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Forest Selfies Are Helping Save B.C.’s Old-Growth Trees

Feb 8 2021/in News Coverage/by TJ Watt

Outside Magazine

For over a decade, TJ Watt has been shooting photos of disappearing forests in Canada’s westernmost province. This striking before-and-after series may help protect what’s left.

Photo: TJ Watt

On a clear day last fall, TJ Watt shouldered his pack, stepped off a logging road in British Columbia’s Caycuse Valley, and started hiking up the hillside where the trees used to be.

A skateboarder turned activist and conservation photographer (and definitely not the pro football player of the same name), Watt has spent much of his adult life exploring the skyscraping forests of his native Vancouver Island. Or what remains of them, to be more exact—despite B.C.’s left-leaning politics, more than a century of nonstop logging has turnedmost of the island into a patchwork of barren cut blocks and second-growth plantations.

Larger than the Hawaiian Islands combined, almost all of Vancouver Island was once covered in monumental fir, spruce, and cedar trees. But less than 10 percent of its original old growth is currently protected, and more than 10,000 football fields’ worth of untouched forest are still harvested each year. It’s a question of global relevance, as B.C. still holds the world’s largest intact stands of temperate rainforest, providing critically important carbon storage, wildlife habitat, and biodiversity reserves. These forests boast more biomass—the total weight of living matter—than any terrestrial ecosystem on earth.

Watt is one of the founders of Ancient Forest Alliance, an environmental nonprofit working to protect old-growth forests, and he hopes to focus attention on his province’s many unsustainable logging practices. When he came across a spectacular stand of old-growth cedars that was flagged for harvest in the little-traveled Vancouver Island backcountry, he saw an opportunity to photograph it in a way that would cut through the clutter of the public’s social feeds.

“I’m always trying to convey the sheer sense of beauty of these forests and the devastating loss when they’re cut down,” he says. “As a photographer, you’re always trying to find the most impactful way of doing that, and I finally landed on the idea that maybe doing carefully planned before-and-after images would show just how clear that loss was.”

Back in April, before the Caycuse Valley grove was clear-cut by a company called Teal Jones, Watt bushwhacked through the forest, set up his tripod, and photographed himself with the majestic thousand-year-old trees. When he returned in November, the landscape had been completely transformed.

“This is not a series I ever hoped to complete,” he noted on Instagram. “Heart-wrenching as they are, I hope these images stand as a stark example of what is still happening every day across B.C., and what needs to end now.”

The response to the images was almost immediate. As the likes and comments rolled in, along with reposts from actors and rock stars, it was clear that Watt’s forest selfies had struck a nerve, and they’ve sparked a new campaign to pressure the B.C. government to better protect its forests.

“In ten years of doing this,” Watt says, “I’ve never seen a reaction to photos as big as this.”

“When I first hiked in there,” Watt remembers, “a friend and I parked and walked in on an old road that was completely covered in bear scat. We went down a steep slope, across a creek, and up into this forest that was an absolute wonderland. The trees were 12 feet wide, 800 to 1,000 years old, and just an amazing density of old-growth cedars. It was like the redwoods of Canada. It’s not all the time in old growth that you’ll get concentrations of trees like that, but this place was second to none. And sure enough, right through the whole forest was pink ribbon reading ‘Road Location’ or ‘Falling Boundary.’”

Watt photographed his before-and-after series over a dozen or so trips to the Caycuse Valley, several hours from his home on southern Vancouver Island. “I saved the before images on my phone,” he recounts, “so I could recreate them as best as possible. And I was really hoping this technique would have the impact it did. When you think about it, a tree that’s lived for a thousand years disappears in a dayright in front of peoples’ eyes. It’s wild to think that if we were ever to let these forests come back—which we don’t—it would be the year 3020 before you’d ever see a forest like that there again. That’s one thing we’re trying to get across—that under B.C.’s system of forestry, where we cut again every 30, 50, or 80 years, old growth is nowhere near a renewable resource.”

Most of the province’s forestry happens on mazes of logging roads that would take years to explore, so Watt’s search for unprotected old growth often begins online. “I’ll pour over the satellite imagery,” he says. “Once you get good at discerning forest types, you can tell old growth from second growth and even start to spot individual big trees. Then I compare that to public data, to check if there are pending road or cut-block applications. There’s nothing that really replaces on-the-ground exploration, though, which means hours of driving down remote roads and then a ton of bushwhacking. There aren’t any trails in these forests, and they’re some of the most rugged forests on earth. You need to come prepared.”

“When I’m out there shooting,” Watt says, “I bring my camera, a few lenses,and my tripod in my backpack. Also a sat phone, an InReach, extra food and water, and a headlamp. If it’s winter and I’m hiking on my own, I’ll also have a Therm-a-Rest, a tarp, a bivy sack, and first aid stuff, so at least I’d be warm and dry if something happened and I couldn’t get help until the next day.”

“It doesn’t matter where you live,” Watt says. “What’s going on here is part of a global environmental crisis, and wherever we are, our actions impact everyone else. I don’t have to live in India or Africa to know that we shouldn’t be buying tiger skins or rhino horns anymore. To me, taking ancient trees is about at that level.”

Watt cites pioneering trail builder, activist, and photographer Randy Stoltmann, who was killed in a mountaineering accident in 1994, as one of his inspirations. “He was one of the first to go hunting for big trees to document and appreciate them,” Watt says. “He’d do these epic seven-day riverbed-to-mountaintop adventures through remote valleys, bringing attention to places like Carmanah that needed protection at the time. I’m trying to follow in that tradition. I just love being out and exploring in these super remote and rugged forests, and combining that with art is a perfect dovetail for me.”

