Posts

A tree climber stands on the limb of Big Lonely Doug

Castle Giant & Big Lonely Doug – The Tree Projects Documentary Shoot

/in /by

Ancient Forest Alliance Photographer TJ Watt has been working with photographer Steve Pearce and canopy ecologist Jen Sanger of Tasmania’s The Tree Projects. The amazing duo has been capturing portraits of giant trees, including the Castle Giant in the Walbran Valley and Big Lonely Doug near Port Renfrew in Pacheedaht territory, as part of a new documentary film.

Steve Pearce, Jen Sanger, TJ Watt, Joseph Nizeti stand at the base of Big Lonely Doug.

Steve Pearce & Jen Sanger (The Tree Projects), Joseph Nizeti (Film director), and TJ Watt (AFA) stand at the base of Big Lonely Doug.

Steve has perfected a unique method of photographing giant trees around the world. It starts with establishing a suspended rope system that runs parallel to the tree trunk from the ground to near the top. From there, he raises and lowers his camera, capturing a series of high-resolution images later stitched together to create one final Tree Portrait. Often, people are placed at varying heights of the tree to provide a sense of scale. The result is stunning images that highlight the immense size, beauty, and grandeur of some of the world’s largest and oldest living trees, helping to raise awareness of the need to protect them and the forests they’re found within. See examples of their Tree Portraits.

Steave Pearce of The Tree Projects ready to hoist his camera

Steve ready to hoist his camera

The first location the crew filmed at was the famed Castle Giant in the unprotected Central Walbran Valley. At more than 16 ft (nearly 5 m) wide near its base with a massive candelabra-like canopy containing roughly two dozen spires, the Castle Giant is like a living fortress. It grows within the Castle Grove, perhaps the grandest remaining unprotected old-growth redcedar stand in Canada.

The Castle Giant tree in the Walbran Valley on Vancouver Island, BC

To create his unique Tree Portrait, Steve needed a subject tree with a clear view from the bottom to the top – a challenging thing to find in the dense rainforest! The Castle Giant, however, was the perfect fit. With some ninja-level climbing and rope work, the team got the system in place.

Instead of using a drone to capture photos, which is more susceptible to wind, rain and mist, Steve uses a cable and gimbal system with a high-resolution camera attached for better images and control. The professional climbers also use techniques that allow them to ascend the ropes themselves rather than the tree. No spurs are needed, and the few ropes that are used are removed after the climb, leaving the tree as it was. This blending of art and science is an amazing way to highlight a hidden world that humans rarely ever get to glimpse, with the ultimate goal of inspiring people to learn about and help protect endangered old-growth forests.

 

The push to protect the Walbran Valley, located two hours west of Lake Cowichan in Pacheedaht territory, has been ongoing for over three decades. Thankfully, the core of the Central Walbran Valley is currently under temporary logging deferral, providing time to help secure a long-term conservation solution for this spectacular place. Hopefully, the forthcoming film and Tree Portrait add a unique and powerful voice to these long-standing efforts.

The next location shoot was Big Lonely Doug, Canada’s second-largest Douglas-fir tree, which grows in the Gordon River Valley near Port Renfrew. Doug stands 66 m or 216 ft tall, is nearly 4 m or 13 ft wide near the base, and is likely around a thousand years old.

The sheer size of this tree always blows us away. You truly feel like an ant on a log when you’re beside it. For this Tree Portrait, TJ was positioned as a tiny person on the branch for scale. Best to not have a fear of heights when looking down from here!

A tree climber stands on the limb of Big Lonely Doug

TJ looking over a hundred feet down from a giant limb of Big Lonely Doug.

 

Despite dealing with windy weather, washed-out roads, and heaps of rain, the gentle fog that Steve needed for the perfect shot arrived and the project was ultimately a success. A huge thanks goes to climbers Ryan Senechal, Ryan Murphy, and Matthew Beatty for their expert planning, climbing, and rigging work.

Hats off  to the amazing film crew as well: Joseph Nizeti, Rob Innes, Fraser Johnston, Momme Halbe, Dan Batchelor, and Matt Maddaloni. It was impressive to see you pull this shoot together under challenging conditions.

We’ll be sure to share a link to the documentary film and the final Tree Portraits once they’re released!

Victoria Buzz: BC environmentalists climb and measure Carmanah Valley’s largest Sitka spruce tree

/in /by

April 24, 2024
By Curtis Blandy
Victoria Buzz

See the original article here.

In recognition of Earth Month in April, a group of environmental conservation advocates decided they would showcase one of Vancouver Island’s largest old-growth giants by climbing and measuring it, and capturing drone footage of the process.

Members of the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) sought out the Carmanah Valley’s largest Sitka spruce tree, which stretches approximately 21 storeys into the sky in an effort to highlight the importance of conserving and protecting old-growth forests.

According to the AFA, this Sitka in particular has a mammoth trunk, which forks into multiple stems, reminiscent of the multi-headed hydra of Greek mythology.

They noted that this tree is protected, as it grows within the Carmanah-Walbran Provincial Park in Ditidaht territory.

“This giant is by far the most spectacular Sitka spruce tree that we’ve come across during our decades-long search for big trees in BC,” said TJ Watt, AFA campaigner and photographer.

“We had been big tree hunting in the valley for two days as part of my work as a National Geographic Explorer, when, just before dark, a massive crown caught our eye in the distance. Right away, we knew we had found something special.”

The tree is 12.9 feet (3.89 metres) wide near its base, 233 feet (71 metres) tall and has an average crown spread of 72 feet (22 metres).

BC’s Big Tree Registry marks this as the largest tree in the Carmanah Valley, despite the “Carmanah Giant” being taller, and the fourth-largest Sitka spruce on record in BC.

The AFA says that two blue whales laid end-to-end would still not be as tall as this tree which has been dubbed the “Hydra Spruce.”

“Most Sitkas are tall and straight like a Roman pillar, but this one had an enormous trunk that forked into five major stems, creating a sprawling canopy like the head of a hydra,” Watt explained.

“Near the base, it would have taken seven or eight of us to wrap our arms around the trunk. Seeing it from the ground was one thing, but we knew that to truly highlight the tree’s grandeur, we would need to climb to the top.”

To climb this giant, the AFA partnered with Bartlett Tree Experts, a group of professional arborists, who shot an enormous slingshot loaded with a line up unto the canopy.

They used ropes to climb so they would not damage the tree and were able to get to within a few metres of the top of the tree’s canopy.

“I’ve climbed thousands of trees in my life, but this one was like none other,” said Matthew Beatty, Arborist and Climber with Bartlett Tree Experts.

“Even within the Carmanah Valley, where we have climbed numerous trees for scientific research projects, this is a giant among giants.”

He continued by saying he hopes that the footage and images captured during this climb inspire people to protect and advocate for old-growth groves.

The BC government continues to develop and roll out its Old-Growth Strategy, which aims to protect 30% of BC’s ancient forests by 2030.

Through these protections being put in place, AFA continues to advocate for proper implementation that will ensure protection for sites that hold BC’s oldest, largest and most at-risk trees.

Watch the video of the climb below:

 

Conservationists locate and climb the largest Sitka spruce tree in BC’s famed Carmanah Valley

/in /by

Spectacular drone footage and photos reveal climbers more than 20 stories in the air in the “hydra-like” canopy of an old-growth Sitka spruce, highlighting the incredible grandeur of old-growth forests in British Columbia during Earth Week.

Conservationists with the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) have located, climbed, and measured the largest spruce tree in the famed Carmanah Valley. The record-sized tree — whose mammoth trunk forks into multiple stems reminiscent of the multi-headed hydra of Greek mythology — grows protected within the Carmanah-Walbran Provincial Park in Ditidaht territory on Vancouver Island. The tree was identified by AFA’s TJ Watt and Ian Thomas while exploring the valley in the spring of 2022 and climbed later in the fall with the help of professional arborists. The images and videos are being released for the first time today to celebrate Earth Week.

See an incredible video of the climb and the full photo gallery.

The towering tree measures 12.9 ft (3.89 m) wide near its base, 233 ft (71 m) tall, and has an average crown spread of 72 ft (22 m). According to the BC Big Tree Registry, this makes it the largest tree in the Carmanah Valley (despite the famed “Carmanah Giant” being taller), and the fourth-largest Sitka spruce on record in BC. Two blue whales laid end-to-end would still not equal the height of this immense tree, which is one of the largest living organisms on Earth. Its immense, multi-stemmed crown has garnered it the nickname the “Hydra Spruce.”

