The Narwhal: A billion dollars for nature in BC as long-awaited agreement is signed

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November 3, 2023
By Ainslie Cruickshank
The Narwhal

See the original article.

The tripartite nature agreement comes with new and old funding to protect old-growth forests, species at risk.

Federal, provincial and First Nations leaders gathered against the backdrop of Burrard Inlet Friday to announce a long-awaited nature agreement that promises further protections for old-growth forests and at-risk species.

The agreement, which runs through March 2030, comes with $1 billion in joint federal-provincial funding — some of which has already been announced — including $50 million from Ottawa to permanently protect 1.3 million hectares of “high priority” old-growth forests in BC.

Premier David Eby called it a “historic partnership.”

“We are so excited because it will enable us to fast track our old-growth protection work, it will enable us to protect habitat for species that are at-risk in our province,” he said.

The agreement ​​— signed by the provincial and federal governments and the First Nations Leadership Council — also includes commitments to support Indigenous-led conservation initiatives, conserve enough old forest habitat to support the recovery of 250 spotted owls and restore 140,000 hectares of degraded habitat within the next two years.

“This is a major, major agreement on protecting nature,” Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault told The Narwhal ahead of Friday’s announcement.

“I think people will look at this agreement and say, ‘OK, this is how it needs to be done going forward now in Canada,’ ” he said. “It’s nature, it’s conservation, it’s restoration, but it’s also about reconciliation.”

Recovery of endangered species, such as caribou and spotted owls, is one of the key goals of the new nature agreement. Photo: Ryan Dickie / The Narwhal

The governments have committed to working with Indigenous Rights holders to implement the agreement in a way that’s consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

“Fundamentally, we need to be a part of the decision-making process,” Terry Teegee, the Regional Chief of the British Columbia Assembly of First Nations, said during Friday’s announcement.

“We have a sacred duty to do our utmost to protect the land, to nurture the land, and this agreement serves that purpose,” Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs said. “It’s the right thing to do for our grandchildren and future generations.”

Conservation groups welcome new agreement to protect nature amid unprecedented biodiversity decline

Ken Wu, the executive director of the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance, called the new agreement a “huge leap forward to supercharge the expansion of the protected area system in British Columbia.”

Dedicated funding is crucial for enabling Indigenous-led conservation initiatives, he said.

But one thing he will be watching for moving forward are ecosystem-based protection targets, to ensure conservation of the highest risk ecosystems.

The agreement comes at a critical time for nature globally. Biodiversity is declining with unprecedented speed and scientists warn the world could be in the midst of the sixth mass extinction event. One million species are at risk of disappearing, according to a 2019 global assessment. Others have already been lost.

In Canada alone, 5,000 species — such as the western sandpiper, blue whale, eastern prickly-pear cactus and the Vancouver marmot — are at some risk of extinction, according to a comprehensive survey of the country’s biodiversity.

Habitat destruction from clearcut logging, mining, oil and gas extraction and expansive urban development is a driving force behind biodiversity loss, but climate change, invasive species and over-hunting and fishing are also major contributors.

Under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework signed at COP15 in December 2022, Canada and 195 other countries agreed to take urgent action to stem nature losses, including by conserving 30 per cent of land and waters by 2030.

But Canada would be hard-pressed to meet its commitments without the support of provinces, territories and Indigenous nations.

Through nature agreements, the federal government is offering major funding injections for provinces and territories that agree to stronger conservation action. The first, a $20.6 million agreement with the Yukon, was announced at COP15.

The BC agreement comes after three years of negotiations between the federal and provincial government and one year of trilateral negotiations with the First Nations Leadership Council, which comprises the British Columbia Assembly of First Nations, the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs and the First Nations Summit.

Provincial funding for the agreement comes through existing programs and initiatives, including modernized land use planning, forest landscape planning and the new conservation financing mechanism announced last week. At least $104 million of federal funding for restoration is being allocated through the federal government’s initiative to plant two billion trees over ten years.

Jens Wieting, a senior forest and climate campaigner at Sierra Club BC, said the BC nature agreement has “all the ingredients to speed up progress” towards meeting the 2030 targets, but “it must translate to change on the ground.”

‘Nothing else can put this new agreement to the test as the spotted owl can’

BC has made significant commitments to both protect 30 per cent of land in the province by 2030 and also to transform the way decisions about land and natural resources are made.

But internal government records show the province also saw the nature agreement as a way to avoid direct federal intervention to protect at-risk species. Though it rarely uses it, the federal government has authority under the Species At Risk Act to intervene in provincial land use decisions to protect at-risk species and has been urged to do so in the case of spotted owls.

Spotted owls were listed as endangered under the act 20 years ago and yet the old-growth forests they depend on are still logged today.

Guilbeault recommended the federal government issue an emergency order this year to protect critical spotted owl habitat, but the BC government lobbied against it and ultimately the federal cabinet chose not to issue the order.

The new nature agreement commits the governments to finalizing a spotted owl recovery strategy and protecting enough of the raptor’s old-growth forest habitat to one day support 250 owls in the wild. Additionally, it lays out commitments to increase capacity for BC’s captive breeding program and efforts to control barred owl numbers.

“We’re putting money on the table, the BC government is putting money on the table,” Guilbeault said. “I think that’s a significant change from where we were 20, 10 or even five years ago,” he said.

Following the press conference, Spuzzum First Nation Chief James Hobart said “nothing else can put this new agreement to the test as the spotted owl can.”

“They’re really important to us,” he said. “When we see a spotted owl, sometimes we think of it as somebody that’s passed on.”

“When you only see one around, it’s not really a good indicator of our messengers,” he said.

The spotted owl, he said, should determine where logging can and can’t happen. And if a First Nation says it doesn’t want logging in its territory, it should be “a no go zone,” Hobart said. “We should not have to have that discussion more than once,” he said.

‘Legal gaps’ leave nature vulnerable as BC develops new biodiversity policy framework

Alongside efforts to recover endangered species such as the spotted owl, the nature agreement lays out commitments to address threats to species early on by identifying and protecting critical habitat to prevent crisis-level population declines.