A decade ago, Watt and a few friends began wandering an unprotected old-growth stand near the tiny logging town of Port Renfrew. Lush and draped with moss, they named it the Avatar Grove. Watt’s photographs helped convince the provincial government to protect the grove in perpetuity, and the resulting ecotourism helped the down-on-its-luck settlement turn its fortunes around. Now the town bills itself as the Tall Tree Capital of Canada. “For a place like Renfrew,” Watt says, “ancient trees are worth far more standing than they are in the back of a logging truck.”

Watt’s photos haven’t portrayed forestry in the finest light, but he notes that he’s not against logging per se. “We need to transition to a sustainable, value-added, second-growth forest industry,” he says, “and we need to do it on a really rapid time scale, not just when the last unprotected old growth runs out.”

“The biggest loss in forestry jobs here hasn’t come from the creation of parks or protected areas,” Watts says, “it’s been from overcutting and unsustainable practices. And now we’re left in large part with the old growth on the steeper slopes, smaller trees, and diminishing returns.” But rather than coming up with creative ideas about moving toward a more value-based industry—as opposed to a volume-based one—Watts argues that the logging industry is “just racing toward a cliff and killing the environment along the way.”

In 2020, the B.C. government released a report acknowledging that its ancient forests “anchor ecosystems that are critical to the wellbeing of many species of plants and animals, including people, now and in the future.” It also noted that these steadily disappearing forests are “simply non-renewable in any reasonable time frame.” The report listed a more than a dozen recommended changes, including a deferral of logging in old-growth ecosystems and the need for greater involvement by Indigenous peoples in forest management. Watt sees the changes as steps in the right direction, but he believes the government will have to be pressed to actually implement them.

“I’d love it if the need for my job didn’t exist,” Watt says. “There are plenty of things I’d rather be doing than trudging around photographing giant stumps. It’s emotionally exhausting work, and it’s devastating to go back and see these places that you’ve grown to love get destroyed. Someday it would be nice to not associate feelings of anxiety with the forests I care about and just be able to rest knowing that they’ll be around for generations to come. It’s as simple as that, really.”

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Thank you to our recent business supporters!

Feb 3 2021/in Thank You/by TJ Watt

The Ancient Forest Alliance would like to extend a huge THANK YOU to the following businesses for generously supporting our ancient forest campaign:

Leigh Buchanan, who is donating 50% of the proceeds from select work of art featuring old-growth forests. Check out Leigh’s website for more information

Integral Ecology for donating two years in row through the 1% for the Planet program

West Coast Wild Foods Ltd. for a generous donation and for signing a resolution for the protection of old-growth forests.

If you’re a business owner and would like to join West Coast Wild Foods Ltd. and over 100 other organizations and groups in standing up for old-growth forests, contact Rachel at info@16.52.162.165 and ask about signing our old-growth resolution.

Logging change: old-growth harvesting has deep roots on Vancouver Island, but how long can it last?

Jan 31 2021/in News Coverage/by TJ Watt

Capital Daily
January 31, 2021

Logging-dependent communities are facing an existential threat from what conservationists and First Nations say is an overdue change to forestry practices.

If there’s a stand of ancient trees anywhere on Vancouver Island, chances are TJ Watt has seen and photographed it. Watt is cofounder of Ancient Forest Alliance, which has taken him to every corner of the Island in search of big trees.

In 2018, Watt was scouring satellite imagery on his laptop when he stumbled across an application to cut down old growth in the upper Caycuse River watershed, in the mountains above Lake Cowichan and Nitinat Lake. He hopped into his trusty van, headed north, and navigated a maze of bumpy logging roads that led him to a breathtaking grove of western red cedar giants that he thought would be a candidate for conservation.

He returned twice: once to document the forest as it was, and a second time to witness what remained after it was logged.

Fallers, working for Surrey-based Teal Jones Group, left a clearcut where a 33-hectare stand of ancient forest once stood. Watt’s stark before-and-after images triggered a storm of media and public interest that was surprising, even for a conservation photographer accustomed to shooting big trees and stumps with impact in mind. Some of the tree stumps measured four meters in diameter. Watt says he stopped counting rings on one of them at 800 when he got to its hollow core, leading him to estimate some of the specimens to be at least 1,000 years old. He was alarmed, but not surprised.

“I think it’s criminal that this is happening. To put it into perspective, it would be the year 3020 before we would ever see trees or a forest like that again in the same place,” Watt says, adding that he doesn’t oppose logging—he believes it’s time to make the shift into harvesting mostly second growth. “They will never have the chance to become old-growth forests again.”

The Caycuse logging controversy underscores an uncomfortable truth: that the province’s oldest, most biodiverse, and increasingly rare forests are also some of the most commercially valuable to the logging industry. It’s a political hot potato for the NDP government, which traditionally courts two often-conflicting constituencies. On the one hand, labour, resource communities, and powerful lobbies, like the Truck Loggers Association, which represents more than 500 companies and contractors, will fight hard to protect jobs and land access. On the other hand, conservation groups like the Ancient Forest Alliance, scientists, and an environmentally conscious public are crying foul as industry continues to cut down thousand-year-old trees.

The tension has resulted in plenty of discussion. In April 2020, independent scientists Rachel Holt, Karen Price, and Dave Daust published B.C.’s Old Growth: A Last Stand for Biodiversity, in which they dissected the BC government’s accounting of the province’s old-growth resources. The results were alarming. After parsing out old forests containing small trees (typically found on high-elevation, boggy, or nutrient-poor sites), the researchers found that just 3% of the 13.2 million hectares of old growth habitat in BC is suitable for growing massive trees like those felled in the Caycuse.

