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Clear-cutting threatens Echo Lake eagle colony (includes VIDEO and PHOTO GALLERY)

Mar 28 2015/in News Coverage

**To view VIDEO and PHOTOGALLERY, visit: https://globalnews.ca/news/1906359/clear-cutting-threatens-echo-lake-eagle-colony/ **

Every fall, hundreds of eagles descend upon the Fraser Valley to roost in the treetops surrounding Echo Lake. Experts say there is no other place like it in the world.

“This is eagle central. It’s the place that if you want to protect the largest concentration of raptors on earth, this is just about it here,” says Ken Wu of Ancient Forest Alliance.

The area is a perfect marriage of mountain and river valley, sheltering the eagles from the wind while the perch upon the branches of the ancient Douglas Firs and Red Cedars.

“It’s really the last of the last. It’s like coming across a sasquatch these days. this is a very special area,” says Wu.

The fight continues to protect old-growth forest from logging. While the B.C. Government announcing 55 hectares were protected as old growth management areas, there are still 40 hectares that fall under a woodlot license.

“It’s about one-third the size of Stanley Park. It should be a no-brainer that you protect a hundred hectares of old growth forest here when there’s so little that remains,” says Wu.

Stephen Ben-Oliel owns property around Echo Lake and says over the years he’s watched the clear-cutting get closer. He says without protection from the ministry, logging companies can’t be left on their own to do the right thing.

“A cedar can be worth $50,000 and a fir tree that’s got the right grain is $10,000 to $15,000. It’s called a Class-A roller. It goes into plywood,” says Ben-Oliel.

Minister of Forests Steve Thomson told Global News that there are no plans to log the 40 unprotected hectares.

“We need to work with the woodlot operator. Woodlot operators leave wildlife trees and wildlife tree areas… I’ve been advised no logging is planned,” Thomson says.

Wu says if there are no plans for logging, why not include the patch of old-growth in the already protected lands.

Eagle expert David Hancock says the strength of the trees is a direct result of the eagle activity over hundreds of years.

He adds if the area was cleared, there is a risk the eagles may not return.

Read more and see VIDEO and PHOTOGALLERY at: https://globalnews.ca/news/1906359/clear-cutting-threatens-echo-lake-eagle-colony/

Echo Lake home to diverse and endangered species

Mar 27 2015/in News Coverage

Preliminary surveys by biologists reveal diverse, endangered, and new species inhabiting the extremely rare lowland old-growth forest at Echo Lake west of Agassiz. Conservationists ramp-up call for the BC government to protect the area from logging.

A biodiversity survey (ie “Bio-Blitz”) of an extremely rare but endangered lowland old-growth forest between Agassiz and Mission, the Echo Lake Ancient Forest, famous for its bald eagles, has revealed that it is also home to a large diversity of flora and fauna. This includes many species at risk such as various bats, frogs, snails, dragonflies, and moss. The surveys, conducted over a weekend last year by biologists and naturalists, and co-ordinated by the Ancient Forest Alliance, have now been compiled and will be submitted to the BC Ministry of Environment’s Conservation Data Centre and Wildlife Species Inventory. Over two days, approximately 174 plant, 55 vertebrate, 153 invertebrate, and 38 fungi species were found around Echo Lake.

“These biodiversity surveys show that protecting all of Echo Lake’s surrounding old-growth and mature forests is important not only for saving the largest night-roosting site for bald eagles on Earth, but also for a large diversity of other species, including many species at risk,” stated Ken Wu, Ancient Forest Alliance executive director. “And these new findings are just the tip of the iceberg from just a single weekend of surveys – future surveys will undoubtedly turn up much more. It further re-enforces the fact that it should be a no-brainer for the BC government to protect all of Echo Lake’s surrounding forests.”

In 2013 the BC government protected 55 hectares or over half of the old-growth forests around Echo Lake in an Old-Growth Management Area (OGMA) on Crown lands primarily on the lake’s south side. However, they left out about 40 hectares or so of old-growth and mature forests from the OGMA on the north and west side of the lake within a Woodlot Licence where the ancient trees can be logged.

Echo Lake is the largest night-roosting site for bald eagles on Earth, where as many as 700 bald eagles roost in the ancient Douglas-fir and cedar trees around the lake at night during the fall salmon runs. Along the nearby Chehalis and Harrison Rivers, as many as 10,000 bald eagles come to eat the spawning salmon during some years, making the area home to the largest bald eagle/ raptor concentration on Earth.

The area is in the traditional, unceded territory of the Sts’ailes First Nation band, who run the Sasquatch EcoLodge and whose members run eagle watching tours nearby.

Among the hundreds of species identified in the survey, some of the more interesting finds include the little brown bat, the northen red legged-frog, the barn swallow and the olive-sided flycatcher. A spider called the Theonoe stridula was also identified, a newly-recorded species for the first time in B.C.

Other species found through the survey or observed at other times at Echo Lake include Vaux’s swifts (a swallow-like bird associated with old-growth forests), pileated woodpeckers (Canada’s largest woodpecker, associated with older conifer forests and deciduous forests), red-breasted sapsuckers (associated with older forests), osprey, turkey vultures, river otters, beavers, black bears, bobcats, cougars, mountain goats, black-tailed deer, and bald eagles.

“The BC government so far has shown itself to be stubborn and intransigent on protecting the north and west sides of Echo Lake, which will lead to heightened conflict. Instead, they need to work with the local Woodlot Licencee, First Nations, adjacent private land owners like myself, and conservationists to ensure the area’s legal protection. This would entail shifting the Woodlot Licence boundaries – perhaps just 40 hectares or so of the existing 800 hectare tenure – into a second-growth forest in the vast region with an equivalent timber value, and then expanding the Old-Growth Management Area to encompass all of the forests around Echo Lake,” stated Stephen Ben-Oliel, a private landowner on the eastern shore of Echo Lake.