Through a fisheye lens, a man wearing neon ascends the largest Sitka spruce tree in Carmanah-Walbran Provincial Park, with many other trees surrounding it.

Climber Will Clayton of Bartlett Tree Experts begins his ascent up the towering trunk of the largest spruce tree in the Carmanah Valley in Ditidaht territory on Vancouver Island, BC.

“This giant is by far the most spectacular Sitka spruce tree that we’ve come across during our decades-long search for big trees in BC,” noted AFA campaigner and photographer TJ Watt. “We had been big tree hunting in the valley for two days as part of my work as a National Geographic Explorer, when, just before dark, a massive crown caught our eye in the distance. Right away, we knew we had found something special. Most Sitkas are tall and straight like a Roman pillar, but this one had an enormous trunk that forked into five major stems, creating a sprawling canopy like the head of a hydra. Near the base, it would have taken seven or eight of us to wrap our arms around the trunk. Seeing it from the ground was one thing, but we knew that to truly highlight the tree’s grandeur, we would need to climb to the top.”

AFA later teamed up with professional arborists from Bartlett Tree Experts to ascend, document, and measure the ancient tree. Using a 12-foot “Big Shot” slingshot, the team fired a line over a large branch high up into the canopy. Then, using low-impact techniques where climbers ascend the ropes themselves rather than the tree’s trunk, they could reach within a few meters of the top of the tree. Lowering down a giant tape measure, they calculated a height measurement of 233 feet or 71 meters tall — as tall as a 21-story building.

“I’ve climbed thousands of trees in my life, but this one was like none other,” said arborist and climber Matthew Beatty with Bartlett Tree Experts. “Even within the Carmanah Valley, where we have climbed numerous trees for scientific research projects, this is a giant among giants. The feeling of being within an ancient canopy is an immersive, humbling, and awe-inspiring experience. I hope that by highlighting the magnificence of these rainforest ecosystems, we inspire people about the need to protect those forests still at risk outside the park boundaries.”

Climber Finn Rowlands dangles among the massive canopy of the Hydra Spruce during golden hour. All five trunks visible in this image are part of the same tree.

The Carmanah Valley has long been famous as one of the most superlative old-growth Sitka spruce forests left in Canada. Beyond the Hydra Spruce, it is home to Canada’s tallest known tree, the Carmanah Giant, which towers 315 feet (96 metres) in the sky. The Carmanah Valley was the focus of intense conservation efforts in the early 1990s when it was imminently threatened by logging. Big-tree hunter and conservationist, the late Randy Stoltmann, was a particular champion of protecting this exceptional valley. After intense public pressure, the entire watershed was eventually protected as a provincial park alongside sections of the nearby Walbran Valley. The Carmanah is now celebrated as one of the most magnificent old-growth forests on Earth, with visitors coming from across the world to walk through its vast pillars of enormous trees.

Pioneering research in the canopies of tall trees in the Carmanah Valley in the early 1990s also revealed thousands of invertebrates living in the lush jungle of epiphytic ferns, mosses, and lichens. Many of these species were entirely new to science and are believed to only live in the crowns of old-growth trees and nowhere else on Earth. Other inhabitants of these unique “sky gardens” include wandering salamanders, which recent research suggests may “glide” from branch to branch like flying squirrels, and the endangered marbled murrelet. This tiny seabird nests on the mossy cushions found on the immense branches of old-growth trees.

“When we walk among trees at ground level, huge as they seem, we are often only seeing one third of the tree, which can extend hundreds of more feet into the air,” said Watt. “Climbing into the canopy of a giant old-growth tree is like entering a lost world seen by very few people. Their branches can be as big as regular-sized trees and are often adorned with suspended gardens, overflowing with mosses, ferns, lichens, and shrubs. In those moments, you realize the vast ecological value of even a single old-growth giant. They are worlds unto themselves, with creatures that might live their entire lives in the canopy without ever touching solid ground. These ancient giants are like huge, living apartment buildings that have grown over centuries, housing uncountable numbers of individual creatures and species. These trees are irreplaceable in our lifetimes. I hope the images and videos we’ve captured here inspire reverence and awe in those who see them and inspire people to engage and speak up for protecting old-growth forests across BC.”

 

Research has shown that in addition to their immense ecological value in providing habitat for wildlife, supporting biodiversity, maintaining clean water, sequestering carbon, and buffering against climate change, standing old-growth forests and protected areas provide greater economic benefits to communities in the longer term when compared to logging them. Factoring in ecotourism, recreation, non-timber forest products, carbon credits, and enhanced real estate values, among other industries, standing old-growth forests have been shown to provide greater economic benefits over time than the one-time economic benefits gained from cutting them down.

“Carmanah is a perfect example of what society gains when we set aside large areas for nature. Thirty years after it was saved from logging, Carmanah still has vast stands of the giant trees that have been decimated elsewhere in BC. It still harbours threatened species such as marbled murrelets and western screech owls, and, it’s still a place of hidden natural wonders, where we can seek out and document some of the largest and oldest living beings on Earth,” stated Watt. “Conservationists 30 years ago gave us this gift; without them, the valley and its skyscraper trees would be another stump field transitioning to an industrial tree farm. We must give that same gift — healthy ecosystems and protected old-growth forests — to future generations.”

Climber Matthew Beatty near the top of the tree, which measures 233 feet (71 m) tall – as tall as a 21-story building.

As the BC government develops its new Old-Growth Strategy as part of a larger mandate to expand protection to 30% of BC by 2030, it must commit to legally binding ecosystem-based protection targets. These must factor in “forest productivity distinctions” (differentiating between sites that grow large trees vs. sites that typically grow small trees in cold, rocky, or boggy sites) set by science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge committees. These critical distinctions are vital to ensure the most at-risk and least-protected ecosystems are prioritized — otherwise, protection will still be largely focused on alpine and subalpine areas with low to no timber values.

Old-growth forests have unique characteristics not found in the ensuing second-growth tree plantations that they are being replaced with. These forests are typically re-logged every 50 to 60 years on BC’s coast, never to become old-growth again. Old-growth forests support endangered species, the multi-billion dollar tourism industry, carbon storage, clean water, wild salmon, and First Nations cultures. Well over 90% of the high-productivity old-growth forests with the biggest trees and over 80% of the medium-productivity old-growth forests have been logged in BC.

This climbing project was part of AFA campaigner and photographer TJ Watt’s work as a National Geographic and Royal Canadian Geographical Society Explorer, supported by the Trebek Initiative. This grant supports emerging Canadian explorers, scientists, photographers, geographers, and educators with the goal of using storytelling to ignite “a passion to preserve” in all Canadians. Watt was among the first round of recipients in 2021.

All tree climbing and drone filming was done with permission from local governments.

The Carmanah Valley at dusk, with shades of green and blue in the valley and pink along the mountain outline.

The Carmanah Valley

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

/in /by

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.

 

Ancient Forest Alliance photographer & campaigner, TJ Watt, beside an enormous old-growth Sitka spruce growing unprotected west of Lake Cowichan in Ditidaht territory.

Billion-dollar BC Nature Agreement will Supercharge Protected Areas Expansion across the Province

/in /by

For Immediate Release
November 3rd, 2023

Conservationists thank the BC and federal governments for the $1.1 billion launch of the BC Nature Agreement. The federal government has provided $500 million and BC is providing $563 million from diverse funding sources — now purposed toward achieving BC’s 30% by 2030 nature protection, conservation, and restoration goals via First Nations conservation agreements.

The Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) and Endangered Ecosystems Alliance (EEA) are greatly applauding the BC and federal governments and the First Nations Leadership Council for launching the BC Nature Agreement, with $1.1 billion in funding to start, to help achieve BC’s minimum protected areas target of protecting 30% by 2030 of its land area. The tripartite agreement, negotiated between the BC government, the federal government, and the First Nations Leadership Council (FNLC), comes with a $563 million contribution from the province and a $500 million federal contribution. The fund will continue to grow with major contributions from the philanthropic community and potentially from future government budgets over time.

