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Watch this CHEK News report on Jurassic Grove, an impressive grove of unprotected, monumental old-growth trees only a 90 minute drive west of Victoria between Jordan River and Port Renfrew. The Ancient Forest Alliance is calling attention to the area's high conservation and recreation value and hopes it will be protected. 

Click here for the CHEK News report: https://www.cheknews.ca/newly-discovered-old-growth-forest-vancouver-island-312417/

For Immediate Release

VICTORIA – A time lapse map of Vancouver Island has been released showing the demise of the Island’s old-growth forests over a century of industrial logging. Well over 90% of the original, high productivity, low elevation old-growth forests on Vancouver Island with the biggest trees have already been logged, according to the data analysis, while over 75% of the moderate to high productivity old-growth forests (ie. the commercially valuable old-growth forests) have been logged. Conservation groups, businesses and chambers of commerce, forestry workers and unions, naturalist clubs, city and town councils across BC, and many First Nations are calling on the provincial government to expand protection for BC’s endangered old-growth forests. Instead, a sustainable, value-added second-growth forest industry would support and enhance employment for BC’s forestry workers.

See the time-lapse map sequence here: https://youtu.be/c9hTF2oxLjo

For Immediate Release

Conservationists and local landowners are reacting with alarm as a new logging road by C&H Forest Products has progressed over a kilometer into the contentious old-growth and second-growth forests north of Echo Lake as a precursor to logging three planned cutblocks there.

Echo Lake includes some of the last unprotected lowland old-growth forests in the Lower Mainland. It is renowned as the world’s largest night-roosting site for bald eagles, with hundreds of eagles roosting in the old-growth trees around the lake on some nights during the fall salmon run, and is home to much wildlife and several species at risk. The area is also part of a Community Drinking Watershed for local residents and 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.

See a recent drone video taken at Echo Lake: www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfLbzncf9Us

And the original campaign video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPstV14oZ6s

Check out this major travel feature in the Times Colonist newspaper about visiting Avatar Grove! The article highlights how the Ancient Forest Alliance's campaign to protect old-growth forests has become a major economic driver for Port Renfrew, which has now billed itself as the Tall Trees Capital of Canada!

See the article from the Times Colonist: https://www.timescolonist.com/life/travel/land-of-the-giants-a-wet-and-wild-trip-to-port-renfrew-1.16451897

TODAY, Wednesday, April 12
12:00 noon
Legislative Buildings, Victoria

After second weekend of hard work, the Lower Loop Trail at the Avatar Grove has been reopened! AFA Boardwalk Coordinator TJ Watt and a team of volunteers spent long hours in wet conditions last weekend, clearing huge debris piles and fallen trees from the trail after a storm damaged the area last October.  More work still needs to be done to repair the broken boardwalk and add additional sections in areas that were impacted but it is possible to walk the trail again now.  Click here to view our photo gallery of the Avatar Grove trail clean-up: https://bit.ly/2mXtMK2

Check out our Facebook photo gallery revealing the fragmentation of the East Creek Valley, one of the very last intact primary watersheds on Vancouver Island until the BC Liberal government allowed the industrial logging of the upper valley starting in 2002 and then the lower valley in 2015 and on. These photos were captured by AFA photographer TJ Watt in the summer and fall of 2015. https://bit.ly/2mXhKQM

Here's a media release from our allies at Sierra Club BC about the brutal fragmentation of the East Creek Valley on far northwestern Vancouver Island on the north side of the Brooks Peninsula in Kwakwaka'wakw Quatsino territory. East Creek was one of the very last intact primary watersheds on Vancouver Island until the BC Liberal government allowed the industrial logging of the upper valley starting in 2002 and then the lower valley in 2015 and on. The valley is home to major runs of spawning salmon, as well as bears, wolves, cougars, elk, deer, and species at risk like the marbled murrelet and northern goshawk. The valley is tattered now like most ancient forests across Vancouver Island but there are still significant tracts of ancient forest there that require protection - and the BC Liberals and NDP both need to be pressured to do so. 

See the media release at: https://sierraclub.bc.ca/east-creek-investigation-highlighting-bc-government-failure-to-protect-endangered-rainforest/

Hey Vancouver Island friends! Come join the Ancient Forest Alliance, as we support the Public and Private Workers of Canada (PPWC - formerly the Pulp, Paper, and Woodworkers of Canada) who are organizing a sustainable forestry rally in Victoria on Wednesday, April 12 (Legislature, noon) to protect old-growth forests, ensure a value-added sustainable second-growth forest industry, and to end the export of raw logs from BC! Thanks to PPWC forestry officer Cam Shiell, president Arnold Bercov and their PPWC team for organizing this! See more details:  https://www.facebook.com/events/303689276716502/permalink/304594236626006/