.

Staying silent in the face of more mill closures, more forest depletion and continued failure to reconcile with First Nations isn’t an option.

Arnold Bercov is president of the Public and Private Workers of Canada.

Click here to view the original story.

Opinion: Status quo a non-starter in B.C.’s forest industry

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Vancouver Sun Op-Ed by Arnie Bercov: Doug Donaldson understands better than most how neglected B.C.’s forests are, and how that neglect is mirrored in troubling job losses and missed employment opportunities in rural towns and First Nations communities.

As B.C.’s forests minister, he is also the MLA for the vast Stikine riding where Highway 37 is a gateway to old-growth forests that have been logged for decades with one goal in mind: to strip them of their trees and send virtually every log out of the province, in raw, unprocessed form.

Donaldson’s riding is also home to a mothballed pulp mill, idled sawmills and troublingly few value-added mills, including one — Kyahwood Forest Products — that is First Nation-owned, employs mostly First Nation people from the small community of Moricetown and that ought to be the norm in B.C., not the exception.

Donaldson knows all of this. He also knows that just 10 days after Premier John Horgan named him to cabinet, the Somass sawmill in Port Alberni closed, ending good-paying jobs for 80 people at a mill whose history traces to the 1930s.

Western Forest Products, which put those people out of work, is B.C.’s biggest coastal forest company and a major exporter of raw, unprocessed, old-growth logs.

Donaldson and his NDP colleagues were silent on Somass’s closure. In contrast, just months earlier, Horgan travelled to a recently closed sawmill in Merritt, where against a backdrop of a large sign reading, Closed by Christy Clark, he lashed out at the Liberals for failing to help a “community in distress.”

Well the time for posturing is over. Horgan is premier. He and his forests minister, whose file now includes “rural development,” must act. It’s up to them to lead on the forestry and rural-revitalization files.

Were it not for the efforts of my union, at least one other sawmill in the same riding that includes Port Alberni would be down by now. We see no signs of action from the government. What is its plan, if any?

During the last term of the Liberal government, more raw logs left B.C. than at any other four-year span in the province’s history. In 2016 alone, enough unprocessed logs left the province to frame 134,000 homes. More troubling, we see that de facto log exports are regularly occurring in the Interior of the province, where “have” regions become the sources of logs for the “have-nots.” The Merritt mill closure was partly caught up in that ugly reality.

Perpetuating the status quo translates into a wholesale assault on our coast’s diminished forests, rural communities and First Nations, a reality that Scott Fraser, Port Alberni’s MLA and Minister of Indigenous Affairs and Reconciliation, understands better than most.

Donaldson, Fraser and all their cabinet colleagues have signed mandate letters that explicitly commit them to implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

I’ve read that document. I see what’s happening on First Nation lands. I know that we can and we must do better as an industry and as a society by bringing First Nations into true partnerships with resource industries. But I’m starting to seriously wonder whether the same can be said of this government.

It’s time for bold action by government, driven by a vision of what is socially, economically and ecologically just. Here’s what my union believes is possible and that’ll have the ultimate support of many First Nations, environmental organizations and some forest companies:

More old-growth forests protected. An end to raw-log exports. Increased forest-industry employment based on getting greater value from every log we cut, rather than shipping it off in unprocessed form. New, First Nation-area-based tenures that anchor new joint ventures where First Nations are majority partners.

By staying silent on mill closures and allowing raw-log exports to continue unchecked, our government is allowing our pockets to be fleeced.

Last year, Horgan tried to exploit the Merritt mill closure to his political advantage. Today, the buck stops with him, Donaldson, Fraser and the rest of the NDP cabinet.

Staying silent in the face of more mill closures, more forest depletion and continued failure to reconcile with First Nations isn’t an option.

Arnold Bercov is president of the Public and Private Workers of Canada.

Click here to view the original story in the Vancouver Sun.