Of the small percentage of land area in which the biggest, strongest old trees can possibly grow, 97% has already been logged. What’s worse is that BC’s main protection tool, Old Growth Management Areas (OGMAs), are often too small to have any sustained biodiversity value and are poorly regulated.

Sonia Furstenau, leader of the Green Party of British Columbia and Cowichan Valley MLA, likens the continued logging of rare old growth in BC to an African nation deciding to permit the hunting of white rhinos.

“Our government would be outraged,” Furstenau says. “We should be just as outraged by what’s happening to our old growth forests. The NDP is moving the needle in the wrong direction.”

Valuable resources; invaluable ecosystems

Watt had a life-changing moment 15 years ago when he stood at the base of a giant western red cedar in the upper Walbran Valley, which had been the focus of anti-logging protests. Sun rays pierced the canopy and landed in luminescent pools on the sword ferns and mossy forest around him. The experience inspired him to pick up a camera and dedicate himself to conservation of these long-lived temperate rainforests that are engines of biodiversity.

Three-quarters of all mammal species and two-thirds of amphibians found in BC live in coastal rainforests. For botanists, the coastal-like forests found in the interior are a frontier of discovery. Darwyn Coxson, a University of Northern British Columbia biologist, has been studying old cedar-hemlock forests in the Robson Valley along with Trevor Goward and Curtis Bjork, scientists affiliated with UBC’s Beatty Biodiversity Museum. Over the past six years, the researchers have catalogued more than 2,400 plant species, including dozens previously unknown to science.

“It shows just how little we know about this ecosystem,” says Coxson.

BC’s temperate rainforests are also powerful allies in the fight against climate change as they are able to sequester more carbon than any other forest type in the world.

As precious as they may be to science and the climate, they’re also extremely valuable as timber. Old-growth forests (by some definitions, those that are 250 years or older on the coast and 140 years in the interior) have traditionally anchored BC’s forest sector, which contributed $13 billion to the provincial GDP in 2016.

The supple, rot-resistant wood of old growth western red cedar, the iconic BC rainforest species and the official provincial tree, is a highly sought-after commodity. The rarer it becomes, the more valuable it is to loggers. In the summer of 2019, western red cedar was fetching roughly $360 per cubic metre on the international market, more than twice the amount being paid for Douglas fir, the next most valuable BC wood export.

During the 2017 provincial election campaign, John Horgan’s NDP made a vague promise to use the ecosystem-based management being applied in the Great Bear Rainforest as a model for sustainable management of old-growth forests provincewide. But the public was growing impatient. Controversial logging in the Nahmint Valley, 30 kilometres southwest of Port Alberni, and uncertainty over the future of interior rainforest like the spectacular Incomappleux Valley near Glacier National Park (where biologists have discovered dozens of new lichen species) added fuel to the ongoing debate.

In July 2019, the provincial government commissioned an Old Growth Strategic Review, led by two veteran professional foresters: Al Gorley, former chair of the Forest Practices Board, and Garry Merkel, a member of northwestern BC’s Tahltan Nation and a natural resources specialist. Merkel is a candid, independent thinker. He’s been around long enough to see more than one government report come and go but hasn’t given in to cynicism.

However, it’s not the first time a ruling NDP party has tackled old growth logging practices. In 1992, Mike Harcourt’s government unveiled the Old Growth Strategy, but the report gathered dust while critical aspects of it were “either discarded or partly implemented,” Merkel told Capital Daily over the phone from his home office in Kimberley. Had this report been fully implemented more than 20 years ago, Merkel believes BC’s old-growth forests would be in a much more stable position. So it was with a sense of urgency that he and Gorley hit the road late in 2019, touring the province for two months and meeting with loggers, First Nations, conservationists, and community members.

Old-growth forests are made up of a mix of tree ages, which gives variety to the landscape and more habitat. Photo: TJ Watt / Ancient Forest Alliance

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Last April, they submitted their report, A New Future for Old Forests. It pulls no punches. Not only does it call for the suspension of logging in BC’s most at-risk old forests, it’s also an indictment of entrenched land-management practices that treat forests like industrial tree farms.

“We are recommending a paradigm shift, from a timber-focused regime that views ecological health as a constraint, to an ecological focus with timber as one of the many benefits,” Merkel says. “Everybody knows that the current system is not working—one that is a trade-off between biodiversity and timber values.”

Merkel and Gorley made 14 recommendations to be enacted by 2023. Topping the list is immediate engagement with First Nations across BC on a government-to-government basis and the provision of much-needed resources to support the forestry industry’s transition. Also among the recommendations are a call for more government transparency, establishing clearly defined biodiversity targets, and also helping timber-based communities adapt to forest management changes.

Merkel concedes that it will mean reductions in timber harvesting in some areas of the province.

As a first step last September, BC announced two-year logging deferrals on 350,000 hectares of old growth scattered across the province, including forests in the McKelvie Valley near Tahsis, Clayoquot Sound, and the Incomappleux. In addition, the province committed to increased protection for and expansion of the province’s big tree registry to as many as 1,500 specimens, each surrounded by a 1-hectare conservation buffer. It’s likely too early to judge the province’s response to the report, but Merkel is optimistic.

“I wouldn’t have agreed to do this review if I didn’t believe the government was sincere,”he says.

Katrine Conroy, MLA for Kootenay West and the newly minted minister of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations, says she is committed to implementing all 14 recommendations, but admits the three-year timeline is ambitious. For example, the province has yet to roll out a plan for government-to-government talks with First Nations about forestry transition and funding, something she says will likely require going to the Treasury Board with cap in hand at a time when public finances are being stretched by the pandemic. Shifting to biodiversity-based forest management provincewide will first require unpacking forest policy—and that, too, will take time and debate.