Funds will be used for supporting First Nations to establish Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) and conservation initiatives, endangered species recovery, compensation of resource licensees, and habitat restoration, with a central mandate to achieve the 30% by 2030 protection target of BC in line with Canada’s national protection target.

“This is the largest provincial funding package in Canada’s history for nature conservation, and we understand it will continue to grow beyond the initial sum of $1.1 billion,” stated Ken Wu, Executive Director for EEA. “Our central campaign focus for years has been on the necessity of government funding for First Nations to establish new protected areas to save old-growth forests and endangered ecosystems in BC. Today, Premier Eby, federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, and the First Nations Leadership Council delivered, and we thank them greatly. The funds will be critically important as the ‘fuel’ to enable Indigenous conservation initiatives to help BC reach its minimum protection target of 30% by 2030. Now we need ecosystem-based protection targets connected to these conservation funds to prioritize the most endangered and least protected ecosystems in BC. Without ecosystem-based targets to aim protection priorities wisely, it’ll be like a fire brigade hosing down all the non-burning houses while the houses on fire are largely ignored. Or a surgeon who doesn’t make distinctions between organs, instead just aiming to reach an overall target of removing a couple of kilograms.”

“Because First Nations are legally in the driver’s seat in BC when it comes to on-the-ground protection of their unceded territories, a major fund such as the one announced today is vital to support them and to deal with all the various costs of establishing new protected areas, particularly in contested landscapes,” stated TJ Watt, Campaigner for AFA. “It would be impossible to essentially double the protected areas in BC from 15% now to 30% over the next seven years without it. The major funding that Eby and Guilbeault have just put forward is a big deal. Step by step, the province is moving forward with support from the federal government to create the policy vehicle and funding streams that will enable First Nations to drive where we all need to go: the protection of native ecosystems and old-growth forests in BC. Funding for First Nations-led deferrals in the most at-risk old-growth stands is still outstanding, and we will keep working to see that these vital ‘solutions space’ funds are provided.”

In BC, the province cannot unilaterally establish protected areas and “just save the old growth” on Crown/ unceded First Nations lands — the support and shared decision-making of local First Nations governments is a legal necessity in their territories. Protected areas establishment and logging deferrals move at the speed of the local First Nations whose territories it is — the BC government’s policies and funding can facilitate or hinder, help speed up or slow down, the abilities of First Nations to protect ecosystems. Conservation financing, included in this funding package, is a vital enabling condition that can greatly facilitate and speed up the protection of old-growth forests.

Endangered Ecosystems Alliance executive director, Ken Wu, stands beside a monumental old-growth redcedar tree in the unprotected Eden Grove near Port Renfrew, BC in Pacheedaht territory.

Endangered Ecosystems Alliance executive director, Ken Wu, stands beside a monumental old-growth redcedar tree in the unprotected Eden Grove near Port Renfrew, BC in Pacheedaht territory.

Today’s BC Nature Agreement funds come from four federal funding pots (Enhanced Nature Legacy, Nature Smart Solutions Fund, BC Old-Growth Fund, and 2 Billion Trees program) and most of the funding was, until now, largely inaccessible for BC protected areas. The provincial funds also come from diverse sources — disparate funds that are now newly tasked to fulfill the mandate of the BC Nature Agreement’s 30% by 2030 goal to protect, conserve and restore ecosystems via First Nations’ shared decision-making initiatives. These include the $150 million in provincial contributions to BC’s Conservation Financing Mechanism announced last week, another $100 million from the Watershed Security Fund and $200 million from the Northeast Restoration Fund, and a host of other smaller funding pots.

In addition, the BC Old-Growth Fund, worth $50 million from federal funds and which must be matched by a $50 million provincial contribution (ie. $100 million), comes into force (and will grow by an additional $32 million in federal funds committed earlier, or $64 million in matching total funds), and is mandated to protect the most at-risk old-growth forests (ie. grandest, rarest and oldest stands) in the Coastal and Inland Rainforests, and the Coastal Douglas-Fir biogeoclimatic zone. These are among the most endangered ecosystems in BC, which evolved to naturally exist with high proportions of their landscapes in an old-growth condition, with greater levels of biodiversity adapted to old-growth forests than most other ecosystems (hence, the prioritization of funds for these ecosystems is sensible from a conservation perspective — the other $1 billion is available to protect forests including old-growth in other ecosystems).

While a minor subset of the overall BC Nature Agreement, the BC Old-Growth Fund is indispensable to help protect the “biggest and best” remaining old-growth stands in BC, with a mandate akin to ecosystem-based targets to protect 400,000 hectares to 1.3 million hectares of old-growth and mature forests in the most at-risk old-growth forest types by supporting First Nations conservation initiatives. Some of these hectares might come from the finalization of the ecosystem-based management reserves negotiated years earlier in the Great Bear Rainforest final agreement. Hopefully, with support from the greater BC Nature Agreement funds, most of the remaining tracts of the at-risk old-growth forests in the Coastal and Inland Rainforests and Coastal Douglas-Fir ecosystems are picked up for protection with this fund.

TJ Watt said, “We want to flag that provincial leadership is now vital to fulfilling the mandate of the BC Old-Growth Fund, to identify the key sites, which have already been largely mapped by the province’s appointed Technical Advisory Panel, and to pro-actively approach and work with First Nations and to bring them the resources and support needed to work on protecting these most important at-risk stands. BC bureaucrats sitting on their haunches and waiting to be approached won’t get the job done.”

The BC Nature Agreement fund comes on the heels of the $300 million Conservation Financing Mechanism and in fact, includes the $150 million provincial contribution to that fund. The BC Nature Agreement fund can also be used to augment the Conservation Financing Mechanism, which, unlike the BC Nature Agreement itself, can be used to support First Nations economic development initiatives linked to new protected areas.

Endangered Ecosystems Alliance executive director, Ken Wu, stands beside a monumental old-growth redcedar tree in the unprotected Jurassic Grove near Port Renfrew, BC in Pacheedaht territory.

Endangered Ecosystems Alliance executive director, Ken Wu, stands beside a monumental old-growth redcedar tree in the unprotected Jurassic Grove near Port Renfrew, BC in Pacheedaht territory.

EEA and AFA are now focused on closing several additional gaps in BC’s old-growth and protected-areas policies, which include:

  • Ecosystem-based protection targets, ie. legally-binding targets set for all ecosystems that factor in “forest productivity distinctions” (sites that grow large trees in warm, rich soils typically at lower elevations and more southerly latitudes, vs. sites that typically grow small trees in cold, rocky, or boggy sites) set by science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge committees. These targets are vital to ensure that the most at-risk and least protected ecosystems are prioritized — otherwise, protection will still be largely focused on alpine and subalpine areas with low to no timber values, with the exception of the old-growth that the BC Old-Growth Fund protects.
  • Deferral or “solutions-space” funding for First Nations to forgo logging in the most at-risk old-growth priority areas as defined by the province’s appointed Technical Advisory Panel (TAP). This is a critical stepping stone to at least get the full remaining 1.4 million hectares of TAP’s priority areas deferred. First Nations with logging interests in these areas need compensation for their lost revenues for two years while deferrals are enacted, during which time they can potentially undertake protected areas and land-use planning.
  • Upholding protected areas standards. A provincial Protected Areas Strategy with goals, objectives, strategies, and resources must be developed, and must emphasize Provincial Conservancies, Ecological Reserves, and Protected Areas (PAs), and other real protected areas. Old-Growth Management Areas (OGMAs) have moveable boundaries upon request by logging companies, and many types of Wildlife Habitat Areas allow logging — these loopholes must be closed, and until then, they must not be included in BC’s 30% by 2030 accounting. In addition, the province is developing a new IPCA designation that is considering “flexitarian” standards that might allow for commercial logging (cultural cedar harvesting for First Nations community use, of course, should be safeguarded and is different in scale and purpose than commercial logging). Weak and/or moveable conservation designations are akin to the “cryptocurrency of protected areas,” and BC must focus on real protected areas and close the moveable boundary loophole with OGMAs in particular, as OGMAs are a needed designation to save the labyrinth of remaining old-growth fragments.
Ancient Forest Alliance photographer & campaigner, TJ Watt, stands between two enormous old-growth Sitka spruce growing unprotected near Port Renfrew, BC in Pacheedaht territory.

