"United Roots" AFA Fundraiser Pendant by Emma Glover Design

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We'd like to thank one of our local jewelry designers, Emma Glover Design (https://www.facebook.com/emmagloverdesign) for her latest creative endeavour of this awesome handcrafted, sterling silver, “United Roots” Pendant, a fundraising piece for the Ancient Forest Alliance. We are so grateful for all the ways our community comes together in protecting B.C.'s endangered forests. Thanks Emma! Pendants are available by request @ $100ea. or purchase one (4 available) at the Ancient Forest Alliance booth at this Saturday's Oaklands West Coast Winter Market from 10-4 (https://www.facebook.com/events/217441831759733/).

THANK YOU to Trees Organic Coffee House, Banyen Books & Sound, and Eternal Abundance!

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Thanks to Trees Organic Coffee House (treescoffee.com) for hosting the AFA’s holiday sales booth in Vancouver this season, and to Banyen Books & Sound (www.banyen.com) as well as Eternal Abundance (eternalabundance.ca) for selling AFA merchandise to assist in our fundraising efforts! We greatly appreciate the support of these local businesses for our work to ensure the protection of BC’s endangered old-growth forests and a sustainable second-growth forest industry!

The Style of Support

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Inspire Hair Design will be donating $1 from every hair service rendered this November to our campaign to protect BC's endangered old-growth ecosystems! Thanks to Inspire Hair Design for being inspired to help the forests! https://inspirehairdesign.ca/

THANK YOU to LUSH, MEC, Patagonia, and the Evergreen Foundation

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The Ancient Forest Alliance is most grateful for the major support of ethical companies and foundations in helping our organization continue our work to protect BC’s endangered old-growth forests and to ensure a sustainable, second-growth forest industry. We are giving great THANKS to:

– LUSH handmade cosmetics and soaps, which has provided major support again, both through its Charity Pot program and through an employee vote of preferred organizations, to the Ancient Forest Alliance. We are most grateful for their long-term dedication in supporting numerous environmental organizations, including the Ancient Forest Alliance for three years now! Their staff have also helped to write hundreds of letters and push political decision makers to protect the ancient forests east of Vancouver. See their website www.LUSH.ca

– The Evergreen Foundation, which has provided support for a Coastal Douglas-Fir ecosystem restoration project (invasive species removal and native tree and shrub planting) through their partnership with Canon, as part of the Take Root Program. The Ancient Forest Alliance partnered with the Ecological Pathfinders of Portage Park and the Victoria Green Team to help restore a portion of Portage Park’s native Garry oak and Douglas-fir/maple ecosystem in September. See their website www.Evergreen.ca

– To the Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) Victoria store and staff, whose staff voted the AFA as their preferred organization to support this year. The MEC was also instrumental in supporting the AFA’s campaign to protect the Avatar Grove in 2012. See their website www.MEC.ca

– To Patagonia Victoria, whose new store in Victoria has chosen the Ancient Forest Alliance as its recipient as part of the 1% For The Planet donation. Patagonia has a long history of supporting the conservation movement and their generosity will allow us to expand our campaigns. See their website.

We’ve crossed 30,000 petition signatures! THANK YOU! Let’s keep going!

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The Ancient Forest Alliance's petition to protect British Columbia’s endangered old-growth forests and forestry jobs recently crossed the 30,000 signature mark! Thank you to everyone who has signed and shared the petition so far. You're helping send a clear message to BC's politcians that we need to protect our endangered old-growth forests, log second-growth sustainbly, and ban raw log exports. Can you now help us reach 50,000 by sharing this link online? ancientforestalliance.org/ways-to-take-action-for-forests/petition/

Avatar Grove Boardwalk: Preliminary Phase Complete – THANK YOU SO MUCH!