“This is not just about old-growth trees; it’s also about the ecosystems around them. We need to take a much more holistic approach and think of forestry in terms of high value rather than high volume,” Minister Conroy told Capital Daily in an exclusive interview. “We’re just getting started but we want to build a more sustainable and competitive industry.”

‘We don’t even know how much old growth is left’

Over the past half-century, the Nitnat-based Ditidaht First Nation has witnessed the liquidation of valley-bottom and mountainside ancient forests within its territory, which extends from the rugged coastline between Pacheena Point and Bonilla Point, inland to Cowichan Lake. While the eleventh hour for BC’s rarest old-growth trees approaches, timber-based communities and First Nations like the Ditidaht are stuck in the middle.

One of the old growth review panel’s key recommendations hones in on a critical problem for First Nations provincewide: a lack of capacity and technical know-how to stay on top of industrial activity within their territories.

“Am I concerned? Yes. We don’t even know how much old growth is left on our territory,” said Paul Sieber, the Ditidaht’s natural resource manager. “Industry keeps the information pretty close and it makes it hard for us to respond in a meaningful way to logging plans.”

Sieber’s desk is piled high with reports and documents. He’s perpetually stretched and hasn’t yet found time to peruse Merkel’s and Gorley’s old-growth report. In the early 1990s, heavy logging by a previous tenure holder in the Klanawa River valley, which drains out to the west coast through Pacific Rim National Park, led to landslides, erosion, and damage to a river that once teemed with steelhead and salmon. It angered Sieber then, and it still angers him now. He fears that the recent cutting of old-growth forest in the upper Caycuse River watershed will further damage what is already a heavily logged watershed.
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Second-growth forests do not support nearly the same amount of biodiversity as old-growth stands. Photo: Sergej Krivenko / Capital Daily

This is a complex time in the relationship between forestry companies and First Nations, who have for too long been bystanders as companies profited from old-growth logging in their territories. They’re late to the party. Many nations, like the Ditidaht have only recently entered into revenue sharing agreements and partnerships with forest corporations. Teal Jones Group and Western Forest Products (WFP) each hold an area-based tenure on Crown land known as a tree farm licence, or TFL, that requires them to pay stumpage fees to the Crown for the right to log within Ditidaht territory. The Ditidaht, through their forestry arm Ditidaht Forestry Ltd, are now logging in partnership with TimberWest, and negotiating with Teal Jones and WFP for long-term timber access and revenue sharing agreements.

The problem, according to Garry Merkel, is that many nations now find themselves in the untenable position of harvesting at-risk old growth to support their businesses.

“We need to find solutions that don’t involve forcing First Nations to shut down or fight to harvest areas they may not agree with,” he says.

A raw deal for small communities

Twenty-five years ago, a small-town tour of Vancouver Island would have been much different than it is today. Timber mills were pumping out lumber in places as remote as Youbou and Tahsis, while high-paying union jobs supported thriving communities and small businesses sprang up around these anchor industries.

TimberWest closed its Youbou operation in 2001, the same year that the mill in Tahsis was mothballed. It was a sign of things to come. In 2003, the then-Liberal government scrapped a Forest Act provision called appurtenance requiring companies with Crown forest tenures to operate mills in communities located within the geographical area of a given tenure. It only added to the decline in manufacturing capacity.

Last May, Langley-based San Group began production at a new $70-million plant in Port Alberni, the first major investment in coastal sawmilling in 15 years. But this is a lonely bright spot: since 1997, roughly 100 mills have shut across BC. Over the past decade, the forest sector has lost more than 22,000 jobs, mostly in lumber and pulp and paper manufacturing.

Campbell River symbolizes the changing economic reality of many Island communities. Between 2008 and 2010, TimberWest shut its sawmill and sawdust, pulp, and containerboard operations, then Catalyst Paper closed its Elk Falls mill. They laid off 700 workers between them and left behind vacant industrial lots on the waterfront north of the city.

Companies are required by law to process BC logs domestically. However, there’s a loophole: if they are unable to secure a fair price after advertising in the domestic market, logs can be sold to foreign mills.

A 2018 study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives showed the relationship between mill closures and rising raw log exports. Between 2013 and 2016, forest companies shipped 26 million cubic metres of raw logs, and old growth accounted for roughly half of the exports.

The three largest exporters of raw logs are big players on Vancouver Island: Western Forest Products, Island Timberlands, and TimberWest. In 2016, TimberWest, which owns 327,000 hectares of timberland on Vancouver Island, sent more than 2 million cubic metres of raw logs out of the province.

But in Port McNeill, logging still matters. The town’s motto, “Tree Farming Country,” speaks volumes. The “world’s largest burl,” an estimated 30-tonne knot that was cut from a Sitka spruce in 2005, is proudly displayed on the Port McNeill waterfront. When loggers are working, business is booming. That’s why the eight-month bitter labour dispute between Western Forest Products and the United Steelworkers Union that began in July 2019 hit the northern Vancouver Island community hard.

“I’d say 80% of Port McNeill’s economy is either directly or indirectly tied to the forest sector,” Mayor Gaby Wickstrom says.

Port McNeill is one of a dozen members of Forest Friendly Communities, an industry-promoting organization formed in 2016. Wickstrom recalls the strike as one of the darkest periods since she moved to the area 25 years ago to drive a forest industry tour bus. Port McNeill was plunged into a mini recession that impacted everyone, from stylists at Bangles Hair Studio to servers at Tia’s Cafe.

“We had people accessing the food banks who never had to before.”

She worries about the speed of change if the province follows through with the old-growth review panel’s recommendations to transition out of old-growth logging. In a Vancouver Sun op-ed, she argued for “a decision that fairly balances the interests of conservation and the economy.”