Ancient Forest Alliance photographer & campaigner, TJ Watt, stands between two enormous old-growth Sitka spruce growing unprotected near Port Renfrew, BC in Pacheedaht territory.

EEA and AFA are also noting that much of the funding agreement, with the exception of the conservation financing component ($150 million from BC, and $150 million from the BC Parks Foundation), is narrowly defined so as not to fund First Nations’ owned businesses as alternatives to the nations’ old-growth logging dependencies. The lack of funding to support economic alternatives in First Nations communities, which keeps these communities dependent on old-growth logging revenues and jobs, is the single greatest barrier to the protection of old-growth forests across BC. This barrier is not lost upon many of the key timber-centric senior provincial bureaucrats who continue to marginalize the availability of such funds for First Nations’ economic development, along with the lack of deferral funding. This will also be an issue that our organizations will also be watching and working on.

More Background Info

  • Conservation financing is key to meeting First Nations’ needs 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 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 if they are to forgo their old-growth logging interests to establish new protected areas and to not lose major jobs and revenues. Nations also need funding to develop the capacity to undertake land-use planning, mapping, engagement of community members, stakeholders, and resource licensees, and for stewardship and management jobs in new protected areas.
  • On BC’s Central and North Coasts (ie. the Great Bear Rainforest), $120 million in conservation financing from the province, federal government, and conservation groups in 2007 resulted in the protection of almost 1.8 million hectares of land (about 2/3rds the size of Vancouver Island), the creation of over 100 businesses and 1000 permanent jobs in First Nations communities, and significantly raised the average household income in numerous communities.
  • 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 2000 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. These forests have unique characteristics that are not replicated by the ensuing second-growth tree plantations they’re being replaced with. In fact, second-growth forests in BC are logged every 50-to-80 years on BC’s coast, never to become old growth again.
  • Well over 80% of the original, productive old-growth forests (sites where most big trees and timber values reside) have already been logged, and over 5 million hectares of big treed, rare (by ecosystem type), and very oldest old-growth forests remain unprotected in BC, with 2.6 million hectares identified as the top priorities for logging deferrals by the province’s appointed science panel or Technical Advisory Panel.
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.

BC Launches Vital Conservation Financing Mechanism to Protect Old-Growth Forests and Ecosystems

/in /by

For Immediate Release
October 26, 2023

Starting with an initial $300 million of provincial and philanthropic funding, the indispensable fund that will “fuel” or power the creation of new protected areas by supporting First Nations protected areas initiatives will continue to grow with additional federal, provincial, and private funds. Conservationists give thanks to Premier Eby for fulfilling a key commitment.

Today, the BC government made good on a vital conservation commitment made last December by Premier David Eby to develop a conservation financing mechanism to fund Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) by funding First Nations’ economic, capacity, stewardship, and management needs linked to protecting ecosystems. The new fund consists of a $150 million provincial contribution and $150 million to be raised by the BC Parks Foundation, the official charitable fund of the province’s BC Parks agency, for a total of $300 million to start. The fund is likely to grow quickly with major federal protected areas funding soon, additional provincial protected areas funds (conjoined with the federal funds via the BC Nature Fund and BC Old-Growth Funds, two additional funds currently under negotiation), funds from the international philanthropic community, and contributions from private citizens over time.

“This is a vital step forward to protect nature in British Columbia on a major scale — Premier Eby should be thanked for this. Conservation financing is the indispensable ‘fuel’ to power along the establishment of new protected areas in BC — without it, the large-scale protection of the most endangered and contested ecosystems, such as those with the largest trees and greatest timber values, would be largely impossible,” stated Ken Wu, executive director of the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance. “Since 2017 my colleagues and I have been calling on the province to undertake conservation financing, and three years ago we launched the main campaign with diverse allies calling for federal and provincial conservation funding to protect old-growth forests and endangered ecosystems – and today Premier Eby has delivered. This is a huge conservation victory for the many thousands of people who’ve spoken up for years for this.”

“This conservation financing mechanism puts major wind in the sails for the protection of old-growth forests in BC. After we’ve spent years relentlessly focusing on the centrality of conservation financing to support First Nations’ protected areas initiatives, Premier Eby has delivered on one of his three big commitments now. His other major commitments include doubling the protected areas in BC from 15% now to 30% by 2030 — this funding will make it possible as the fund grows — and targeting protection for biodiverse areas, which we interpret to mean the potential development of ecosystem-based protection targets which haven’t happened yet. We will continue working to ensure these commitments come to fruition,” stated TJ Watt, campaigner and photographer with the Ancient Forest Alliance.

Ancient Forest Alliance Campaigner & Photographer, TJ Watt, stands beside an unprotected old-growth redcedar tree in the Jurassic Grove near Port Renfrew in Pacheedaht territory.

Ancient Forest Alliance Campaigner & Photographer, TJ Watt, stands beside an unprotected old-growth redcedar tree in the Jurassic Grove near Port Renfrew in Pacheedaht territory.

In BC, it’s important to note that the province cannot unilaterally establish protected areas and “just save the old-growth” on Crown lands — the support of local First Nations governments is a legal necessity in their unceded territories. Protected areas establishment and logging deferrals move at the speed of the local First Nations whose territories it is. The BC government’s policies and funding can facilitate or hinder, help speed up or slow down, the abilities of First Nations to protect ecosystems. Conservation financing is a vital enabling condition that can speed up the protection of old-growth forests.

Across BC, First Nations have an economic dependency on forestry jobs and revenues, including in old-growth logging — a dependency fostered and facilitated by successive BC governments. Many First Nations also have an economic dependency on other resource industries, including mining and oil and gas. Hence, conservation financing to fund First Nations’ sustainable economic alternatives in ecotourism, clean energy, sustainable seafood, non-timber forest products (eg. wild mushrooms), and other industries, linked to the establishment of new protected areas, is vital for First Nations to be able to transition from their dependency on old-growth logging revenues and jobs and other resource industries in endangered ecosystems. Without conservation financing, the establishment of new protected areas in areas with high timber values would be like asking First Nations to simply jettison their main source of revenues and jobs — something that no major human population would do without economic alternatives and support.

On BC’s Central and North Coasts (ie. the Great Bear Rainforest), a conservation financing investment of $120 million in 2006 ($30 million from the province, $30 million from the federal government, $60 million from conservation groups) for First Nations sustainable economic development and stewardship needs, resulted in the protection of about one third of the region, about 1.8 million hectares. The initial investment, as a result of interest and carbon offsets, has ended up providing over $300 million in investments to First Nations’ owned businesses and stewardship initiatives, supporting over 100 First Nations-owned businesses, funding over 1000 jobs, and raising the average per household income substantially in First Nations communities.

Several loopholes or gaps remain in the BC government’s protected areas and conservation financing initiatives that the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance and Ancient Forest Alliance will continue to work to close.

  1. Just as conservation financing was linked to protection targets (specific valleys and ecosystem retention targets) in the Great Bear Rainforest, the new conservation financing mechanism needs to be tied to “ecosystem-based targets”, that is, protection targets developed for each ecosystem that ensure that all ecosystems, including the most endangered and contested landscapes such as “high productivity” old-growth forests with the greatest timber values, are protected based on science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge. These targets should be developed by a Chief Ecologist (similar to BC’s Chief Forester, but with an ecological lens) and various science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge committees – new positions that are currently under consideration as the province develops a Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework. The province already has mapped the most at-risk old-growth forest types via their Technical Advisory Panel (TAP) and it’s vital that these conservation financing funds are linked to those deferral targets as priority, potential protected areas. Linking the conservation financing mechanism to the development of the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework (BEHF), (in particular should it develop ecosystem-based protection targets) is vital once the initiative is finalized.
  2. The province’s conservation funds (and/or other provincial funds currently under development) should also be used to immediately provide funding for First Nations to help offset lost logging revenues when being asked to accept logging deferrals in their unceded territories as identified by the government’s old-growth science panel, the Technical Advisory Panel (TAP). This “solutions-space” funding, as was used successfully in Clayoquot Sound, will be critical in helping ensure the deferral of the roughly 1.4 million hectares (more than half) of priority old-growth deferrals that remain outstanding from the original 2.6 million hectares.
  3. Ensuring that conservation financing supports only protected areas that meet the standards and permanency of true protected areas – meaning supporting designations that exclude commercial logging (while protecting First Nations cultural harvesting of individual trees, such as monumental cedars for dugout canoes and totem poles), mining, and oil and gas developments, and whose boundaries cannot be readily shifted. Provincial Conservancies and a few other provincial designations termed “Protected Areas” are designations that exclude commercial logging, mining, and oil and gas development, but that protect First Nations subsistence and cultural rights (hunting, fishing, gathering, cultural cedar harvest), co-management authority, and rights and title, and would have the standards and permanency of real protected areas. Conservation regulations such as Old-Growth Management Areas (which allow moveable boundaries to let companies log the biggest trees, to be replaced by “protecting” areas with smaller trees) and Wildlife Habitat Areas (which can still allow commercial logging, for example in Spotted Owl and Northern Goshawk ‘buffer’ areas) would not meet the threshold of real protected areas unless their loopholes are closed.