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Avatar Grove Boardwalk: Preliminary Phase Complete – THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Fundraising Continues for Future Upgrades in 2015

**To DONATE go to: https://16.52.162.165/avatar-grove-boardwalk-now-completed-and-open/

The Avatar Grove near Port Renfrew is a majestic old-growth forest of enormous redcedar trees. It has become a major tourism draw, akin to a “second Cathedral Grove”. The now-popular hiking area was saved in 2012 through a campaign lead by the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA), with the help of thousands of our supporters and local tourism businesses with the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce and the Sooke Region Tourism Association. Its protection has bolstered the economy of southern Vancouver Island. Avatar Grove is in the Gordon River Valley, on Crown land in traditional Pacheedaht territory. See photos here: https://16.52.162.165/photos-media/

The AFA has been working since 2013 on construction of a new boardwalk to help protect the area’s delicate understory and tree roots from excessive trampling, to improve visitor access and safety, and to support local eco-tourism.

THANKS to your support, we’ve raised over $12,000 in 2014 so far and have now completed the basic, preliminary phase of the boardwalk, including including vital bridges, steps, tree-viewing platforms, and walkways over several sensitive, steep, slippery and wet sections. This is an incredible improvement from before and one that has been enjoyed by thousands of people already from all across the world. If you’ve yet to visit the grove since the work began, now’s a great time to do so!

***Funding Still Needed for 2015 Upgrades

While the initial phase of the boardwalk is complete, funds are still needed to support important future upgrades, to be continued in the spring of 2015, including walkways across the flat “muddy areas” prone to flooding and steps down the steep slope to the creek in the Upper Avatar Grove.

$100 sponsors 1 metre of boardwalk and you will receive a thank you certificate with your name or a friend’s name if it’s a gift!

  1. Donate securely online: https://16.52.162.165/avatar-grove-boardwalk-now-completed-and-open/
  2. By phone: 250-896-4007
  3. By Mail: Victoria Main PO, Box 8459, Victoria, BC V8W 3S1, Canada

Thank you all again for your tremendous support of this important conservation project! The trails at Avatar Grove will be enjoyed by many many folks for years and years to come.

Thank You to Moksha Yoga Victoria!

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Thank you to Victoria’s Moksha Yoga yogis, making change one Karma class at a time. Your contributions to the Ancient Forest Alliance’s campaigns to protect B.C’s endangered old growth forests are greatly appreciated. May every Tree Pose bring us that much closer to our goals!

Great News! BC Government Backs Down from Tree Farm Licence Expansion Plans for Now – THANK YOU for Speaking Up!

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Recently, just before the Labour Day weekend, the BC government quickly mentioned that they have no immediate plans to introduce any legislation to expand Tree Farm Licences across British Columbia in 2014 or in the spring. This proposal has been a recurring scheme by the BC Liberal government – proposed before the 2013 BC election and then again this year until now – to give exclusive logging rights to major logging companies on vast areas of BC’s public forest lands. Each time, a massive public uproar has played an important role in preventing this “forest giveaway scheme” from being implemented!

THANK YOU to the many thousands of our supporters who formed the numeric bulk of the opposition speaking up against this proposal (see www.BCForestMovement.com), to the many First Nations who voiced their concerns and especially to the Tsilhqot’in First Nation who recently won the land title case in the Supreme Court, which was a fundamental reason for the BC government backing down. We must stay vigilant in case the relentless BC Liberal government tries again to attempt such a plan in the future.

[Original article in Clearwater Times no longer available]

Native Tree and Shrub Planting in Portage Park (View Royal) on Sept.14

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Join the Greater Victoria Green Team, Ecological Pathfinder volunteers of Portage Park, and Ancient Forest Alliance for a fun day of planting trees and shrubs in the beautiful Portage Park (View Royal). An ecological restoration project has been taking place in Portage Park, with the removal of 1000s of pounds of invasive plants over the last year! Now we need to re-plant native trees and shrubs as the next step to improve the ecological integrity and health of this habitat.

Join a group of volunteers and learn about the ecology of Vancouver Island’s amazing forests, native plants, and help restore the native ecosystem. Thanks to the support of the Evergreen Foundation and Canon.

