Announcements

B.C.'s new Minister of Forests, Mines, and Lands, Pat Bell, leaves tomorrow for a trip to China to talk lumber. Not everyone though sees the potential business as good for our province. Co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance, Ken Wu, sees problems ahead.

Seen here is the San Juan Spruce tree. It is Canada's largest spruce tree and the second largest in the world! It grows on Vancouver Island alongside the San Juan River about 35 minutes from Port Renfrew, BC. The towering tree measures 38.3' in circumference, reaches 205' tall, and has an incredible wood volume of 333 telephone poles! Despite all of this the tree and surrounding forest has not been afforded any legislated protection from the BC Liberal government. We are calling on the province to protect the area of forest, both old-growth and second growth, from the San Juan Spruce to the nearby Red Creek fir.

On September 16, in a seemingly unlikely event, the Ancient Forest Alliance stood in solidarity with members of the Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Canada and the United Steelworkers union in Nanaimo as part of the ongoing fight to ban raw log exports in BC. AFA forest campaigner TJ Watt spoke alongside union officials Nanaimo MLA Leonard Krog and Nanaimo-North Cowichan MLA Doug Routley to the hundreds of workers in attendance, denouncing the export of raw logs and calling for the protection of BC’s threatened forestry jobs.

“Time is running out for our endangered old-growth forests and B.C.’s coastal forestry jobs,” said AFA campaign director Wu in a press release.

The Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) launched a campaign today to get 100,000 British Columbians to sign a petition (see ancientforestalliance.org/ways-to-take-action-for-forests/petition/) calling on the BC government to protect the province’s endangered old-growth forests and forestry jobs. The “100,000 Strong for Ancient Forests and BC Forestry Jobs” public education and mobilization campaign will be the largest grassroots mobilization effort undertaken by BC’s ancient forest movement since the Clayoquot Sound campaign of the early 1990’s.

Co-founders of the newly formed Ancient Forest Alliance Ken Wu and TJ Watt will host an informative and inspiring slideshow featuring spectacular photographs of Canada's largest trees, including the Red Creek Fir, San Juan Spruce, Cheewhat Cedar, and the newly-discovered, threatened Avatar Grove. The presentation will include discussion of the stunning ecology and complex politics surrounding BC's old-growth forests and forestry jobs. It will be held at Central Hall on Fulford-Ganges Road from 7:00-8:30 pm on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010.

Westworld, the most highly circulated magazine in Western Canada, just published an article and photo (taken by the AFA’s TJ Watt) on the Avatar Grove and Ancient Forest Alliance in their most recent issue. With a press run of 540,000 copies, it will help to raise major public awareness about this spectacular but endangered forest near Port Renfrew.

I read with dismay that BC Liberal MLA Ron Cantelon's office has been invoking the Ancient Forest Alliance's name to insinuate that we somehow support logging of the Nanoose Bay old-growth forest (block DL-33) because we support their decision to keep 1600 hectares of Coastal Douglas Fir ecosystem off-limits to logging through a new Land Use Order. That's like saying "because you like the new rain jacket I got you, you'll like me dumping this bucket of cold water on your head, too.

The Ancient Forest Alliance would like to acknowledge the generosity of Don Barthel, founder of Used Victoria https://www.usedvictoria.com/ for his donation of a data projector to us, which we have…