Media Release

On the three-year anniversary of the BC government’s acceptance of the Old-Growth Strategic Review Panel’s 14 recommendations to ensure a “paradigm shift” in the conservation and management of old-growth forests in the province, AFA and EEA are urging the BC government to hurry up and close the gaps in old-growth protection.

Conservationists on Vancouver Island with the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) have identified what may very well be Canada’s most impressive tree in a remote location in Ahousaht First Nation territory near Tofino in Clayoquot Sound, BC. The ancient redcedar measures over 17 ft (5 m) wide near its base but grows even wider as it goes up.

Shocking photos and drone footage reveal the destruction of rare, big-tree old-growth forests on northern Vancouver Island in Quatsino Sound, highlighting the urgent need for dedicated funding to enable both temporary logging deferrals and permanent, Indigenous-led protected areas initiatives.

MP Patrick Weiler Introduces Motion to Launch the $82 million Old-Growth Protection Fund and to End Old-Growth Log and Wood Product Exports in Canada.

Still needed is short-term funding for First Nations to offset lost logging revenues from accepting logging deferrals as well as long-term conservation financing to develop sustainable economic alternatives to old-growth logging linked to the creation of new Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas.

Conservation group increasingly optimistic about old-growth protection as BC government adjusts forestry regulations, invests funding in value-added forestry, and commits to a conservation financing mechanism to help establish new Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas.

The AFA commends the BC government for committing to protecting 30% of lands in the province by 2030, including through the creation of new Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas, which would double what is currently protected in legislated areas in BC. A directive has also been given to “develop a new conservation financing mechanism to support protection of biodiverse areas.”

BC has a chance to protect the most endangered ecosystems and promote community economic, social and cultural well-being linked to nature conservation - and also to finally end the War in the Woods over old-growth forests.

Yesterday the BC government released new and misleading statistics about old-growth logging on the one year anniversary of its science panel’s recommendations that logging should be deferred on millions of hectares of the most at-risk old-growth forests in BC.