That balance, she argues, can’t leave communities like hers behind.

“If there’s going to be a moratorium on old-growth logging, we’re going to need help with the transition,” Wickstrom says. “We want to make sure our community has a voice.”

The members of Forest Friendly Communities definitely have the Truck Loggers Association (TLA) in their corner. Bob Brash, a forester and TLA’s executive director, calls old-growth logging an “emotionally charged” issue.

“Our industry has proven to be adaptable but we need certainty around the working forest land base. We’re still waiting for the government to conduct a socio-economic analysis on the impact of a moratorium on old-growth logging, ” Brash says, noting that 50 million hectares of BC forests have been certified since 2002 by third-party sustainability auditors like the Forest Stewardship Council. “Government has to get this right and it has to be based on science, not emotion.”

Garry Merkel agrees—and the science is clear, he says. High-productivity old-growth forests in BC are under threat. Hard, but necessary, discussions about the future of forestry lie ahead.

At her Cowichan Valley constituency office, Sonia Furtseneau sifts through the daily deluge of emails. Old-growth logging completely dominates the correspondence. Furstenau believes “talk and log” is no longer an option. Neither is waiting for industry to make the shift.

Forest companies will do whatever they can to be efficient and extract the most value from the forest, she says. Government has the blueprint—Merkel and Gorley’s report—and their 14 recommendations that she believes could be “a game-changer.”

“We don’t have time for more discussion and studies. The NDP government needs to come to the table with resources for First Nations and logging-based communities and help them make that economic transition into activities like renewable energy and value-added wood products manufacturing,” Furstenau says.

The clock is ticking, and it’s already too late for some forests like the trees that once stood in the upper Caycuse watershed captured in Watt’s stark photos.

Corrections: This story was corrected on Fed. 1, 2020 at 11:30 am. It originally referred to the Ditidaht First Nation as “Port Alberni-based”. The First Nation is based in Nitnat. Further, it referred to a stand of trees in the Caycuse River watershed as a 70-hectare stand. It was a 33-hectare stand.

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Photo Gallery: Walbran Headwaters at Risk

Jan 29 2021/in Photo Gallery/by TJ Watt

‘Before’ images have been recently captured in an active Western Forest Products cutblock in the far upper reaches of the Walbran Valley in Pacheedaht territory. Scores of giant cedars are banded in preparation for falling – and some have already been cut down. These images underscore the urgent need for the BC NDP government to ACT NOW and fulfill its promise to protect old-growth.

Send an instant message to decision-makers.

*Note: the logging here is not taking place in the core part of the Central Walbran Valley where most people camp and which is the most intact, unprotected part of the valley. This cutblock is in a far upper reach of the watershed in a heavily fragmented area. But this whole watershed and all remaining tracts of old-growth on Vancouver Island must be protected at this late stage in the battle for ancient forests.

A beautiful and ancient western redcedar measuring 10ft or 3m wide banded for logging.

AFA Holiday Hours

Dec 21 2020/in Announcements/by TJ Watt

Seasons Greetings!

The AFA office will be closed Dec. 24-Jan. 3 as our staff spend time at home with their families. During this downtime, we will be checking emails and phone messages periodically and will reply to queries at our first opportunity when we return ready and refreshed in the new year.

Thank you for your support. Wishing you a safe and happy holiday season!

For the forests,
~AFA Team

Environmental group calls on province to preserve old-growth forests

Dec 14 2020/in News Coverage/by TJ Watt

Cowichan Valley Citizen
December 14, 2020

Points to clear cutting along Haddon Creek as shocking

Conservationists with the Ancient Forest Alliance are urging the province to immediately halt logging in B.C.’s most at-risk old-growth forests.

The alliance also wants the Horgan NDP government to commit funding for old-growth protection following the destruction of some of Vancouver Island’s grandest ancient forests along Haddon Creek in the Caycuse River watershed.

On an exploration to the area earlier this month, AFA campaigner and photographer TJ Watt visited and photographed the fallen remains of a grove of ancient red cedars he’d first explored and documented in April while the trees were still standing.

The expeditions resulted in stark before-and-after images of the once-towering giants.

Watt said it was an incredible and unique grove.

“I was stunned by the sheer number of monumental red cedars, one after another, on this gentle mountain slope,” he said.

“Giant cedars like these have immense ecological value, particularly as wildlife habitat, and important tourism and First Nations cultural value. Yet, the B.C. government continues to allow irreplaceable, centuries-old trees to be high-graded for short-term gain while they talk about their new old-growth plan.”

Located southwest of Cowichan Lake and east of Nitinat Lake in Ditidaht First Nation territory, the Caycuse watershed hosts some of the grandest forests on the south Island, rivalling the renowned Avatar Grove near Port Renfrew or the Walbran Valley.

The now clear-cut grove was part of a 33.5-hectare cut block near Haddon Creek, located in Tree Farm Licence 46, which is held by logging company Teal Jones Group.

New roads are also being built into adjacent old-growth, which will see more of B.C.’s iconic big tree forests logged.

Earlier this year, the province appointed an independent panel to conduct a strategic review of B.C.’s old-growth management policies.

The final report, released in September, contains 14 recommendations including immediate steps to protect B.C.’s most endangered old-growth ecosystems within six months and a paradigm shift in the province’s forest management regime that prioritizes biodiversity and ecosystem integrity.

On the campaign trail in October, the NDP promised to implement all 14 recommendations in their entirety.

As a first step, the province also announced two-year logging deferrals in nine areas covering 353,000 hectares, but only 3,800 hectares, or about one per cent of the deferred areas, consist of previously unprotected, productive old-growth forest.