These early actions could help avoid the need to list species under the federal Species at Risk Act, the agreement says.

That’s a concern for Charlotte Dawe, conservation and policy campaigner for the Wilderness Committee.

“If we’re not listing species that need to be listed, that’s an issue,” she said. Those decisions should be science-based, not determined by whether the government is already taking recovery actions or by potential impacts on industry, she said.

One of the long-standing conservation challenges in BC is the piecemeal approach the province has taken to protecting at-risk species.

Conservation groups say it’s not working. A report last year from the Wilderness Committee and Sierra Club BC found “huge legal gaps” are driving species loss and urged the province to develop a new law that prioritizes ecosystem health and protects species at risk.

The Forest Practices Board, meanwhile, showed BC is failing to use even the tools it already has at its disposal to protect at-risk species’ critical habitat in a report released this summer. The report found, for instance, the province hasn’t updated its legal list of species at risk since 2006, meaning it can’t use tools under the Forest and Range Practices Act to protect numerous species scientists consider to be under threat.

BC has committed to overhauling the way it manages land and is working with First Nations to develop a new biodiversity and ecosystem health framework, a draft of which is expected to be released for public consultation this year.

But critics worry the promised transformation is taking too long to materialize, as old-growth forests continue to fall.

And while the new nature agreement outlines ambitious commitments, Victoria Watson, a lawyer with the environmental law charity Ecojustice, notes the agreement itself isn’t legally binding.

“Law and regulations that hold Canada and BC accountable to some of the commitments that have been outlined in the agreement are really essential,” she said. As is a “willingness on the part of Canada and BC to really share authority on the ground with First Nations.”

In the short-term, Watson said she’ll be looking for “immediate action on the ground,” including new old-growth logging deferrals.

Guilbeault said old-growth forests were “at the heart” of nature agreement discussions.

Finalizing the agreement is an “extremely positive step,” he said, one that should see tens of millions of dollars in federal funding actually flowing to the BC government and First Nations to support conservation.

“My hope,” Guilbeault said, is “especially on species at risk and old-growth that we can move as quickly as possible because obviously it’s a matter of some urgency.”

Updated Nov. 3, 2023, at 2:55 p.m. PT: This story has been updated to include quotes from the nature agreement announcement and reactions to it.

See the original article.

 

CHEK News: BC signs ‘historic’ $1B agreement to protect lands and waters

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November 3, 2023
By Mary Griffin
CHEK News

Read the original article and watch the video here.

It’s described as an historic agreement for BC.

It’s a $1 billion agreement to protect 30 per cent of BC’s lands and waters by 2030, according to Steve Guilbeault, Federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change of Canada.

“This may be the single most significant nature plan in the history of Canada,” he said at an announcement Friday.

Ottawa is contributing $500 million, with $50 million reserved to protect 4,000 square kilometres of old-growth forest, and another $104 million to restore the habitat of species at risk.

The provincial government’s share is more than $560 million.

Premier David Eby said the agreement will enable the provincial government to fast-track our old-growth protection work.

“This is a paradigm shift in our province about protecting ecosystems, about recognizing the integrated nature of what we want to protect on the land, and how we use the land to make sure it’s there for generations to come,” he said Friday.

TJ Watt, co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance, said this agreement could lead to the permanent deferments of logging on Vancouver Island areas in Fairy Creek, and the Walbran Valley.

“This level of funding, again, can help support First Nations that are in the driver’s seat in deciding what old-growth forests get protected in their territory, move some of those temporary deferrals to long time protection measures,” Watt said.

The agreement comes at a critical time, according to Regional Chief, Terry Teegee, BC Assembly of First Nations.

“We’ve experienced this past year, unprecedented drought, unprecedented wildfire season in Canada’s history, and the province’s history. And certainly part of that is conserving biodiverse areas in our respective territories, and in British Columbia,” Teegee said.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillips, Union of BC Indian Chiefs, said First Nations will oversee the conservation efforts.

“We have a sacred duty to do our utmost duty to protect the land, to nurture the land,” he said. “And this agreement serves that purpose. What I like about the agreement is tripartite.”

To reach its target, 100,000 square kilometres of land must be added to the 20 percent of the province already protected.

Read the original article.

 

Endangered Ecosystems Alliance Executive Director, Ken Wu, stands beside a giant Sitka spruce tree in an old-growth forest west of Lake Cowichan in Ditidaht territory.

The Georgia Strait: “Conservation financing is a game-changer for BC’s old-growth forests”

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October 31, 2023
The Georgia Strait – Op-Ed by Ken Wu.
See the original article.

Last week, BC Premier David Eby announced a new $300 million “conservation financing mechanism.” Based on a startup contribution of $150 million from the Province and $150 million from the BC Parks Foundation (the charitable partner of the BC Parks agency), the fund will support First Nations communities to establish new Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs). This puts BC on the verge of a major protected areas expansion over the next few months and years to reach its minimum projection target of 30 per cent by 2030. Currently about 15 per cent of BC is in protected areas.

BC’s old-growth forests have spawned one of the most passionate and pervasive ecosystem-protection movements in world history, and for good reason. They contain some of the largest and oldest living organisms that have ever existed in Earth’s history: forest giants that can live to 2,000 years old and grow wider than a living room. Old-growth forests are vital to support unique and endangered species, climate stability, clean water, wild salmon, First Nations cultures, and BC’s multi-billion dollar tourism industry. They have unique characteristics that are not replicated by the ensuing second-growth tree plantations that they are being replaced with and that are logged every 50 to 80 years on BC’s coast, never to become old-growth again.

Well over 80 per cent of the original, productive old-growth forests (sites where most big trees and timber values reside) have already been logged, and over five million hectares of big trees, rare (by ecosystem type) trees, and the very oldest of old-growth forests remain unprotected in BC; 2.6 million hectares have been identified as the top priorities for logging deferrals by the Province’s appointed panels.

