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Ancient Forest Alliance worries about potential sell-off of unused DND lands for real estate development and calls for federal government to let Canadian Wildlife Service, Parks Canada, the provinces, regional districts, and First Nations protect unused DND lands. 

The potential sell-off of Department of National Defence (DND) lands reported by the Ottawa Citizen and the Canadian media recently is causing concern for conservationists who fear some of Canada’s most endangered ecosystems could be jeopardized by real estate development.

Instead the Ancient Forest Alliance is calling on the federal government to protect the endangered ecosystems and exceptional natural areas on unused DND lands through:

– the Canadian Wildlife Service as new National Wildlife Areas

– Parks Canada as new National Parks

– transferring unused DND lands to the provinces for new Provincial Parks, Provincial Conservancies (in BC), or Ecological Reserves

– to Regional Districts in BC as new Regional Parks

– to First Nations as treaty settlement lands under agreement to become new First Nations protected areas where subsistence, cultural, and spiritual uses will continue

The Department of National Defence controls 800 parcels of federal public lands totalling 2.25 million hectares (about two-thirds the size of Vancouver Island) in Canada for military use, although vast areas are unused and remain in excellent ecological condition. From endangered coastal old-growth forests to prairie grasslands to Carolinian deciduous forests in southern Ontario to large intact boreal forests, Canada’s least disturbed ecosystems are often in the unused portions of the DND’s lands.

“It might be surprising to most Canadians, but in many cases the ecosystems in the best ecological condition in Canada are on DND lands. Much DND land is unused, and in other areas the occasional bullets and bombs still often have lower impacts than the large-scale industrial resource extraction, clearcutting, strip-mining, oil drilling, agriculture, and suburban sprawl that impact other lands in Canada,” stated Ken Wu of the Ancient Forest Alliance. “We’re demanding that the federal government show environmental leadership by protecting the endangered ecosystems and key natural areas on DND lands through new National and Provincial Parks, National Wildlife Areas, and Ecological Reserves rather than selling them off for suburban sprawl.”

In the Capital Regional District around Victoria, the DND controls over 4000 hectares of public lands, which include the very finest old-growth Coastal Douglas Fir forests and Garry oak ecosystems left in Canada in places like at the Rocky Point and Mary Hill DND lands in Metchosin, and at DND lands behind the Juan de Fuca Recreation Centre, adjacent to Fort Rodd National Historic Park, and at Royal Roads University (which leases their lands from the DND) in Colwood.

“40% of the Coastal Douglas Fir ecosystem is now underneath the pavement of Victoria, Nanaimo, and Duncan, or converted to agriculture, and 99% of its old-growth forests are already logged. The finest remnants of the Coastal Douglas Fir ecosystem are here on the DND lands,” stated TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner and photographer. “It’s a first rate national conservation priority to get them protected. It’s time for everyone to speak up!” 

Ottawa Citizen link:  https://blogs.ottawacitizen.com/2011/10/26/conservationists-call-for-the-protection-of-endangered-ecosystems-on-department-of-national-defence-lands/

PORT RENFREW, B.C. – Pink ribbons knotted to tree branches at the side of a gravel logging road mark the entry to an amazing earthly experience, something so different from anything most people have experienced it might be on another world.

The air is cool, damp and even smells green. Look up and there is no blue sky, just scraggy branches and the tops of 60-metre-high trees, that allow sunlight to hit the mossy ground only in broken beams of light.

This is Avatar Grove, a 50-hectare piece of untouched old-growth forest, about 110 kilometres northwest of Victoria.

Through a karma-like convergence, natural-born enemies, environmentalists, business leaders and politicians are joining hands to protect it from logging and create a nature-lover’s paradise.

It’s as if the happy-ending script is writing itself at Avatar Grove — a sequel of sorts to the Hollywood blockbuster, unfolding in the few remaining dark, moody and ancient big-tree forests on southern Vancouver Island.

“When we came across the area, it was at the same time the movie `Avatar’ was released,” said Ken Wu, co-founder of the Victoria-based Ancient Forest Alliance. “`Avatar’ was about saving old-growth forests, albeit on an alien moon.

“We wanted people to make the connection that here on earth we have real spectacular old growth (forests) that are endangered and that need protecting,” he said, standing near a huge cedar marked in spray paint with the number five, signifying that it once faced a chainsaw death.

Wu said choosing the name Avatar Grove, courting the business community in nearby struggling Port Renfrew and getting the ear of the B.C. government has sparked a groundswell to declare the rugged coastal area the Big Trees Capital of Canada.

The Ancient Forest Alliance spent the summer taking busloads of tourists into Avatar Grove to see the mysterious forest, especially the alien-shaped western red cedar, nicknamed Canada’s gnarliest tree for is Volkswagen-sized burl that makes it look like something out of one of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy novels.

“Port Renfrew really is the biggest trees capital of Canada,” said Wu. “The fact is the largest Douglas fir tree on earth is near town. The biggest spruce tree in Canada is also near town. The biggest tree in Canada, the Cheewaht cedar, is also north of town.

“And we’ve got the gnarliest tree at the Avatar Grove,” he said. “It’s an exceptional place for big-tree tourism and I think this is the year people are starting to recognize that and are coming to see them.”

Rosie Betsworth, Port Renfrew’s Chamber of Commerce president, agrees with Wu and the Ancient Forest Alliance that the big trees are something to see. It’s also offering a tourism boost to the community that, until recently, considered logging and fishing its lifeblood.