“We’re watching with great concern as the province might be looking to establish new ‘flexitarian’ designations – tenuous or fake ‘protected areas’ that still allow logging or boundary shifts to occur. These types of loopholes can easily result in the high-grade logging within such ‘protected areas’ of the very geographically limited monumental old-growth stands and the most endangered ecosystems, which can often constitute one or two percent or less of any major landscape area,” stated Ken Wu, Endangered Ecosystems Alliance executive director.

Endangered Ecosystems Alliance Executive Director, Ken Wu, beside an old-growth redcedar tree in the unprotected Eden Grove near Port Renfrew in Pacheedaht territory.

Endangered Ecosystems Alliance Executive Director, Ken Wu, beside an old-growth redcedar tree in the unprotected Eden Grove near Port Renfrew in Pacheedaht territory.

“The big campaign now will be for ecosystem-based protection targets — without them, we’ll see a massive number of hectares of new protected areas in alpine and subalpine areas with little to no timber value, and that skirt around saving the big timber that will still get logged. Without ecosystem-based targets, it’s like calling in fire trucks to hose down all the houses that are not burning, while the houses on fire get ignored. Ecosystem-based targets means you aim protected areas establishment right, to save the most endangered and least represented ecosystems”, stated Ken Wu, EEA executive director.

“Premier Eby has done something great today and we thank him. We still have to close several gaps and loopholes, related to linking conservation financing to ecosystem-based targets and the most at-risk old-growth, to ensure protected areas integrity moving forward, and to ensure deferral funding comes from various government sources. But make no mistake, this is a very good day,” stated TJ Watt, AFA campaigner.

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 70 years on BC’s coast, never to become old-growth again. Well over 80% of the original, productive old-growth forests (medium to high productivity sites where most big trees and timber values reside) have already been logged, and over 5 million hectares of big tree, rare (by ecosystem type), and very ancient old-growth forests remain unprotected in BC.

Watch this small video series by the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance’s Ken Wu explaining conservation financing, BC’s old-growth policy progress and remaining loopholes, and ecosystem-based targets.

See the news article and the media release that launched the campaign in 2020 for conservation financing from the provincial and federal governments.

A sea of green old-growth in the Central Walbran Valley

Recent Updates on Old-Growth Deferrals in BC

/in /by

Great news — thanks to the leadership of the Pacheedaht, Ditidaht, and Huu-ay-aht First Nations, the logging deferral in the Central Walbran valley was extended last year until March 2024 and the deferral at Fairy Creek (excluding the surrounding watersheds) has now been extended as well until February 2025.

Logging deferrals are interim protection measures that safeguard old-growth forests in the short-term, while long-term land-use plans (which may include new protected areas) are developed by First Nations.

When seeking to understand how old-growth forests can ultimately be protected, it’s vital to note that the BC government cannot just “save the old growth” by unilaterally creating new legislated protected areas, as First Nations support is a legal necessity, and First Nations consent for logging deferrals is an important precursor to building the trust for potential future protected areas.

However, the BC government can and should be advocates for old-growth protection after its failed policies have led to today’s ecological emergency. The province must also use its vast resources (much of which came from the exploitation of old-growth forests) to ensure that First Nations have an equitable choice when being asked whether they want to defer or protect old-growth on their unceded territories.

The government must do this by supporting First Nations with funding for sustainable economic alternatives to their logging jobs and revenues, due to many (even most) nations in BC relying heavily on the old-growth logging industry — an economic dependency fostered by successive BC governments.

Across BC, over a million hectares of at-risk old-growth forests are now under temporary deferral, but millions more have no protection at all. What’s needed now from the province — beyond major conservation financing funds — are ecosystem-based targets set by science and informed by Traditional Ecological Knowledge that prioritize the most at-risk ecosystems (such as those with big trees vs. stunted subalpine and bog forests) for protection.

Send a message to the BC government calling for funding.

Read about the newest Fairy Creek deferrals here.

Before COP15, Conservation Groups call on BC Government to Commit to Funding and Targets to Expand Protected Areas in BC

/in /by

For Immediate Release
November 30, 2022

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.

In the lead-up to the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal where 195 countries will meet next week to negotiate new international protected areas targets and policies, the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance (EEA) and the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) are calling on the BC government to commit to the federal protected areas targets to protect 25% by 2025 and 30% by 2030 its land and marine areas, at a bare minimum, and to ensure a significant federal-provincial funding package (the “Nature Agreement” that is currently being negotiated) that directs funding for the right “places, parties, and purposes” needed to ensure an effective protected areas system in BC.

The federal government has committed $3.3 billion over 5 years to expand terrestrial ($2.3 billion) and marine ($1 billion) protected areas, along with several billion dollars more for “natural climate solutions” that often overlap with nature protection initiatives.

BC’s share of those funds are between $200 to $400 million, yet the province has neither embraced the federal funds nor committed its own funds – nor even embraced the federal protected areas targets yet.

For the protection of the most at-risk old-growth stands, the federal government has also earmarked $55 million in a BC old-growth fund (a campaign for this fund was spearheaded by the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance with the Union of BC Indian Chiefs in 2020), contingent on BC providing matching funding for a total old-growth fund of $110 million – which again the BC government has not committed to.

For almost 2 years, the federal and BC governments have been in negotiations to develop a bi-lateral Nature Agreement on a funding package with protected areas targets for BC, yet still nothing has been announced just 1 week from the start of the UN Biodiversity Conference.

“Now is the time, in the lead-up to the UN Biodiversity Conference, for the BC government to commit to major federal funding and to provide its own funding on a sufficient scale. With significant funding and protected areas targets, including targets for all ecosystem types that ensures prioritization for the most underrepresented and at-risk ecosystems, such as the last of the ‘high-productivity’ old-growth stands with the biggest trees, we could see a historically unprecedented expansion of the protected areas system to safeguard the rarest and most endangered ecosystems in BC – and to end the half-century long ‘War in the Woods’. We’ve maintained for years that funding is the fundamental driver for protected areas expansion in BC, in particular to support First Nations sustainable economic development linked to new protected areas and for private land acquisition. Without this funding, major protected areas expansion in BC cannot happen at a scale and speed commensurate to the extinction and climate crises”, stated Ken Wu, Endangered Ecosystems Alliance Executive Director.

“Thousand-year-old trees with trunks as wide as living rooms and as tall as downtown skyscrapers are still being cut on a daily basis in BC. The provincial government has reaped billions from the logging of these highly endangered and irreplaceable ecosystems and now, with the planet facing a climate and biodiversity crisis that threatens the survival of even our own species, it’s time for them to give back. This means matching the federal government’s major funding commitments towards expanding protected areas in BC, adding additional funds of their own, and ensuring those funds are directed towards protecting the highest value forests that remain, not just scrub, rock, and ice. Leaving high-value old-growth forests standing needs to be made as economically viable for communities, even in the short term, as cutting them down”, stated TJ Watt, Campaigner and Photographer with the Ancient Forest Alliance.

AFA’s TJ Watt beside an old-growth redcedar stump near Port Renfrew in Pacheedaht territory.