I’ve spent the last 33 years of my life with a continuous focus on protecting old-growth forests in BC, engaged in just about every tactic in the toolbox of environmental activism at one time or another. But over the past six years I’ve focused the vast majority of my time on two key policies that are indispensable for protecting old-growth forests and BC’s diverse ecosystems: conservation financing and ecosystem-based protection targets. These are two fundamental game-changers for stopping old-growth and ecosystem destruction in BC.

Conservation financing is funding for Indigenous communities linked to the establishment of new protected areas and conservation initiatives. In BC, the Province cannot unilaterally establish protected areas and “just save the old-growth” on Crown/unceded First Nations lands; the support of local First Nations governments is a legal necessity in their territories. The establishment of protected areas and deferrals for logging move at the speed of the local First Nations whose territories it is; so, the BC Government’s policies and funding can either facilitate or hinder the abilities of First Nations to protect ecosystems. Conservation financing is a vital enabling condition that can greatly facilitate and speed up the protection of old-growth forests.

Those who believe that the BC Government can unilaterally “just save the old-growth forests” across BC without the consent of the local First Nations (200 different communities) in their unceded territories continue to hold a long outdated and simplistic model of conservation in BC, and therefore fail to understand the centrality of conservation financing.

That is: First Nations communities are in the driver’s seat for new protected areas in their unceded territories. The BC Government must provide the vehicle—the policy framework and the funding—for First Nations to drive to where we all need to go: the protection of the diversity of ecosystems in BC.

Conservation financing is key to meet the needs of Indigenous communities for sustainable economic development alternatives to their old-growth logging dependencies. Many or most BC First Nations have an economic dependency fostered by successive BC governments on forestry, including on old-growth logging, and require support to develop sustainable alternatives in ecotourism, clean energy, sustainable seafood, non-timber forest products like wild mushrooms, and other businesses. They also need funding to develop the capacity to undertake land-use planning, mapping, engagement of community members, stakeholder and resource licensees, and stewardship and management jobs in new protected areas.

Conservation financing thus paves the path and is the indispensable enabler for new protected-areas establishment in BC; without it, it would simply be impossible to undertake the large-scale protection of the most contested landscapes with the highest resource values in BC.

On BC’s central and north coasts (such as the Great Bear Rainforest), $120 million in conservation financing from the Province, Federal Government, and conservation groups in 2006 resulted in the protection of almost 1.8 million hectares of land (about two-thirds the size of Vancouver Island), the creation of over 100 businesses, and 1,000 permanent jobs in First Nations communities—and significantly raised the average household income in numerous communities.

The $300 million that has kick-started BC’s new conservation financing fund will over time grow with additional provincial, federal, and philanthropic funding, possibly or likely into the billions over the next several years.

Does conservation financing mean that all problems with BC’s old-growth policies are now solved? Of course not. But it’s an indispensable part of the solution.

Now our battle shifts to several key gaps or loopholes in BC’s old-growth and protected-areas policies.

First, the new conservation financing mechanism needs to be tied to “ecosystem-based targets”—that is, protection targets developed by a chief scientist and Traditional Ecological Knowledge committees that ensure that all ecosystems, including the most endangered and contested landscapes such as old-growth forests with the greatest timber values, are protected. Without ecosystem-based targets to guide conservation financing, we’ll see again an emphasis on protecting treeless alpine tundra and subalpine areas with little to no timber values; this largely skirts around saving the big timber in the biologically-rich lowlands that will still get logged. All native ecosystems need and deserve protection—but an emphasis must be placed on the most endangered and least protected ecosystems to tackle the extinction and climate crises happening right now. Potentially, ecosystem-based protection targets may happen via BC’s forthcoming Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework. The Province already has a head start with the Technical Advisory Panel’s identification of the grandest, rarest, and oldest old-growth forests recommended for logging deferrals—recommendations that some bureaucrats seem intent on tossing out now.

Secondly, the province must fund First Nations communities to undertake old-growth logging deferrals in order to help offset their lost logging revenues. This lack of funding for First Nations is the primary barrier to getting the full 2.6 million hectares of the most at-risk old-growth identified by the Technical Advisory Panel deferred from logging. By way of example, a “solutions-space” fund was used successfully in Clayoquot Sound to enable the greatest stands of old-growth to remain while First Nations undertook land use and protected-areas planning.

Thirdly, we’re watching with great concern as the Province might be looking to establish new “flexitarian” designations: tenuous or fake “protected areas.” These types of “protections” are embodied in several existing conservation regulations in BC such as Old-Growth Management Areas with moveable boundaries, and some types of Wildlife Habitat Areas where commercial logging often still takes place. Instead, Provincial Conservancies and several designations simply termed “Protected Areas” in BC are much stronger. They exclude commercial logging, mining, and oil and gas development, and were co-developed by First Nations people to protect their subsistence rights to hunt, fish, forage, and harvest individual old-growth cedars for cultural purposes (totem poles, dugout canoes, masks, etc.), and ensure First Nations co-management to protect their rights and title.

Fourthly, thousands of hectares of some of the finest old-growth forests have been excluded from the roster of priority deferral areas due to data errors. The Province has thus far forbidden the addition of misidentified stands to the list, yet is removing thousands of hectares of misidentified sites that were included (as in: they only allow for the subtraction, not the addition, of misidentified stands from deferral areas due to their mistakes).

So, there is still a lot to do to protect old-growth forests. But make no mistake: the conservation financing mechanism is a huge victory for ecosystems and communities.

Ken Wu is the executive director of the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance and was the former co-founder and executive director of the Ancient Forest Alliance and the executive director of the Wilderness Committee’s Victoria chapter. He has been working to protect old-growth forests for over 30 years in BC.

The Times Colonist: BC’s $300M old-growth fund puts First Nations ‘in the driver’s seat’

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October 26, 2023
Times Colonist
By Stefan Labbé

$300-million investment aims to save BC’s old-growth forests by offering First Nations sustainable economic alternatives to industrial logging.