“With less than three per cent remaining of B.C.’s original, big-tree old-growth forests, the NDP government must work quickly, as soon as cabinet is sworn in this week, to engage Indigenous nations, whose unceded lands these are, and enact further deferrals in critical areas while a comprehensive old-growth strategy is developed,” said AFA campaigner Andrea Inness.

The AFA is also calling for significant funding to be allocated in the province’s budget for 2021 to facilitate negotiations with First Nations on additional deferral areas and to support Indigenous protected areas, Indigenous-led land-use planning, and economic diversification in lieu of old-growth logging, as well as the purchase and protection of old-growth forests on private lands.

First Nations leaders, including the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, are also demanding the province work with them to expand deferrals in threatened old-growth forests and provide First Nations with dedicated funding to protect and steward their lands while pursuing conservation-based businesses and economies, as outlined in a UBCIC resolution passed in September.

“The B.C. NDP has promised sweeping changes by implementing all of the old-growth panel’s recommendations,” said Inness.

“Now they need to put their money where their mouth is by fully funding Indigenous-led old-growth conservation and the transition to a sustainable, value-added, second-growth forest industry. Otherwise we can expect more irreplaceable groves like the one in the Caycuse watershed to be destroyed.”

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In photos: see old-growth go from stand to stump on B.C.’s Vancouver Island

Dec 10 2020/in News Coverage/by TJ Watt

Watt said he wants to see the B.C. government commit funding to the transition to sustainable forestry. Photo: TJ Watt

Watt walks down a Teal-Jones logging road. Photo: TJ Watt

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Before and after images show the extent of clearcut logging on the slopes of the valley. Photo: TJ Watt

Forestry machinery on a logging road leading to a new clear cut in the Caycuse watershed. Photo: TJ Watt

Watt said industrial logging in B.C. often happens out of sight and out of mind of Canadians and yet the stakes are so urgent when you realize how little old-growth forest remains.

“That’s what I’m trying to get across. I’m trying to bring these remote places into people’s living rooms, onto their phones, so people can see what is happening, speak up, contact their elected officials, their MLAs, to demand an end to the logging of endangered old-growth forests.”

Communities dependent on logging deserve a sustainable transition plan, so they’re not left hanging when protections are put into place, Watt said.

Increasingly, conservation groups and First Nations are asking the provincial and federal governments to create financial incentives to protect, rather than harvest, forests.

Forests that are highly productive in terms of timber yield are often forests that contain the greatest biodiversity, species habitat and store the most carbon.

The province needs to turn its attention to transitioning forest management from old-growth logging to sustainable and value-added forestry practices, Watt said.

“It’s critical the government put forward funding to support Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas and support for communities that are looking to transition away from old-growth logging,” he said.

“The world is watching B.C. right now,” Watt added. “Unfortunately it took these images to capture people’s attention. We’re not going to let them get away with this.”

Watt said he is going to continue traveling to remaining ancient forests that can still be protected. He hopes he won’t have to publish more before and after photos.

“I’m going to keep going out there. Otherwise this would still be happening. No one would know. No one would care.”

Watt said he wants to see the B.C. government commit funding to the transition to sustainable forestry. Photo: TJ Watt

Watt walks down a Teal-Jones logging road. Photo: TJ Watt

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Watt stands at the remains of a large, old-growth cedar in the Caycuse watershed. Photo: TJ Watt

The province also claims 23 per cent of B.C. forest — about 13 million hectares — qualifies as old-growth.

But a study published in June found just three per cent of B.C. is capable of supporting large trees and within that small portion of the province, the report’s authors found only 2.7 per cent of the trees are actually old. The authors note, “old forests on these sites have dwindled considerably due to intense harvest.”

“We’ve basically logged it all,” Rachel Holt, one of the authors of the study, B.C.’s Old Growth Forest: A Last Stand for Biodiversity, told The Narwhal in June.

Watt said he’s disappointed the province continues to talk up its old-growth strategy, while failing to do more to protect forests like the one in the Caycuse watershed.

“When you see a tree that is 800 or 1,000 years old, reduced to this graveyard of stumps, you realize that every day, every week, every month that there is further delay in action on these endangered ecosystems, the losses we face are huge and are permanent.”

Before and after images show the extent of clearcut logging on the slopes of the valley. Photo: TJ Watt

Forestry machinery on a logging road leading to a new clear cut in the Caycuse watershed. Photo: TJ Watt

Watt said industrial logging in B.C. often happens out of sight and out of mind of Canadians and yet the stakes are so urgent when you realize how little old-growth forest remains.

“That’s what I’m trying to get across. I’m trying to bring these remote places into people’s living rooms, onto their phones, so people can see what is happening, speak up, contact their elected officials, their MLAs, to demand an end to the logging of endangered old-growth forests.”

Communities dependent on logging deserve a sustainable transition plan, so they’re not left hanging when protections are put into place, Watt said.

Increasingly, conservation groups and First Nations are asking the provincial and federal governments to create financial incentives to protect, rather than harvest, forests.

Forests that are highly productive in terms of timber yield are often forests that contain the greatest biodiversity, species habitat and store the most carbon.

The province needs to turn its attention to transitioning forest management from old-growth logging to sustainable and value-added forestry practices, Watt said.

“It’s critical the government put forward funding to support Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas and support for communities that are looking to transition away from old-growth logging,” he said.

“The world is watching B.C. right now,” Watt added. “Unfortunately it took these images to capture people’s attention. We’re not going to let them get away with this.”

Watt said he is going to continue traveling to remaining ancient forests that can still be protected. He hopes he won’t have to publish more before and after photos.

“I’m going to keep going out there. Otherwise this would still be happening. No one would know. No one would care.”