Across BC, most old-growth forests and endangered ecosystems are on the unceded territories of diverse First Nations, whose consent is a legal necessity to establish new legislated protected areas in the province. The British Columbian government is currently under pressure to help finance First Nations old-growth logging deferrals and protection, in particular to fund First Nations sustainable businesses and jobs linked to new protected areas, a process known as “conservation financing”. Across BC, numerous First Nations have an economic dependency on old-growth timber revenues that has been facilitated and fostered by successive provincial governments. Unfortunately, the provincial government has not committed the key funding to First Nations to help them develop economic alternatives to old-growth logging (in such industries as tourism, clean energy, sustainable seafood, or non-timber forest products like wild mushrooms) as was done in years past to secure the protection for large sections of BC’s Central and North Coast (ie. the Great Bear Rainforest) and Haida Gwaii, and as is currently underway to protect most of Clayoquot Sound. Without the key funding, many or most cases First Nations will have no choice but to default back to the status quo of old-growth logging on large parts of their territories.

That is, major funding worth several hundred million dollars is needed to support sustainable economic alternatives (ie. business development) for First Nations communities linked to Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas and old-growth logging deferrals. Compensation currently exists for First Nations forestry workers (ie. the labour side) via the province’s $185 million fund to support BC forestry workers affected by old-growth logging deferrals, while the province has also provided $12 million (an insufficient amount) to help First Nations undertake land-use planning, including assessing old-growth logging deferrals and the impacts to their communities. However, it is the “business side” of the equation – the largest part of funding needs, estimated to cost about $600 to $800 million for First Nations in order to supplant their old-growth logging interests (for example, to protect much of the Great Bear Rainforest, which is 6% of the land area in BC, $120 million in conservation financing was brought in from environmental groups and the provincial and federal governments, and tens of millions more in carbon offset funding) that will enable them to protect the most at-risk old-growth forests in BC – that is lacking from government at this time. Additional funds are also needed by First Nations to protect non-old-growth forest ecosystems as well – second-growth forests, grasslands, wetlands, etc.

At its core, to actually protect the most contested and endangered high-productivity old-growth forests sought after by the timber industry with the biggest trees and greatest biological richness, the conservation financing for First Nations businesses must be tied to supplanting old-growth logging interests specifically in the stands most coveted for logging. Simply providing capacity funding or labour support, or even economic development funding not linked to protecting the most valuable old-growth timber, is a recipe for the biggest and best old-growth stands to still fall, while new protected areas skirt around these monumental stands and instead protect smaller trees in the lower-productivity old-growth stands typically at higher elevations, in poor soils or in boggy landscapes, and that have fewer species at risk and which are far more represented in the existing protected areas system.

Unprotected old-growth forest at risk of future logging on Edinburgh Mountain near Port Renfrew in Pacheedaht territory.

In addition, to protect endangered ecosystems and old-growth forests on private lands, provincial and federal government funding is needed to purchase these lands. In BC, only about 5% of the lands are privately owned, concentrated on southeastern Vancouver Island, in the Lower Mainland, and in major river valleys in BC.

If the BC government ends up providing major funding and adopting the federal protected areas targets with a new Nature Agreement deal, there are still ways the agreement can come up short. For such a deal to be most effective, the funding must be directed to the key “places, parties, and purposes”:

Places: Priority must be given to the most endangered ecosystems that are most at risk from industry – in particular logging, agricultural conversion and suburban sprawl – in the major valley bottoms and lower elevations in southern BC where most of the people and industry are, and by no coincidence where most species and ecosystem at risk are. The government will tend to protect vast areas of lower productivity “rock and ice” – alpine areas at high elevations and far northern forests with minimal timber value in order to maximize the hectares protected for PR purposes and that minimize the impacts to most industries, which also minimizes protection for the vast majority of species and ecosystems at risk. These alpine, subalpine, far northern, and bog ecosystems are native ecosystems that deserve protection, but a far greater emphasis must be on saving the most contested, endangered ecosystems right now given the current ecological crisis.

The government also has to stop its “creative accounting” on how much they claim is protected in BC. About 15% of BC is in legislated protected areas – however, in some of its PR claims, the province has sometimes been adding an extra 4%, largely in tenuous conservation regulations, known as Old-Growth Management Areas and Wildlife Habitat Areas, that lack the permanency (OGMA’s can be moved around in chunks and logged, for example) and/or the standards (oil and gas and some logging is allowed in some types of WHA’s) of real protected areas.

Parties: Priority should be given to First Nations sustainable economic development linked to new protected areas and conservation reserves. Legally mandated corporate compensation for logging, mining and oil and gas companies should be years down the road – First Nations must come first, being Nations, as they decide the fate of their unceded territories. Land acquisition funding for private lands is also important.

In addition, as most First Nations have not initiated new land use planning processes where protected areas are decided, it is vital that much of the funding be “open” and uncommitted at this time to help drive protection options during the land use planning processes over the next couple years.

Purposes: Funding for the development of sustainable businesses for interested First Nations that is linked to new protected areas is by far the largest amount of funding needed – smaller funds are needed for First Nations capacity around land-use planning and deferral assessments and for interim jobs and labour needs. Without this core business development funding, protected areas will be add-ons that will largely skirt around the status quo of old-growth logging in the core areas with the biggest trees. The excuse of government saying that “First Nations haven’t been telling us they want conservation financing” is both incorrect in many cases, and often disingenuous when they haven’t even raised the possibility of any major conservation financing to First Nations.

Increasing the economic dependency of communities on old-growth logging, whether First Nations or non-First Nations, is the wrong approach for these conservation funds, including tenure buy-backs if they lack legal conservation measures to protect the remaining old-growth and endangered ecosystems.

Provincial funds are also needed from other sources – but not from the conservation funds of a Nature Agreement – to support incentives for a value-added, second-growth forest industry and the expansion of a smart, second-growth engineered wood products industry in general across BC.

It should also be noted that forestry revenue-sharing agreements do not constitute “conservation financing” for First Nations, contrary to the recent PR-spin of the BC government – quite the oppositive, it entrenches the economic dependency of the communities on old-growth logging (which would be akin to sharing oil and gas revenues, and then expecting the communities to then stop oil and gas activities).

“We hope the new Premier David Eby takes this chance for a major protected areas funding agreement of a sufficient size and with ambitious targets, aimed at the most endangered ecosystems and that prioritizes support for First Nations. He can end the War in the Woods and ensure the protection of the amazing diversity of endangered ecosystems across BC – what a great start to his first 100 days that would be and a historic leap forward for the planet!” stated Ken Wu, Endangered Ecosystems Alliance Executive Director.

EEA Excutive Director, Ken Wu, beside an incredible unproteted old-growth redcedar at Jurassic Grove near Port Renfrew in Pacheedaht territory.

More background info:

Old-growth forests are vital to support endangered species, First Nations cultures, the climate, clean water, wild salmon, and tourism.

Protecting nature is not only vital to avert the extinction crisis and the climate crisis (by drawing down vast amounts of atmospheric carbon into protected forests, grasslands, and wetlands) but research shows that nature and protected areas are vital for our health and for the economy.

Increasing studies show that being in forests and nature supports our mental and physical health, reducing all sorts of ailments and boosting our immune systems. Recent research has even shown that many trees and plants emit a defensive compound called “phytoncides” which boost our immune systems when we breathe them in.

Studies also show that protected areas, including protecting old-growth forests, attract and foster more diverse, resilient, and prosperous economies, including supporting businesses and jobs in the tourism and recreation sectors; commercial and recreational fishing industry by sustaining clean water and fish habitat; real estate industry by enhancing property values in communities near protected green spaces; non-timber forest products industries like wild mushroom harvesting; high tech sector by attracting skilled labour that locates to areas with a greater environmental quality of life; and by providing numerous ecosystem services that benefit businesses.

The province appointed an independent science team, the Technical Advisory Panel, in 2021 who recommended that logging be deferred on 2.6 million hectares of land with the grandest (biggest trees), oldest and, rarest old-growth stands while First Nations land use plans are developed over a couple years to decide which areas are permanently protected in legislation. These recommended deferral areas have been put forward by the BC government for the consent of local First Nations to decide which areas get deferred. Currently about 1 million of the recommended 2.6 million hectares (ie. 40%) are under deferral, while some areas have been logged. Unfortunately, the provincial government has not committed any concrete funding to First Nations to offset their lost revenues should they accept old-growth logging deferrals in areas where they have logging interests, nor to help them develop economic alternatives to old-growth logging.