The BC government and BC Parks Foundation have teamed up to provide $300 million to protect old-growth forests across the province — a move environmental groups have described as a critical step in turning local economies away from unsustainable logging.

Praise for the new green funding came from all sides. Ken Wu, executive director of Endangered Ecosystems Alliance, said the new fund will put First Nations “in the driver’s seat.”

“If you don’t have the funding for the nations… it’s like asking them to jettison their primary source of revenues and jobs,” said Wu.

“It’s the fuel that will actually allow old growth to get saved.”

On the coast, the BC government defines old-growth trees as those more than 250 years old, while in the Interior, the designation depends on the type of forest and can range from more than 140 years to more than 250 years old. Such old-growth forests make up roughly 20 per cent of BC’s forests, according to the province.

Under a new conservation financing mechanism, the money will go toward building alternative economies so First Nations can build revenue outside the harvesting of old-growth trees. That could include anything from ecotourism, clean energy projects and sustainable seafood operations to non-timber forest products like wild mushrooms and jobs managing new protected areas, Wu said.

Earlier Thursday, Premier David Eby said conserving nature is “one of the most important things we can do to protect against the worst effects of climate change.”

Terry Teegee, a board member of the BC Parks Foundation, said many nations are looking for alternatives to transform jobs into a sustainable economy.

“First Nations have always believed that if we take care of nature, it will take care of us,” said Teegee, who is also a regional chief with the BC Assembly of First Nations.

“This funding will help support nations who have a vision of abundance in their territories. That will benefit everyone.”

The announcement was also lauded by other environmental groups.

“This conservation financing mechanism puts major wind in the sails for the protection of old-growth forests in BC,” added TJ Watt, a campaigner and photographer with the Ancient Forest Alliance.

Torrance Coste, national forest and climate campaigner for the Wildness Committee, said the money was one of the “missing ingredients” in protecting old-growth forests in BC, but that the province has yet to “stand up to logging corporations.”

Linda Coady, president of the BC Council of Forest Industries, said it supported the new fund, describing it as a “new and innovative BC-based approach.”

“These last three years have been challenging for the BC forest sector since the November 2021 provincial announcement to defer old-growth logging. While temporary, the uncertainty about the future of the deferral areas impacts forest sector jobs and communities across BC,” the industry group, which represents some of BC’s biggest forestry companies, said in a statement.

The conservation financing mechanism will be managed by an oversight committee independent of the BC government, according to the Ministry of Forests.

It is meant to work alongside forest landscape plans meant to establish new objectives around how to manage old-growth trees, climate change, wildfire risk and biodiversity. Plans under that framework have been confirmed in the Bulkley Valley, 100 Mile House, Williams Lake and Vancouver Island.

This year, the BC government pledged to protect 30 per cent of BC’s land base by 2030. But just how it will do that has not been clear. The latest announcement offers a long-term source of money Wu says will grow as it’s matched through crowd-sourcing, and federal, provincial and philanthropic funding agreements still under negotiation.

Anyone interested in contributing to the fund can do so through the BC Parks Foundation.

Wu, who has been one of the leading advocates of the funding scheme since 2017, says there remain at least three big gaps in how the province intends to protect its oldest and most vulnerable forest ecosystems.

First, he said the conservation financing mechanism has yet to be tied to specific ecosystem-based targets, which would ensure the most endangered and least represented ecosystems are protected. Consider big-treed valley bottoms, he said. It’s a lot harder to protect them than a sparsely treed alpine area.

“Without ecosystem-based targets, it’s like sending in the fire crews to hose down all the non-burning homes while the houses on fire get ignored,” Wu said.

A second gap, according to Wu, is a lack of money to support First Nations economic activities while old-growth deferrals are in place over the next couple of years. Without that, he said there’s no room to figure out what to do next.

Third, Wu pointed to the province’s failure to uphold standards for the areas it chooses to protect. His worry is that it could lead to loopholes where protected forests still face unsustainable logging.

“The concern here is that the province may be looking at flexitarian protected-area standards — sort of like a vegetarian who still eats chicken and pork and beef,” he said.

Despite the long road ahead, Wu remained hopeful.

“This is a big lead forward. Let’s make no mistake: it’s a great day.”

See the orginal article.

The Canadian Press: Poor data hinders B.C. old-growth logging deferrals, advocates say

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October 22, 2023
By Brenna Owens
The Canadian Press
Published in The Globe and Mail – Read the original article.

Irreplaceable ancient forests that should meet criteria for interim protection are being left open to logging in British Columbia due to outdated and inaccurate government data, advocates and an ecologist who advised the province say.

“The deferral process was intended to stop the bleed,” said Karen Price, an ecologist who served on the provincially appointed panel that identified 2.6 million hectares of high-priority old growth and recommended it be set aside from logging.

“It was intended to be a quick and dirty stopgap so First Nations and everyone could get together and do sensible planning, and it has not worked that way.”

In November 2021, B.C. announced a process to temporarily defer harvesting in those priority forests, provided First Nations agreed with the proposal in their territories, allowing time for longer-term planning.

It followed an earlier pledge by the province to implement the recommendations from an old-growth strategic review, which urged B.C. to act within six months to defer harvesting in ecosystems at high risk of irreversible biodiversity loss.

The Forests Ministry did not provide the latest deferral numbers. Staff are working on an update that’s expected in the coming weeks, a spokesperson said.

In a statement last July, the ministry said deferrals had been implemented across 1.2 million hectares identified by the panel, while an estimated 11,578 hectares of proposed deferrals were logged between November 2021 and December 2022.

But Price said old growth remains unidentified and open to logging due to “problematic” data that underestimates its age, especially for ancient forests.

The advisory panel worked with provincial data, specifically the vegetation resources inventory, based mostly on aerial images, Price explained.

AFA’s Ian Thomas beside a 10 foot wide cedar stump cut in an area missed for logging deferral on northern Vancouver Island, BC.

But the expert panel had access to on-the-ground data from nearly 7,000 sites throughout B.C. and used it to confirm the remote data.