Ben-Oliel and his wife Susan are planning to organize an Echo Lake Festival on August 8-9, filled with natural history tours, musicians, art performances, tree-climbing workshops, and other activities to celebrate and help promote the protection of the remaining endangered forests around the lake. Updates on the festival will be posted in the future at www.ProtectEchoLake.com

The Ancient Forest Alliance is also calling for a larger provincial plan to protect the remaining endangered old-growth forests across BC while ensuring sustainable second-growth forestry jobs. Some of the key policies the organization is calling for include:

• A Provincial Old-Growth Plan based on science that would protect the remaining old-growth forests in the province in the regions where they are endangered (eg. Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island, BC Interior).

• Ensuring sustainable logging of second-growth forests, which now constitute the vast majority of forested lands in southern British Columbia.

• Ending the export of raw logs to foreign mills in order to ensure a guaranteed log supply for BC mills and value-added manufacturers.

• Supporting the retooling of old-growth mills and the development of value-added processing facilities to handle second-growth logs.

In the Lower Mainland, about 80% or more of the original, productive old-growth forests have already been logged, including about 95% of the valley bottom ancient forests where the largest trees grow and most biodiversity is found. See maps and stats of the old-growth forests on BC’s southern coast at: https://staging.ancientforestalliance.org/ancient-forests/before-after-old-growth-maps/

“How many jurisdictions on Earth still have trees that grow as wide as living rooms and as tall as downtown skyscrapers? What we have here is something exceptional on the planet. Our ancient forests make British Columbia truly special – while we still have them,” stated TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner. “More than ever we need the BC government to have the wisdom to protect our incredibly rare and endangered old-growth forests like at Echo Lake”.

Race is on to save Fraser Valley’s bald eagles, Echo Lake old-growth forest

Mar 25 2015/in News Coverage

Up to 700 bald eagles roost in a small grove of old-growth trees around Echo Lake in the Fraser Valley each fall. Does this sound like the kind of place that should be logged?

It is in British Columbia, where ancient trees are seen as just another replaceable commodity.

The lake sits in a small valley surrounded by mountains near where the Chehalis River joins the Harrison, and both flow into the Fraser.

When salmon return to spawn, the eagles spend their days feasting on fish on the river banks, then, just as darkness descends, fly up to roost in the towering Douglas firs and cedars surrounding Echo Lake.

“They don’t come every night. It’s unpredictable,” says Stephen Ben-Oliel, who has lived on the lake for 20 years. “But when they come, it’s remarkable. You look up and it’s like aircraft circling a busy airport. They drop down and start to stack up in the trees.”

Mr. Ben-Oliel says bird experts who came to study the phenomenon told him the eagles have been using Echo Lake as a roost for 8,000 years.

But they might not be returning for much longer if a provincial government logging plan goes ahead.

A few years ago, Mr. Ben-Oliel went for a walk in the towering forest near his home and was shocked to find flags marking trees for logging.

Not all the trees are ancient. But many are, mixed in with younger, second-growth timber that grew after a forest fire 150 years ago.

“You can go in the forest there and there are trees 150 years old, and there are trees 1,000 years old,” Mr. Ben-Oliel said.

It is the big, old giants that the eagles like best.

“I don’t know why they choose those trees, but I think they feel safe up there, away from anything that might come in the night to kill them,” he said.

They might be safe from predators, but not from the B.C. government, which is allowing many of the last remaining patches of old growth on the West Coast to be logged.

Mr. Ben-Oliel, with support from the Ancient Forest Alliance, started a campaign in 2012 to save the Echo Lake forest. In 2013, the government protected 55 hectares – just over half the old-growth around the lake.

But Mr. Ben-Oliel is horrified the plan still allows about 40 hectares of old growth and mature forest to be logged on the north and west sides of the lake.

“The tallest old-growth firs that ever existed on Earth used to stand in the Chehalis Valley [near Echo Lake],” he said. “But if you drive up there now, you’ll see that, over the years, they’ve taken it all. It is now like the surface of Mars in many places.”

He fears that fate awaits “the last little pocket” of old growth at Echo Lake.

“They are quietly sneaking out the last of our great legacy,” Mr. Ben-Oliel said. “It’s appalling that old growth forests aren’t protected in B.C. ”

Ken Wu of the Ancient Forest Alliance has been campaigning for a provincial plan to protect B.C.’s remaining endangered old-growth forests. His team recently did a “bio-blitz” at Echo Lake, recording the richness of the ecosystem there, which is home to everything from red-legged frogs to black bears.

The government’s old-growth strategy, he said, “is piecemeal, weak and inadequate.”

Mr. Wu said only about 1 per cent of the big, ancient trees are left.

“The classic giant cedars and Douglas firs that historically built the logging industry of southern British Columbia were essentially annihilated by the 1950s [by logging],” he said. “It’s as rare as a black rhino to have low elevation, spectacular old growth [such as at the lake], so this is something incredibly rare.”

He said the Echo Lake forest has been spared the axe until now only because mountains and private land made access difficult.

“They can get in by building an expensive road, or they can heli-log it,” Mr. Wu said of logging companies working in the Chehalis area. “We heard next year they may move in.”

The government says its old-growth strategy protects the big, old trees that are becoming increasingly rare. But it does not.

On his dock, Mr. Ben-Oliel has a section of a stump from a recently cut tree. He counted 716 rings.

“That tree was cut, floated down the Fraser whole and shipped to China,” he says. “That’s a travesty.”

In B.C., that’s also government policy. And it needs to change before Echo Lake and the few remaining places like it are lost.

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