EEA Executive Director, Ken Wu, by an old-growth Douglas-fir in the Nahmint Valley near Port Alberni on Vancouver Island in Hupacasath, Tseshaht, & Uclulet territory.

The Ancient Tree Hunter

/in /by

Patagonia
July 23, 2021

As the old-growth logging crisis heats up in Canada, a photographer goes searching for trees to save them.

TJ Watt stands on a 12-foot-wide stump, a former old-growth Western red cedar, overlooking a recent clear cut in the Caycuse watershed on southern Vancouver Island. Photo: Jeremy Koreski

There are no trails in the old-growth coastal temperate rainforests of Canada’s southern Vancouver Island. As I follow TJ Watt through another grabby thicket of stink currant, I offer silent thanks that I’m not the one lugging the camera equipment. We plough through underbrush, wade across streams, climb over moss-covered boulders and fallen logs, and circumvent the trunks of massive trees. It takes us an hour to gain a single kilometer.

Watt moves with the dogged determination of a hunter. He doesn’t seem to tire. His purpose is to locate groves of old-growth trees—giants the size of grain silos that are hundreds or even thousands of years old—and photograph them in order to rally people to their defense through his nonprofit, Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA). He’s been building conservation campaigns this way for over a decade, nearly one-third of his life, but the stakes have suddenly gone up.

The latest science shows that old-growth coastal temperate rainforests are among the world’s best natural defenses against global warming, absorbing and storing even more carbon from the atmosphere than the Amazon tropical rainforest in South America. Yet logging companies in British Columbia continue to harvest old-growth trees, with no signs of stopping. Depending on the species, trees from this region will be turned into a variety of building materials ranging from airplane-frame components to roof shingles. Others will be made into furniture, cabinets and interior woodwork. Some will be sent to specialty mills to create components for musical instruments, like guitar soundboards. On southern Vancouver Island where Watt lives and works, 96 percent of the productive old-growth forests along the valley bottoms—where the largest trees grow—have already been logged. “Big trees are big money for the logging industry, but at a high cost to the environment,” Watt says.

In some ways, Watt is a relative newcomer to old-growth conservation efforts in British Columbia. In the ’90s, Vancouver Island was famously the epicenter of the “War in the Woods,” where mass civil disobedience arrests eventually led to the protection of Clayoquot Sound on the island’s west coast. In the last few months, hundreds of protestors have amassed at Fairy Creek in what is quickly becoming the biggest act of civil disobedience over logging in decades. Watt is taking a different approach to save these last groves: building support among diverse demographics and creating a clear, photogenic message that can ripple through the media. His vision is for the British Columbia government to implement science-based legislation that protects endangered old-growth forests across the province.

“You can’t win this one grove at a time” he says. “It has to be bigger.”

Watt didn’t know what an old-growth forest was until the age of 20. His father was among the first cold-water surfers on southern Vancouver Island, and Watt spent his youth watching waves and entering local skateboarding competitions. “I’m sure I’d seen old growth by that point in my life but just didn’t understand what I was looking at,” Watt says.

In 2005, he signed up for a public outing to the Walbran Valley, home to Canada’s most majestic red cedar forests, that was organized by the Wilderness Committee’s Victoria office. The trip opened his eyes to the grandeur of trees and their plight. “There were all these rivers and beautiful waterfalls and trees probably 16 feet in diameter, 4 or 5 meters wide,” Watt recalls, switching between metric and Imperial measurements in typical Canadian fashion. “To learn that they were at risk of being cut down just totally shocked me.”

Watt’s interest in photography started in high school when he began borrowing his mom’s camera. After graduation, he spent three months backpacking and photographing his way through Southeast Asia but wasn’t sure how to make a career out of it. He ended up back in his hometown working for his dad building houses. Once Watt started taking photos for the Wilderness Committee, he was inspired to enroll at the Western Academy of Photography. He completed the program in 2007.

Ken Wu, then the executive director of the Wilderness Committee’s Victoria office, remembers the day Watt walked into his office and volunteered to take photos. “He was this skateboarding hippie with dreadlocks down to his waist,” Wu recalls. “I looked through his photos and thought, yeah these are pretty good.” Wu initially sent Watt to photograph environmental demonstrations in the city, but it was soon clear that Watt’s skills and interests were stronger in the wild. “He has a tremendous sense of balance, which is really important out there—old-growth forests are among the most rugged landscapes in the world,” Wu says. Wu hired Watt on contract to explore old-growth groves and take photos for marketing materials and press releases. The two men would go on, in 2010, to cofound a new environmental nonprofit, Ancient Forest Alliance, devoted to protecting Vancouver Island’s old-growth forests.

“It just was a perfect fit,” says Watt. “I loved adventure, and I loved the outdoors. And maybe because I came from a skateboarding background the jumping around through the forest part felt like a fun game.”

“That’s a nurse log,” Watt says, pointing out a fallen tree with new saplings starting to grow out of it. I stop, marveling at how much old-growth trees give back to the ecosystem even in death. We’re traipsing through Avatar Grove, a stand of highly photogenic red cedar and Douglas fir that Watt first came across while tree hunting in Pacheedaht territory, in the Gordon River Valley not far from the hamlet of Port Renfrew. In 2012, he worked with the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce to save these 50 hectares (about 124 acres) from being logged. AFA rallied volunteers to build boardwalks and viewing platforms for the trees, and in a stroke of marketing genius, they nicknamed the site Avatar Grove after the blockbuster film. Soon after, in the same region, Watt encountered a 230-foot-tall Douglas fir with a 39-foot circumference—the second-largest Douglas fir tree in Canada—standing alone in a recent clear-cut. Watt’s photos of “Big Lonely Doug” were heartbreaking and effective. Following countless news stories, Canadian journalist Harley Rustad wrote a book, Big Lonely Doug: The Story of One of Canada’s Last Great Trees, in 2018. The BC Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development enacted permanent protection for the tree and 53 others identified by the University of British Columbia’s BC Big Tree Registry.

Port Renfrew, a former logging town, rebranded itself as Canada’s Tall Tree Capital. The results are encouraging. In non-pandemic years, local hotels and B and Bs reported a surge in demand between 75 and 100 percent each year since 2012. New businesses are opening and thriving, like Wild Renfrew, an ecotourism resort and outfitter, and Pacheedaht Pit Stop, the town’s first gas station in two decades. In a place where clear-cutting was once the only means of economic growth, residents now recognize that old-growth trees can provide just as much, if not more, value as part of a tourism-based economy. “When you cut down an old-growth tree, it’s a one-time payout,” Watt says as we climb stairs built into a fern-covered slope to reach the viewing platform for what’s called Canada’s gnarliest tree. “But this,” he says, gesturing toward the whimsical tree, a nearly 200-foot-tall cedar with big knotty burls covering its trunk, “this can provide a sustainable economy for the town indefinitely.”

As affirming as AFA’s early success with Avatar Grove was for Watt, it was also sobering. The feat took two years of nonstop effort for Watt and Wu, who led dozens of hikes to the site and generated hundereds of news articles calling for its protection—plus what Watt calls “a heroic effort” by the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce and local business leaders. “It would be impossible to replicate this for every place,” Watt says as we walk back to his van. “This is one grove out of thousands that are being cut across the province at any given time. It just happened to be one we were able to showcase.”

On a sunny summer day in 2020, Watt sits at his computer at the AFA office, a modest window-lined room in the Central Building in downtown Victoria. Through iMapBC, the government’s free web-mapping application, Watt can access publicly available geographic data like pending cut blocks, active cut blocks and protected Old Growth Management Areas (places such as Avatar Grove). The application enables him to overlay the data onto satellite images, providing Watt the same bird’s-eye view as the logging industry.

We’re looking at a zoomed-in section of southern Vancouver Island’s Nahmint Valley, near the small town of Port Alberni. Watt’s been analyzing satellite images for so long that he can tell the type of forest by the shape and contour of the treetops. Second growth has a lighter green coloring and appears uniform, almost like a lawn. Old growth is darker green, scruffy and rough, with conical shapes and dark shadows that Watt says indicate the tops of very tall, very old trees. “Anything outlined in green is a planned BC Timber Sales cut block,” he says as he scrolls around on the map so I can see the two dozen or so planned cut blocks marring the valley. “If you put them all together, we’re talking more than 600 football fields of old-growth trees that are intended to be logged.”