The panel found the accuracy of projected age of trees in the database dropped “considerably” for stands older than 200 years, Price said.

The discrepancy increases with age, so “ancient forests are severely under-represented in the inventory data,” the panel said in a supplementary report.

That means B.C.’s deferral process is missing areas that should meet the criteria for high-priority old growth at risk of permanent loss, Price said.

A statement from the Forests Ministry this month said a total of 2.33 million hectares of old-growth forests have been “deferred or protected,” a figure that includes areas identified by First Nations in addition to the advisory panel.

B.C. is improving data collection on forests, it said. That includes the use of light detection and ranging technology, known as LiDAR, to help governments, First Nations and resource-based companies make better decisions, the ministry said.

TJ Watt, a photographer and co-founder of the Ancient Rainforest Alliance, said he recently visited a cut block on northern Vancouver Island, where he saw a three-metre-wide stump in a stand classified by the province as being 212 years old.

“Walking into the forest, one could tell this is a highly productive ancient forest filled with giant cedar trees,” Watt said of the area in Quatsino First Nation territory.

Many trees in the grove were likely at least 500 years old, he said.

An incredible trio of ancient cedars at risk on northern Vancouver Island, BC.

B.C. hasn’t publicly stated which nations have agreed to the proposed deferrals, but Watt said the area wasn’t captured by the deferral mapping in the first place.

Details contained in B.C. government mapping show the “interpretation date” for the area’s vegetation data was January 2000, nearly 24 years ago, he said.

Watt said he isn’t aware of any process for the public to flag potentially misclassified old-growth for deferral consideration.

The old-growth advisory panel used three categories to identify areas of high priority for potential deferral: ancient, remnant, and big-treed.

B.C. classifies ancient forests as 250 years and older in ecosystems that experience more frequent natural disturbances, such as wildfire, and 400 years and older in moist or high-elevation areas where such events are rare, Price said.

It’s in those less-frequently disturbed areas, often found along the coast, where the issue of ancient forests missing from B.C.’s data is “widespread,” she said.

“There’s a lot that would be classified as ancient, and in some of these regions there’s very little,” Price said, referring mostly to coastal areas.

In response to a request for comment, the Forests Ministry said the panel worked with higher-level mapping and “acknowledged that the modelling would need to be verified and that some areas may turn out not to be what they had thought.”

Eddie Petryshen, a conservation specialist with Wildsight, an environmental charity based in southeastern B.C., said he has also seen firsthand the discrepancy between the province’s data and the true ages and types of forests he has visited.

In one example from last July, he said the data for two approved cut blocks north of Revelstoke, B.C., showed the area had trees that were about 245 years old, missing the threshold for the ancient classification in the Interior by five years.

“I went in there and, you know, it was beautiful old-growth inland temperate rainforest with trees that are in the one- to two-metre diameter range, the largest cedars. I would expect those trees to be 300 to 500 years old,” Petryshen said.

It takes longer for cedars to grow to that width in the globally unique inland temperate rainforest than it does on B.C.’s coast, he noted.

“These are ancient trees.”

Petryshen said the forests in those cut blocks should have been captured by B.C.’s deferral process, especially as provincial mapping shows they overlap with a deferral area where the cedar-leading forest was classified as being 265 years old.

A man in a blue jacket walks along a logging road that forks between scattered patches of old growth redcedars and Sitka spruce and adjacent cutblocks.

AFA’s Ian Thomas walks along a logging road between scattered patches of old growth and adjacent cutblocks.

He said the B.C. government is allowing old-growth ecosystems to be logged without fully understanding what it is that’s being lost forever.

“We’ve been making really heavy-handed decisions that are based on prioritizing timber for a long time without really good data,” he said.

In looking at the forests B.C. defined as ancient, Price said the panel also found some areas aligned with management boundaries rather than ecological ones, suggesting the criteria hadn’t been equally applied by those doing the analysis.

“There’d be a district line and on one side there would be this forest that was all marked as ancient, and on the other side it wasn’t,” she said.

“The data actually demonstrated that some people were more interested or capable of defining ancient forest than others.”

The cut blocks north of Revelstoke represent the kind of situation that Petryshen said should be addressed through B.C.’s field verification process.

The advisory panel had recommended “precautionary interpretation” of provincial data and local validation before any potential logging of high-priority forests.

But Price said they were concerned from the start that field verification would result in more forests being removed from the deferrals than old growth.

“There’s nobody who’s trying to add to the deferrals, but there’s a whole bunch of people who have an economic incentive to take the deferrals out,” she said.

A provincial guidance document says field verification can be used to both add and remove areas from the deferral mapping in forests where logging is planned.

When an area is removed from the deferrals through field verification, the guidance says another area with the same type of old forest must replace it.

“In most, but not all cases, they seek replacements of equivalent forest,” the ministry statement said of the forest operators carrying out the assessments.

It said field verification has resulted in the identification of 262 hectares as “eligible to be removed” while 103 hectares have been deemed suitable replacements.

“The majority of the 159 hectares … that were removed but not replaced were areas that were burnt to such a significant degree that they no longer qualified as priority at-risk old-growth so (they) did not need replacing,” the statement said.

 

The Independent: Rare tree hunter in Canada finds ‘freak of nature’ 1,000-year-old cedar

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October 8, 2023
By Josh Marcus
The Independent UK

BC government has vowed to protect old-growth forests, but logging is on the rise

An explorer who focuses on location and preserving old-growth trees has encountered what is one of the oldest old-growth trees ever documented in the Canadian province of British Columbia.

Last summer, TJ Watt was bushwhacking through a remote forest in Flores Island, part of Clayoquot Sound, in the territory of the Ahousaht First Nation off the west coast of Vancouver Island, when he came upon a magnificent site.

A massive red cedar appeared, whose trunk seemed to grow wider the farther up it went.

“It was incredible to stand before it,” he told The Washington Post. “I’d describe it as a freak of nature because it actually gets wider as it gets taller. As I looked up at it, I felt a sense of awe and wonder.”

