Help AFA raise $250,000 by December 31st – we’re over halfway there!
Support the protection of old-growth forests in BC through Indigenous-led conservation, science, and public action. Donate to help safeguard ancient forests.
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TJ Watt2025-12-15 15:20:282025-12-15 17:55:17Help AFA raise $250,000 by December 31st – we’re over halfway there!
Chek News: Document reveals approval to harvest remnant old-growth in B.C.’s northwest
BC Timber Sales has ended a policy protecting remnant old-growth in northwest B.C., citing First Nations’ positions, sparking concerns from ecologists and residents.
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TJ Watt2025-12-08 13:49:362025-12-08 13:49:36Chek News: Document reveals approval to harvest remnant old-growth in B.C.’s northwest
Thank You to Our Silent Auction business Donors!
Thank you to these local businesses for generously donating items and experiences to our first-ever online Silent Auction!
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TJ Watt2025-12-08 13:17:322025-12-08 13:50:51Thank You to Our Silent Auction business Donors!
Statement on the Provincial Forest Advisory Council’s Interim Report – AFA & EEA
The Provincial Forest Advisory Council’s (PFAC) interim report falls short of addressing the root causes of BC’s forestry crisis or outlining the bold, decisive actions needed to reverse it, warn the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) and Endangered Ecosystem Alliance (EEA).
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TJ Watt2025-11-21 10:13:452025-11-21 10:15:43Statement on the Provincial Forest Advisory Council’s Interim Report – AFA & EEA
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Letters: B.C. forests, Steve Thomson, Ben Parfitt, Bob Simpson…
/in News CoverageMinister’s account is ‘pure fiction’
In response to Ben Parfitt’s op-ed about the B.C. Liberals’ intention to introduce legislation to rollover replaceable volume-based timber licenses to area-based tenures, the forests minister claims as a “fact” that the legislation stems from a recommendation from the special committee on timber supply that toured B.C. last summer.
That is pure fiction.
According to a leaked cabinet document, the “rollover” of volume-based licenses to area-based tenures was recommended to cabinet in April as an option to enable the rebuilding of the Burns Lake sawmill — a month before the committee was formed and five months before it made its recommendations public.
The committee did not “in fact” recommend the conversion of volume-based licenses to area-based tenures. Rather, it gave significant and thoughtful cautionary recommendations “if conversion to more area-based tenures is desirable.” The committee found there is still no consensus on the relative merits of area-based tenures and significant concern about the potential privatization of our largest public asset.
The minister also gave Hampton Affiliates a “letter of intent” in September committing to the conversion of this U.S. company’s volume licenses to area-based tenures — a full month before he publicly released a response to the committee’s recommendations.
The fact is: the Liberals were on the rollover path long before any public process.
Enabling legislation will not guarantee in law any defined public process in the rollover decisions. It is used to give politicians “flexibility” to take actions without the constraints of law or guiding regulations. Used inappropriately, it can be a very “sneaky” instrument indeed.
We must oppose giving politicians the unfettered right to radically alter forest tenures or to privatize our public forests. I certainly intend to do that in this upcoming session. It would be nice to know if the NDP will join me in this fight.
Bob Simpson, MLA, Cariboo North
Prove me wrong
Forests Minister Steve Thomson takes issue with the “highly speculative” nature of my recent op-ed in which I suggest that the provincial government intends to grant cabinet open-ended powers to give forest companies de facto control of public forestlands.
He does not quibble with the fact that legislation is, in fact, coming, but says that government will be open and accountable by “ensuring” that the public is consulted.
But will public consultation be enshrined in law? That’s the question. If Mr. Thomson wishes to end speculation that the interests of First Nations, communities and other stakeholders could be circumvented in the upcoming bill, he should simply publish the contemplated legislation. I would consider it a public service and a small price to pay to be proven wrong.
Ben Parfitt, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Link to online article: https://blogs.theprovince.com/2013/01/30/letters-b-c-forests-steve-thomson-ben-parfitt-bob-simpson-post-office-sun-media-protesters-public-sector-pensions/
Mountain Caribou Alert: Call to Action!
/in Take ActionThe threatened Mountain Caribou – kin to Santa’s reindeer – is about to become even more threatened if forestry giant Canadian Forest Products is allowed to log in the Upper Clearwater Valley adjacent to Wells Gray Provincial Park.
A pending proposal by Canfor to salvage log beetle-killed Lodgepole Pine near Wells Gray would not only kibosh any spontaneous recovery the park’s resident Mountain Caribou might have in store, it would also further stress a herd already in serious decline.
That’s the message recently sent in a letter to Mr. Terry Lake, B.C. Minister of Environment and MLA for the North Thompson, by the Wells Gray World Heritage Committee (WGWHC), a group dedicated to furthering the candidacy of British Columbia’s fourth largest wilderness park for designation as a World Heritage Site.
Write YOUR letter today and help make that important difference!
Please visit the Wells Gray World Heritage website to read the full details of the situation and see great photos and maps of the area.
Click the Action! tab for a sample letter to Terry Lake, B.C.’s Minister of Environment and MLA for Kamloops-North Thompson and Steve Thomson, B.C.’s Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations.
Thank you!!
Privatizing Our Public Forests
/in News CoverageAlthough the timber supply does not exist to allow the Burns Lake sawmill to be rebuilt without negatively affecting other mills, communities, and jobs on Highway 16, the government has chosen to ignore this reality and appears intent on getting the Burns Lake mill rebuilt at any cost.
“Any cost” includes the commitment to introduce legislation this spring that will enable Cabinet to give Hampton Affiliates, an American company, exclusive rights over specific areas of our public forests in the Lakes Timber Supply Area in a manner that will open the door to the broad-scale privatization of our public forests.
In their dying days, the BC Liberals will introduce enabling legislation that will allow politicians to give forest companies exclusive rights over our public forests without the checks and balances of governing laws or regulations, or the guaranteed scrutiny of a transparent public process.
The Social Credit Party attempted a similar “rollover” of replaceable volume-based licenses to area-based tenures in 1988. The Socred Forests Minister of the day estimated their legislation would put over 60 percent of BC’s public forests under the exclusive control of private companies. The NDP Forest Critic at the time dubbed the legislation “privatization on a massive scale,” and it was squashed by significant public backlash.
Twenty-five years later, our forests are under assault by pests, disease, and fire. As the Auditor General pointed out, we have an appallingly weak forest inventory. And only a few large companies now hold replaceable volume-based timber licenses. Yet with the BC Liberal Party on the verge of losing the May election, they’re going to ram legislation through the BC Legislature that will do what Social Credit could not obtain the social licence to do in 1988.
As last summer’s Timber Supply Committee found out, the social licence still doesn’t exist to support the wholesale rollover of renewable forest licenses to area-based tenures. That’s why the Committee did not recommend this action. Instead, it gave some cautionary provisos to government for consideration “if conversion to more area-based tenures is desirable.”
I plan to oppose this legislation when it is introduced this spring. We’ll be posting more information this week to our website so you can learn more about the significant implications of this change to our public forest tenure system. Then, decide for yourself whether it ought to be supported or opposed.
Link to Bob Simpson’s online article: https://www.bobsimpsonmla.ca/privatizing-our-public-forests/