Watt said he wants to see the B.C. government commit funding to the transition to sustainable forestry. Photo: TJ Watt

Watt walks down a Teal-Jones logging road. Photo: TJ Watt

Read the original article

Watt estimates some of the trees recently cut down in the Caycuse watershed are between 800 and 1,000 years old. Photo: TJ Watt

While the province committed to temporarily defer logging in nine forests containing old-growth, critics were quick to point out little to no harvesting was expected to take place in those areas recommended by the panel. They also noted some of the deferral zones contained forests already protected in parks or forests that had already been logged.

These deferrals did not offer any protection to some of B.C.’s most quickly disappearing old-growth located in the northern boreal forest, a rare and endangered interior temperate rainforest and on Vancouver Island.

Watt stands at the remains of a large, old-growth cedar in the Caycuse watershed. Photo: TJ Watt

The province also claims 23 per cent of B.C. forest — about 13 million hectares — qualifies as old-growth.

But a study published in June found just three per cent of B.C. is capable of supporting large trees and within that small portion of the province, the report’s authors found only 2.7 per cent of the trees are actually old. The authors note, “old forests on these sites have dwindled considerably due to intense harvest.”

“We’ve basically logged it all,” Rachel Holt, one of the authors of the study, B.C.’s Old Growth Forest: A Last Stand for Biodiversity, told The Narwhal in June.

Watt said he’s disappointed the province continues to talk up its old-growth strategy, while failing to do more to protect forests like the one in the Caycuse watershed.

“When you see a tree that is 800 or 1,000 years old, reduced to this graveyard of stumps, you realize that every day, every week, every month that there is further delay in action on these endangered ecosystems, the losses we face are huge and are permanent.”

Before and after images show the extent of clearcut logging on the slopes of the valley. Photo: TJ Watt

Forestry machinery on a logging road leading to a new clear cut in the Caycuse watershed. Photo: TJ Watt

Watt said industrial logging in B.C. often happens out of sight and out of mind of Canadians and yet the stakes are so urgent when you realize how little old-growth forest remains.

“That’s what I’m trying to get across. I’m trying to bring these remote places into people’s living rooms, onto their phones, so people can see what is happening, speak up, contact their elected officials, their MLAs, to demand an end to the logging of endangered old-growth forests.”

Communities dependent on logging deserve a sustainable transition plan, so they’re not left hanging when protections are put into place, Watt said.

Increasingly, conservation groups and First Nations are asking the provincial and federal governments to create financial incentives to protect, rather than harvest, forests.

Forests that are highly productive in terms of timber yield are often forests that contain the greatest biodiversity, species habitat and store the most carbon.

The province needs to turn its attention to transitioning forest management from old-growth logging to sustainable and value-added forestry practices, Watt said.

“It’s critical the government put forward funding to support Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas and support for communities that are looking to transition away from old-growth logging,” he said.

“The world is watching B.C. right now,” Watt added. “Unfortunately it took these images to capture people’s attention. We’re not going to let them get away with this.”

Watt said he is going to continue traveling to remaining ancient forests that can still be protected. He hopes he won’t have to publish more before and after photos.

“I’m going to keep going out there. Otherwise this would still be happening. No one would know. No one would care.”

Watt said he wants to see the B.C. government commit funding to the transition to sustainable forestry. Photo: TJ Watt

Watt walks down a Teal-Jones logging road. Photo: TJ Watt

Read the original article

When old-growth forests are logged, they cannot be replicated with tree replanting. “Old-growth forests are essentially non-renewable resources,” Watt said. Photo: TJ Watt

Watt estimates some of the trees recently cut down in the Caycuse watershed are between 800 and 1,000 years old. Photo: TJ Watt

While the province committed to temporarily defer logging in nine forests containing old-growth, critics were quick to point out little to no harvesting was expected to take place in those areas recommended by the panel. They also noted some of the deferral zones contained forests already protected in parks or forests that had already been logged.

These deferrals did not offer any protection to some of B.C.’s most quickly disappearing old-growth located in the northern boreal forest, a rare and endangered interior temperate rainforest and on Vancouver Island.

Watt stands at the remains of a large, old-growth cedar in the Caycuse watershed. Photo: TJ Watt

The province also claims 23 per cent of B.C. forest — about 13 million hectares — qualifies as old-growth.

But a study published in June found just three per cent of B.C. is capable of supporting large trees and within that small portion of the province, the report’s authors found only 2.7 per cent of the trees are actually old. The authors note, “old forests on these sites have dwindled considerably due to intense harvest.”

“We’ve basically logged it all,” Rachel Holt, one of the authors of the study, B.C.’s Old Growth Forest: A Last Stand for Biodiversity, told The Narwhal in June.

Watt said he’s disappointed the province continues to talk up its old-growth strategy, while failing to do more to protect forests like the one in the Caycuse watershed.

“When you see a tree that is 800 or 1,000 years old, reduced to this graveyard of stumps, you realize that every day, every week, every month that there is further delay in action on these endangered ecosystems, the losses we face are huge and are permanent.”

Before and after images show the extent of clearcut logging on the slopes of the valley. Photo: TJ Watt

Forestry machinery on a logging road leading to a new clear cut in the Caycuse watershed. Photo: TJ Watt

Watt said industrial logging in B.C. often happens out of sight and out of mind of Canadians and yet the stakes are so urgent when you realize how little old-growth forest remains.

“That’s what I’m trying to get across. I’m trying to bring these remote places into people’s living rooms, onto their phones, so people can see what is happening, speak up, contact their elected officials, their MLAs, to demand an end to the logging of endangered old-growth forests.”

Communities dependent on logging deserve a sustainable transition plan, so they’re not left hanging when protections are put into place, Watt said.