“I’ve found thousands and thousands of trees, and I’ve shot hundreds of thousands of photos of old-growth forests,” he added. “But I’ve never seen a tree as impressive as this one.”

Ancient Forest Alliance photographer TJ Watt beside the gargantuan redcedar on the day he first found it.

After happening upon the tree, he consulted with members of the Ahousaht, who have lived in the territory for thousands of years. As part of the nation’s plans to protect over 80 per cent of their Clayoquot Sound lands as Ahousaht Cultural and Natural Areas, the Ahousaht will protect the giant tree Mr Watt experienced.

The western red cedar measures 151 feet tall and 17 feet wide, and is thought to be over 1,000 years old. Its exact location is being kept secret to protect its sensitive habitat from overuse.

“People would have seen this tree for hundreds of years — my people would have interacted with it for as long as it’s been here,” Tyson Atleo, a representative of the nation, told the Post. “Today we covet these large trees because there are so few of them left.”

Old-growth forests are key reserves of biodiversity and resilience in the face of the climate crisis.

In 2020, the government of British Columbia embarked on what it promised would be a paradigm-shifting new approach to managing these vital forests.

The following year, it consulted with 204 First Nations on whether they supported deferring logging of these forests for the next two years while officials formulated “a new approach to sustainable forest management that prioritizes ecosystem health and community resiliency.”

Critics argue the effort to preserve the forests hasn’t been adequately funded and implemented thus far.

Outlets like Mongabay have documented clear-cutting on Vancouver Island forests slated for protection.

According to analysis of public data, logging of these forests actually increased between 2020 and 2021 by around 13 per cent, CBC reports.

“These are the most resilient forests we have left with a fighting chance to withstand climate change like drought, fire and flooding,” Sierra Club’s Jens Wieting told the outlet. “If we continue to nibble away at the last old-growth we will be left defenceless.”

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The Washington Post: ‘Freak of nature’ tree is the find of a lifetime for forest explorer

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October 8, 2023
By Cathy Free
The Washington Post – Read the original article.

Tree Hunter TJ Watt found the cedar in British Columbia standing 151 feet tall and about 17 feet in diameter

TJ Watt has spent half his life as a forest explorer, a self-described “tree hunter” in British Columbia. He wades deep into endangered forests to find pristine towering trees that are hundreds of years old and massively wide but have never been photographed or documented.

He draws attention to the enormous old-growth trees to show the importance of saving the natural wonders from logging.

The day he approached a gargantuan western red cedar he’d been trekking with a friend for several hours in a remote area on Flores Island in Clayoquot Sound in Ahousaht territory off the west coast of Vancouver Island.

“After bush whacking for a while in the woods, we started to see some really large cedars, then suddenly, up ahead, we could see the looming trunk of this giant tree,” he said. “It was so large that at first, we almost thought we were looking at two trees.”

As he drew closer to the tree, Watt said he was overcome with disbelief: He was dwarfed by a tree standing 151 feet tall and 17 and a half feet in diameter.

The tree, believed to be more than 1,000 years old, was the find of a lifetime. It’s one of the largest old-growth cedars ever documented in British Columbia, Watt said.

“I feel humbled every time I think about it,” said Watt, 39. “I nicknamed it ‘The Wall,’ because it can only be described as a literal wall of wood.”

An aerial view over the old-growth forests of Flores Island in Ahousaht territory, Clayoquot Sound, British Columbia. (TJ Watt/Ancient Forest Alliance)

He said this was a first in his 20 years of tree hunting.

“I’ve found thousands and thousands of trees, and I’ve shot hundreds of thousands of photos of old-growth forests,” he said. “But I’ve never seen a tree as impressive as this one.”

Watt felt humbled by the discovery.

“It was incredible to stand before it,” he said. “I’d describe it as a freak of nature because it actually gets wider as it gets taller. As I looked up at it, I felt a sense of awe and wonder.”

He found the tree in June 2022, but he didn’t alert the public about it until the end of July this year because he wanted to make sure the tree was thoroughly documented, and also wanted input from Ahousaht First Nation members who have lived in the territory for thousands of years.

“It was decided that we should keep the tree’s location a secret because these are sensitive areas, and everything could get pretty trampled if word got out where to find it,” Watt said.

The Ahousaht First Nation has about 2,400 members, with 1,100 living on Flores Island, said Tyson Atleo, a hereditary representative for the nation, someone who is a caretaker of the nation’s cultural traditions and history.

Atleo said he didn’t know about the colossal cedar until Watt took him to see it.

Ancient Forest Alliance photographer TJ Watt and Ahousaht hereditary representative Tyson Atleo with the ancient western red cedar tree that is among the largest ever documented in British Columbia. (TJ Watt/Ancient Forest Alliance)

“The tree leaves you with a sense of wonder about the natural world and the universe,” said Atleo, 37. “There is so much about that tree and the life it upholds that we will never understand. When you look at it, it hits you like that.”

He said the Ahousaht people would have admired it over the ages.

“People would have seen this tree for hundreds of years — my people would have interacted with it for as long as it’s been here,” he said. “Today we covet these large trees because there are so few of them left.”

Canada’s largest tree, widely recognized as the Cheewhat Giant, was first documented in 1988 measuring about 19 feet in diameter and 182 feet in height, according to the Ancient Forest Alliance. It’s located in the protected Pacific Rim National Park Reserve.

While it is protected, about 80% of the original, productive old-growth forests on Vancouver Island have been logged, satellite photos show, according to the Ancient Forest Alliance.

Too many old-growth trees have been cut down for timber rather than being recognized for their value providing habitat for wildlife and storing vast amounts of carbon, Atleo said. An old-growth forest is typically described as a forest containing trees that have developed over hundreds of years, with unique characteristics that are not found in younger forests.

British Columbia has a plan to protect its old-growth forests, but many conservationists have found government implementation of the plan to be slow, said Watt.

“There’s still a lot of work to be done,” he said.