“The majority (here) can see the value of tourism dollars,” she said. “And now that there’s probably a handful of loggers left in this community, it is no longer a logging town.

Betsworth said environmentalists like Wu and photographer T.J. Watt, who discovered Avatar Grove in 2009 while scouting the area’s few remaining old-growth stands, convinced locals that there is money in saving trees as opposed to cutting them down. Grants for college students

“For a small group of very broke guys, my God, they’ve made so much movement,” she said.

Steve Thomson, B.C.’s minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources, said the government halted planned logging of Avatar Grove and is awaiting the results of a public consultation process on the area’s future.

But he suggested it already appears logging is no longer a viable option.

“The province has published its intent to adjust the old-growth management area to protect that grove,” he said.

Watt said Avatar Grove and the other huge trees in the Port Renfrew area, where many hillsides are scarred from clear-cut logging, are living examples of Mother Nature’s majesty that are located steps from easily accessible roads.

“Right away we knew we had something special because I couldn’t think of anywhere else where you could see trees of this size and get there in something like a Honda Civic.”

———

If you go . . .

Currently, there are no official scheduled tours into Avatar Grove, but visit the Ancient Forest Alliance website: www.ancientforestalliance.org for a map of the area’s big tree sites. The alliance also will take visitors into Avatar Grove or can provide travellers with a detailed and easy to follow map that they can use to guide themselves. 

MSN Travel article:  https://travel.ca.msn.com/big-trees-boost-tourism-in-west-coast-town

The provincial government has introduced legislation to allow woodlot owners the right to remove their lands from forest management requirements and sell them while retaining their tenure on Crown lands, similar to a controversial move four years ago that allowed large forest companies the same right on Vancouver Island.

The Liberals introduced the change Tuesday as an amendment to the Forest Act, stating in a news release that woodlot owners will be able to remove private land from their woodlots, at the discretion of the minister, to provide them “flexibility in managing their assets in changing economic times and to plan for retirement.”

Critics of the woodlot licence amendment say it is a one-sided change of a public-private contract that provides benefits to private land owners. The only difference between the amendment and the 2007 removal of 28,000 hectares of private forest land from tree farm licences on Vancouver Island controlled by Western Forest Products, is the scale, said Ken Wu of the Ancient Forest Alliance. The Victoria-based conservation group mounted public opposition to the 2007 removal of Western’s southern Vancouver Island forestlands adjacent to the Juan De Fuca Marine Trail.

The government’s handling of that removal drew an admonishment from the auditor-general and ignited widespread community protest that has yet to die down.

“This sounds like a mini-version of the tree farm licence removal controversy,” Wu said in an interview. As was the case with the larger tree farm licences, private forest lands cannot be developed as long as they are in a woodlot. There is no development restriction once the lands are taken out.

There are 875 woodlot licences in B.C. operating on 505,000 hectares of forest land but only 91,000 hectares, or 18 per cent of the land, is private. The rest is Crown land, often obtained in return for keeping the private portion of the land within the woodlot licence.

“In many cases people were granted woodlot licences on Crown land by agreeing to include their private forest lands within the woodlot licence,” said Wu. “It’s similar to the situation with many coastal tree farm licences but on a smaller scale. The removal of those private lands from the woodlot licence essentially frees them up for development while allowing them to keep the Crown woodlot licence, and that’s not in the public interest.”

According to the website of the Federation of British Columbia Woodlot Associations, the woodlot licences are “a form of area-based tenure which is unique to British Columbia. In effect, they are partnerships between the licence holder and the Province of British Columbia to manage public and private forest lands.”

Brian McNaughton, executive director of the association, said in an interview that the estate planning is the prime reason woodlot owners want the right to take their private lands out of the woodlot.

“We have an aging demographic,” he said.

He said not all woodlot owners, himself included, will want to take private lands out. Some might want to take a portion out, and others might want to take all out but continue to manage the public portion.

He said the association expects there will be some controversy and wants to be transparent in what it is proposing. Before any land could be taken out of the woodlot licence, it would be advertised locally and the public be invited to comment. An accommodation could then be reached, he said, which might include the woodlot owner taking steps to ensure that public values are maintained. The decision to allow forest companies to withdraw their private lands motivated woodlot owners to seek the same right, but he said there is a difference in scale.

“We are talking about woodlots, which are small parcels, we are not talking about large tracks of timber, like perhaps was done with the corporations,” he said.

Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources Steve Thomson defended the decision at a media scrum at the legislature Wednesday, saying woodlot owners would have to meet certain conditions before they could withdraw private land from their woodlot.

“This will be limited. This is dealing with an aging demographic in the woodlot industry. This means that they can continue woodlot operations without having to surrender the whole woodlot in terms of their planning,” he said.

NDP forestry critic Norm McDonald said he understands that woodlot owners require some flexibility but allowing them to remove their private lands while continuing to harvest timber on the public lands portion of their licence is not the answer.

Woodlot owners, he said, originally received the benefit of tenure on public lands by putting up their private lands to manage as forestlands. As long as their private lands are in woodlots, the owners receive favourable taxation and other benefits, McDonald said.

“We have a high degree of discomfort with this,” he said in an interview

Link to the Vancouver Sun article:  https://www.vancouversun.com/business/Move+Liberals+amend+Forest+draws+criticism/5521376/story.html