Increasingly, conservation groups and First Nations are asking the provincial and federal governments to create financial incentives to protect, rather than harvest, forests.

Forests that are highly productive in terms of timber yield are often forests that contain the greatest biodiversity, species habitat and store the most carbon.

The province needs to turn its attention to transitioning forest management from old-growth logging to sustainable and value-added forestry practices, Watt said.

“It’s critical the government put forward funding to support Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas and support for communities that are looking to transition away from old-growth logging,” he said.

“The world is watching B.C. right now,” Watt added. “Unfortunately it took these images to capture people’s attention. We’re not going to let them get away with this.”

Watt said he is going to continue traveling to remaining ancient forests that can still be protected. He hopes he won’t have to publish more before and after photos.

“I’m going to keep going out there. Otherwise this would still be happening. No one would know. No one would care.”

Watt said he wants to see the B.C. government commit funding to the transition to sustainable forestry. Photo: TJ Watt

Watt walks down a Teal-Jones logging road. Photo: TJ Watt

Read the original article

The remaining old-growth in the Caycuse watershed is as grand and as beautiful in other treasured Vancouver Island forests like Avatar grove and the Walbran valley, Watt said. Photo: TJ Watt

When old-growth forests are logged, they cannot be replicated with tree replanting. “Old-growth forests are essentially non-renewable resources,” Watt said. Photo: TJ Watt

Watt estimates some of the trees recently cut down in the Caycuse watershed are between 800 and 1,000 years old. Photo: TJ Watt

While the province committed to temporarily defer logging in nine forests containing old-growth, critics were quick to point out little to no harvesting was expected to take place in those areas recommended by the panel. They also noted some of the deferral zones contained forests already protected in parks or forests that had already been logged.

These deferrals did not offer any protection to some of B.C.’s most quickly disappearing old-growth located in the northern boreal forest, a rare and endangered interior temperate rainforest and on Vancouver Island.

Watt stands at the remains of a large, old-growth cedar in the Caycuse watershed. Photo: TJ Watt

The province also claims 23 per cent of B.C. forest — about 13 million hectares — qualifies as old-growth.

But a study published in June found just three per cent of B.C. is capable of supporting large trees and within that small portion of the province, the report’s authors found only 2.7 per cent of the trees are actually old. The authors note, “old forests on these sites have dwindled considerably due to intense harvest.”

“We’ve basically logged it all,” Rachel Holt, one of the authors of the study, B.C.’s Old Growth Forest: A Last Stand for Biodiversity, told The Narwhal in June.

Watt said he’s disappointed the province continues to talk up its old-growth strategy, while failing to do more to protect forests like the one in the Caycuse watershed.

“When you see a tree that is 800 or 1,000 years old, reduced to this graveyard of stumps, you realize that every day, every week, every month that there is further delay in action on these endangered ecosystems, the losses we face are huge and are permanent.”

Before and after images show the extent of clearcut logging on the slopes of the valley. Photo: TJ Watt

Forestry machinery on a logging road leading to a new clear cut in the Caycuse watershed. Photo: TJ Watt

Watt said industrial logging in B.C. often happens out of sight and out of mind of Canadians and yet the stakes are so urgent when you realize how little old-growth forest remains.

“That’s what I’m trying to get across. I’m trying to bring these remote places into people’s living rooms, onto their phones, so people can see what is happening, speak up, contact their elected officials, their MLAs, to demand an end to the logging of endangered old-growth forests.”

Communities dependent on logging deserve a sustainable transition plan, so they’re not left hanging when protections are put into place, Watt said.

Increasingly, conservation groups and First Nations are asking the provincial and federal governments to create financial incentives to protect, rather than harvest, forests.

Forests that are highly productive in terms of timber yield are often forests that contain the greatest biodiversity, species habitat and store the most carbon.

The province needs to turn its attention to transitioning forest management from old-growth logging to sustainable and value-added forestry practices, Watt said.

“It’s critical the government put forward funding to support Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas and support for communities that are looking to transition away from old-growth logging,” he said.

“The world is watching B.C. right now,” Watt added. “Unfortunately it took these images to capture people’s attention. We’re not going to let them get away with this.”

Watt said he is going to continue traveling to remaining ancient forests that can still be protected. He hopes he won’t have to publish more before and after photos.

“I’m going to keep going out there. Otherwise this would still be happening. No one would know. No one would care.”

Watt said he wants to see the B.C. government commit funding to the transition to sustainable forestry. Photo: TJ Watt

Watt walks down a Teal-Jones logging road. Photo: TJ Watt

Read the original article

Before and after images of Watt standing beside a large twinned old-growth cedar that he later photographed as a stump in a clearcut. Photo: TJ Watt

While the province has failed to protect B.C.’s last remaining old-growth, the pace and scale of logging has become better understood as a key driver of flooding, habitat loss and species extinction.

In response to growing public concern, the province launched a panel to perform a strategic review of old-growth forestry. The resulting report, released in September, called for massive overhaul of how B.C. manages its remaining ancient forests.

The review panel made 14 recommendations to the government, including short-term deferrals in areas with trees greater than 500 years old near the coast and greater than 300 years old inland. So far, essentially none of the panel’s recommendations have been put into action by the government.

The report noted old forests carry an intrinsic value for all living things and should be managed for ecosystem health, not for timber. It also emphasized that unique ancient forests are irreplaceable, even if trees are replanted.

Watt echoed the sentiment: “When you log an old-growth forest, it’s not coming back. Trees may come back … but old-growth forests are essentially non-renewable resources.”

Watt said the forest in the Caycuse watershed is exactly the type of forest the panel recommended protecting through immediate deferrals.

Unfortunately that recommendation is “too little too late for this forest,” Watt said.