Atleo said his nation now operates an eco-cultural tour company to showcase some of the territory’s old-growth trees (the tree found by Watt won’t be included), and his community is working to get financing to save more ancient forests. The nation has protected 80 percent of its Clayoquot Sound lands on Vancouver Island’s western coast, and the nation will now protect the large tree that Watt documented, he said.

Tyson Atleo is a hereditary representative of the Ahousaht First Nation. (TJ Watt/Ancient Forest Alliance)

“We need to acknowledge that our community is reliant on some [logging] employment in the forest sector, but we are envisioning doing it in a better and new way,” Atleo said. “TJ’s work is helping raise public awareness and inspiring people to feel connected to these forests.”

Watt said he undertook the Flores Island tree-hunting expedition as an explorer for National Geographic and the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, through a grant provided by the Trebek Initiative, a group that funds photographers and others who contribute to Canadian wildlife projects.

Watt shares photos of the giant trees on social media and his Ancient Forest Alliance website.

“I was excited to post the photos because I knew people would be as blown away by the tree as I was,” he said, adding that he also shared some of his first photos of the enormous cedar with the Canadian Broadcasting Company.

These 2020 photos show TJ Watt with a giant red cedar tree before and after it was cut down by loggers in the Caycuse watershed in Ditidaht First Nation territory on southern Vancouver Island. The tree was close to 150 feet tall and 10 feet wide in diameter, Watt said, adding that he hopes to save other old-growth trees from the same fate through his conservation photography work. (TJ Watt/Ancient Forest Alliance)

Watt lives in Victoria, where he grew up in the small town of Metchosin, climbing trees and playing in the woods, he said.

“It was a lush place with forested hillsides — you had the fog rolling through the forest, sunbeams coming in and moss hanging off everything,” he said.

Watt honed his photography skills, he said, and in 2010 he co-founded the Ancient Forest Alliance nonprofit to both document the trees and try to preserve them.

He said he’s now in the woods every chance he gets to explore and photograph some of the most rugged landscapes in British Columbia.

“I look at maps and study satellite imagery of forests to pick an area, then I pack my bags with cameras and communication gear and that’s when the fun starts,” Watt said.

He is often exploring for days at a time and usually takes somebody with him.

“We’ll drive on the back roads, then get out and walk into the woods, and that’s the magic of it,” he said.

TJ Watt grew up with forests in his backyard, and he now spends most of his time documenting old-growth trees. (TJ Watt/Ancient Forest Alliance)

Although he’d visited Flores Island before, he said he was looking forward to exploring more of the island’s 96 square miles of forests. He’s still stunned by what he found there.

“I know I’m not the first person to see this big tree — the Ahousaht people have inhabited this area since time immemorial,” he said. “But I feel honored in modern times to be the first to notice and document it.”

Massive red cedar resembling rock wall discovered in Ahousaht territory

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August 3, 2023
Ha-Shilth-Sa
By Karly Blats

Ahousaht, BC
It was like nothing Ahousaht’s Tyson Atleo had ever seen before.

Giving the illusion of a rock wall, a massive western red cedar tree in Ahousaht territory near Tofino in Clayoquot Sound has been named one of Canada’s most impressive trees by conservationists on Vancouver Island.

Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) photographer and campaigner TJ Watt identified the remotely located tree on Flores Island while exploring with a friend.

The huge tree measures more than 17 feet (five metres) wide near its base, and its trunk gets even wider going upwards more than dozens of meters. According to a press release from the AFA, the tree stands 151 feet (46 metres) tall and is assumed to be well over a thousand years old given its size.

According to the AFA, the tree could have the largest or near largest timber volume of any tree in Canada for about the first 50 feet of its trunk—the part you see and experience from the ground.

“After nearly two decades of photographing, exploring and searching for big trees in old-growth forests across BC, no tree has blown me away more than this one,” said Watt in a press release. “It’s a literal wall of wood. Your brain can’t compute the scale when you stand below it. The first time I arrived, from a distance I thought it had to be two trees because of how wide the trunk and limbs are. It defies words. As an avid big tree hunter, it’s a highlight of my life to find something as spectacular as this.”

According to the BC Big Tree Registry, the tree would currently rank as the sixth largest known red cedar in the country. The registry’s largest red cedar is the Cheewhat Giant, which is located in Ditidaht territory southeast of Nitinat Lake.

The record-sized tree on Flores Island has so far garnered the nickname ‘The Wall’, or ‘ʔiiḥaq ḥumiis’, meaning ‘big red cedar’ in the Nuu-chah-nulth language. It grows on unprotected Crown/public lands in the unceded territory of the Ahousaht First Nation.

No logging plans exist for the area and the Ahousaht First Nation’s Land Use Vision, currently in the late stages of negotiations with the BC government, includes the protection of the forest where this tree is found.

“It was unlike anything I had ever seen before,” said Ahousaht First Nation Hereditary Representative Tyson Atleo. “When TJ first contacted me to go visit the tree, I was assuming it was like many I had experienced across different territories on the Island including in Ahousaht – but this one was obviously quite special. It really does look like a rock wall when you’re hiking up towards it and then you actually realize it’s a tree. It’s just breathtaking.”

Old-growth forests are culturally significant to the Ahousaht people, Atleo said, because they provide the nation with everything they need to survive, from shelter to transportation to clothing.

Aerial view over the ancient forests of Flores Island in Ahousaht territory in Clayoquot Sound, BC.

“The forest provides for every aspect of our wellbeing in addition to being home to our food sources,” Atleo said. “Everything that we need to survive is there, and not only physical survival but it’s a place representative of natural law. So it’s also our place for spirituality, for learning everything we need to know about being good humans on this planet.”

The Ahousaht First Nation’s Land Use Vision calls for the protection of 80 per cent of Ahousaht territory through the creation of new Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs), encompassing most of the old-growth forests in their territory, to be legislated as Provincial Conservancies by the province.