Date: Sunday, September 14
Time: 9:45am to 2pm (Stay for as long as you want, and if you need to leave early that is okay!)

Tools, refreshments, and training will be provided!

Join the event and RSVP here: https://www.meetup.com/Greater-Victoria-Green-Team/events/201693132/

For more info contact Amanda at: amanda@greenteamscanada.ca

Recent old-growth logging by Island Timberlands on McLaughlin Ridge near Port Alberni.

To Darshan Sihota, CEO of Island Timberlands, and Steve Thomson, BC Minister of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations:

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To Darshan Sihota, CEO of Island Timberlands, and Steve Thomson, BC Minister of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations:

We, the undersigned organizations, are greatly concerned about the rapid logging by Island Timberlands of McLaughlin Ridge near Port Alberni. We urge both the BC government and Island Timberlands to ensure that this critical area and the remaining old growth forests on Vancouver Island in similar situations are not logged.

A few hundred hectares of extremely endangered old-growth forests still stand – for now – on McLaughlin Ridge. This includes major stands of ancient Douglas-fir trees, the overwhelming majority of which have been logged on BC’s coast. McLaughlin Ridge has been recognized by the provincial government’s own biologists as one of the most important habitats for the red-listed or endangered Queen Charlotte Goshawk and as one of the finest ungulate wintering ranges on Vancouver Island.

McLaughlin Ridge is part of 78,000 hectares of land that were removed from Tree Farm Licence (TFL) 44 on Vancouver Island in 2004, thereby removing the environmental policies and/or regulations designed to protect species at risk, old-growth forests, ungulate winter ranges, and riparian areas; to control the rate of cut; and that prohibited raw log exports in order to protect local mills.

McLaughlin Ridge was supposed to be protected by the provincial government as an Ungulate Winter Range (UWR) and Wildlife Habitat Area (WHA), until the province’s plans changed when it removed the lands from Tree Farm Licence 44. The removal of the lands from TFL 44 included the stipulation from the BC government that a follow-up agreement be developed between the company and the government to ensure the protection of McLaughlin Ridge and other intended UWR’s and WHA’s – however, both parties failed to pursue the agreement, and the lands are now being logged. This confirms the basis of the tremendous public opposition to the removal of these lands from the TFL, as our worst fears regarding this major policy shift are now being realized.

In total, about 2400 hectares of endangered old-growth forests originally intended for protection by the BC government as Ungulate Winter Ranges and Wildlife Habitat Areas in TFL 44 are now endangered. These lands also include Horne Mountain above the world-famous Cathedral Grove, the Cameron Valley Firebreak, Katlum Creek, and other areas – about two-thirds of which are estimated to have now been logged. Much of McLaughlin Ridge could be logged within a few short weeks at the current pace of falling.

Time is short, and we are asking that Island Timberlands and the BC government show leadership to prevent the escalation and widening of the conflict over the company’s logging operations.

We are asking that:

  •  Island Timberlands immediately cease and desist from logging McLaughlin Ridge and other such critically endangered old-growth forests, including those formerly intended for protection by the provincial government in TFL 44.
  • The provincial government take responsibility and show leadership by working towards a conservation solution for these lands. The Ministry of FLNRO must follow through on the stipulation it made regarding the conservation of these known wildlife habitats when it was announced these lands would be removed from the Tree Farm Licence in 2004.

Sincerely,

  • Port Alberni Watershed-Forest Alliance
  • Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA)
  • Alberni Environmental Coalition
  • Arrowsmith Parks and Land-use Council
  • Canopy
  • Council of Canadians – Port Alberni branch
  • Canadian Parks And Wilderness Society (CPAWS)
  • ForestEthics
  • Friends of Clayoquot Sound
  • Greenpeace Canada
  • Island Stance
  • Pulp, Paper, and Woodworkers of Canada (PPWC) union
  • Save the Day
  • Sierra Club BC
  • Valhalla Wilderness Society
  • Wilderness Committee