“The 2017 Land Use Vision that we’re working on implementing builds off thousands of years of stewardship and more recently decade’s worth of efforts by some of our late leaders and current leaders,” Atleo Said. “Efforts that include stopping clear-cut harvesting in Ahousaht territories.”

Atleo said the large red cedar is currently within the boundaries of a tree farm license, and that the objective is to transition that tree farm license into new protected areas and a new forest tenure for Ahousaht.

The Ahousaht First Nation is keeping the location of the tree private at this time, but Atleo said they may take visitors there in the future.

See the original article here.

1,000 year old tree found on Flores Island to be protected

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July 28, 2023
CHEK News
By Kori Sidaway

Watch CHEK’s video coverage here.

Nearly two decades into his hunt for B.C.’s biggest trees, it takes a lot to blow away Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner and National Geographic explorer TJ Watt.

A tree on Flores Island has done just that. Five metres (17 feet) wide at its base, even wider as it goes up, reaching more than 150 feet tall, the western red cedar is likely more than 1,000 years old.

“When I first saw it I thought, initially, it was a rock wall,” said Watt.

It’s a sprawling fortress of tree limbs which Watt has dubbed, “Canada’s most impressive tree.”

“It’s just the most mind-blowing thing I’ve seen in nature,” said Watt.

Though currently unprotected, Ahousaht First Nation plans to protect this tree and 80 per cent of other trees in their territory.

“I believe firmly that we do need to protect from ourselves, from extraction and exploitation,” said Tyson Atleo with Ahousaht First Nation. “We need to put a pause on harvesting. We need to put a pause on exploitation so we can re-calibrate that relation. I know we can and Ahousaht is leading that way right now.”

Ahousaht’s approach for a successful conservation-based economy is one that Atleo believes other First Nations could model after.

The next step as Watt sees it, is the province working to ensure it’s an easy process to get there

“[B.C. Premier] David Eby needs to step in to make sure ministries are doing everything in their power to reduce barriers to old growth conservation, stop heel-dragging on conservation financing, provide funding to support old growth deferrals and ensure the oldest and best trees in B.C. Are being protected,” said Watt.

Protected, so generations to come can stand under or see, something that’s been here for more than a millennium. The biggest, Watt is sure, is still yet to come.

“Where that tree might be, who knows, so the hunt continues,” said Watt.

View the original article here.

 

BC big tree hunter documents grandest old-growth tree he’s ever seen

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July 29, 2023
CBC News
By Chad Pawson

TJ Watt says Western red cedar near Tofino is a 46-metre-tall leviathan of a biodiverse ecosystem.

For 20 years, Victoria’s TJ Watt, 39, has trekked through the province’s vast and verdant landscape seeking out giant, old trees to document them and make a case for their conservation.

Now, at a time when exceptionally large trees have dwindled due to logging, he’s recorded what he calls the tree of his lifetime.

“No tree has blown me away more than this one,” he said. “It literally is a wall of wood.”

Watt photographed the tree, a Western red cedar, in 2022 on Flores Island in fabled Clayoquot Sound on Ahousaht First Nations territory while on a field trip as a National Geographic and Royal Canadian Geographical Society explorer. (The species is also spelled redcedar because it’s not deemed to be a true cedar.)

It’s estimated to be 46 metres tall and five metres wide at its base. The old-growth tree, part of forests that store carbon and support many species of plants and animals, is estimated to be at least 1,000 years old, according to Watt.

Its dimensions put it at the very top of the biggest and oldest trees in the province and across Canada.

“Unlike most other trees, it actually gets wider as it goes up,” said Watt. “It’s really the highlight of my life to come across something this spectacular.”

Watt and the Ahousaht First Nation have now revealed images and details of the tree to the public — although keeping its location secret — to show it as an example of the importance of the province meeting commitments to overhaul forestry to balance harvesting with ecological values.

“It’s representative of a healthy, intact, coastal, temperate ecosystem,” said Tyson Atleo, 36, a hereditary representative of the Ahousaht First Nation. “We don’t see a lot of trees that size anymore.”

The tree has been nicknamed “The Wall” or “ʔiiḥaq ḥumiis,” meaning “big redcedar” in the Nuu-chah-nulth language. It’s in a type of forest that’s in danger of disappearing from BC’s landscape due to a history of intense logging.

“Forests like this have just been reduced to a tiny, tiny fraction of their original extent today,” said Watt. “We need to be doing everything we can in our power to ensure that they remain standing, especially given the climate and biodiversity crisis.”

The tree is not currently in danger of being logged as it’s in an area where old-growth logging is being deferred as part of work between First Nations and the province to protect old-growth forests at risk of permanent biodiversity loss.

Aerial view over the ancient forests of Flores Island in Ahousaht territory in Clayoquot Sound, BC.

The Ahousaht First Nation, whose territory spans Clayoquot Sound, a globally recognized biosphere reserve, is at the forefront of work to keep significant trees in biodiverse forests standing while finding other ways, such as tourism, to replace lost revenues.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity to share … who we are as the Ahousaht, what our values and principles are, but also help [visitors] experience the magic of our territories as is exemplified by this incredible tree,” said Atleo.

Ahous Adventures, an Ahousaht-owned and operated eco-cultural tour company in Tofino, won’t be taking visitors to the tree in order to keep the area protected but does other tours to show off the region’s other impressive trees.

‘An ecosystem unto itself’

Nations like the Ahousaht are hoping for more conservation funding from the province to be able to develop alternative economic opportunities in their territories that will allow for trees like ʔiiḥaq ḥumiis, to remain standing.

In order to raise funds on its own, the Ahousaht has established a voluntary stewardship fee for its territories, much like BC Parks’ day-use passes.

Meanwhile, others also making careers of trying to locate and document massive old-growth trees that still exist, say coming across trees like The Wall is akin to a religious experience.

“You feel so small, and you realize it is so incredibly important what these things are. They represent so much more than just a tree. It’s an ecosystem unto itself,” said Colin Spratt, a conservation photographer who takes people on tours of Vancouver’s Stanley Park to show off old-growth trees there.

View the original article here.