Watt first visited the cut blocks of Nahmint Valley in 2018, to photograph the old-growth logging in progress. His photos went viral. One of them, of his colleague Andrea standing on a patio-sized cedar stump with its massive trunk lying on the ground behind her, appeared in Reddit’s World News section. The photo, with the headline, “Canada’s Largest Trees Cut Down in Nahmint Valley,” ran alongside stories on Brexit and President Trump.

The public outcry was fierce, a crescendo to the momentum the AFA had been building for years. Around the same time, the BC Chamber of Commerce (representing 36,000 businesses) called on the provincial government to improve old-growth protection for the purpose of tourism, using Port Renfrew as an example. In response, the government of British Columbia appointed an independent panel to undertake public engagement on old growth and provide a report to the Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development. The report was expected to drastically alter the way British Columbia manages old-growth trees.

Watt pulls up a link to the 72-page report, “A New Future for Old Forests,” published on April 30, 2020. One of the panel’s 14 recommendations is to immediately defer development (translation: logging) in old-growth forests until the province can improve the way it manages them. Watt hopes the report will end the logging of endangered old growth in British Columbia once and for all—the top-down protection he’s been fighting for. “It’s no longer just environmentalists calling for this change,” he says. “It includes all kinds of non-traditional allies. It’s businesses and unions and scientists and faith groups and outdoor recreationalists.”

But a year later, Watt, Wu and all those who’d hoped for positive change are still waiting. The BC government, despite claiming full commitment to implementing all 14 of the report’s recommendations, is moving at what Watt calls “a snail’s pace.” Meanwhile, industrial logging continues to clear-cut old growth on Vancouver Island and beyond. Which means Watt is still out there with his camera.

Watt knows that Canada will lose many of the groves he photographed—no matter how ancient or charismatic the trees. Logging is just too profitable for the forestry industry, and without a new business model or government support, there’s little incentive for them to change. Ten years in, Watt says it doesn’t get any easier. He recently returned to a favorite find in the Caycuse River watershed—a monumental stand of red cedars likely 1,000-years-old—to find the entire forest clear-cut. The experience was devastating. “Once they’re gone, they’re gone,” Watt says. “Second-growth forests are logged every 50 to 80 years, never to become old growth again.” Intellectually, he knows his role isn’t to save every tree—it’s to give voice to the trees and use his photography to motivate people to get and pressure elected officials to enact greater protection for old-growth forests. That’s ultimately Watt’s (and AFA’s) goal: science-based legislation that protects old growth from the top down and a shift to a sustainable, value added second-growth forest industry instead. But emotionally, it’s tough. “I think for somebody whose greatest love is old-growth trees and forests, I have the best job in the world and the worst job in the world,” Watt says.

When we last spoke, on June 2, 2021, he was fresh off an ancient tree hunt in Fairy Creek Valley, which is adjacent to Avatar Grove near Port Renfrew. Fairy Creek is the last unprotected old-growth valley in southern Vancouver Island that’s still intact. But it’s hanging by a string. At this very minute, logging giant Teal-Jones is bulldozing the roads to access the 12.8 hectares (almost 32 acres) of mostly old growth that it plans to harvest within the Fairy Creek watershed. Environmental activists are on-site, chaining themselves to anything they can, occupying trees and staging road blockades. As of early June 2021, the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) has arrested 185 activists. Watt is trying a new technique—aerial photography. He took his photos of Fairy Creek by helicopter. He hopes to convey the grandeur of this singular river valley by showing it in its entirety, much the way a bald eagle sees it.

Watt’s dreadlocks may be gone, and his heart has been broken by this fight too many times, but he still jumps at the chance to document the lives of the world’s most awe-inspiring trees.

Join us and the AFA to demand that the BC government:

1. Work with Indigenous governments to immediately halt logging in BC’s most at-risk old-growth forests, as recommended by the independent panel.

2. Implement all of the Old Growth Strategic Review panel’s recommendations within the proposed three-year timeline.

3. Allocate funding to support Indigenous-led protected areas, land-use planning, and economic alternatives to old-growth logging.

4. Create a provincial land acquisition fund to purchase and protect endangered ecosystems on private lands.

5. Develop a strategy to support the transition to a sustainable, value-added, second-growth forest sector.

6. Enact legislation that places ecosystem integrity, biodiversity, and ecosystem services over timber values.

Act Now

Read the original article

 

Ending Horgan’s War against Old Growth

/in /by

 

The Tyee
June 14, 2021

I’ve fought to save forests for 40 years. It’s time for real change.

TealJonesClearcut.jpg
NDP forest policies are just more ‘talk and log,’ writes veteran environmentalist Vicky Husband. This recent old-growth clearcut is adjacent to the Fairy Creek Valley. Photo by T.J. Watt.

Let’s call Premier John Horgan’s forest policies what they are — a colonial defence of talk and log and a moral failure to protect the province’s remaining old-growth forests.

Horgan has sparked a brutal new war in the woods by denying two realities: our forests have been massively overcut for little added value, and we are now nearing the long-predicted end of our old-growth forests.

In this regard Horgan and his government share with Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro a disregard for the value, work and beauty of primary ancient forests. 

For more than 40 years now I have fought to save ancient complex forests from corporate chainsaws on Meares Island, and later Clayoquot Sound, South Moresby/Gwaii Haanas, the Khutzeymateen and more.

I did so because I saw these forests not solely as a source of giant trees, but also as groundwater regulators, carbon holders, medicine makers, water filters, biodiversity bankers, fungal communicators, salmon guardians and rainmakers.

We won a few battles, but we never saved enough ancient forest. After every protest, the government dutifully promised to reform the industrial logging system. And then the clear cutting of ancient forests resumed.

Under Horgan, the deadly game continues. After some 200 arrests at Fairy Creek, the premier now promises to defer logging on “part” of that timber licence and in the Central Walbran Valley on Vancouver Island. But that part is less than one-sixth of one per cent of the forest that needs protection province-wide.

Last year the Old Growth Strategic Review Panel gave the government an urgent message — defer logging on province’s last old-growth forests or risk losing the province’s remaining ecosystem health and diversity.

But Horgan didn’t listen.

B.C. has the nation’s richest biodiversity, containing 50,000 species — everything from ferns to fungi. Our forests nourish much of this diversity. Without that diversity the forest perishes and there remains nothing “super, natural” about this place.

But as these primary forests disappear into two-by-fours, wood pellets and raw log exports, B.C. is now seeing not only an extreme loss of species but the risk of multiple extinctions.

Salmon numbers have dwindled because they spawn in the headwaters of B.C. rivers where they need forest-shaded and sediment-free water. The health of our wild salmon and the integrity of our forests are one and the same.

It took 150 years to get to this reckoning. But the most extreme damage to once-bountiful forests has all happened in the last 70 years.

We liquidated ancient forests hundreds, even more than a thousand, years old, to “build the province” and export fibre. As the companies and machines got bigger, the primary forests shrank, rural communities began to grow poorer and fish and wildlife populations declined.

In this reductionist scheme, the government gambled that uniform tree plantations could replace complex ecosystems. These second- and third-growth forests aren’t as diverse or valuable, and now we are hunting the last great trees like buffalo.

Throughout the Fairy Creek blockade, Horgan has noted the Pacheedaht Nation supports logging in the territory and had called on the protesters blocking roads not to interfere. Government defenders have talked about the nation’s forest revenue-sharing agreement, sawmill and tenure.

Green MLA Adam Olsen, a member of the Tsartlip First Nation, shredded those claims. In a statement, he wrote that nations like the Pacheedaht have little choice but to sign take-it-or-leave it agreements “that provide limited benefits, do not affirm the human rights of Indigenous peoples, or recognize their rights.”

Clauses in the agreement, he writes, commit the Pacheedaht to “not support or participate in any acts that frustrate, delay, stop or otherwise physically impede or interfere with provincially authorized forest activities.”

But there is a bigger problem with these colonial agreements. The government offered the Pacheedaht no other economic alternatives or ecological choices other than logging their remaining heritage. Horgan has cynically called this political shell game “reconciliation.”

All of my life I have supported Indigenous rights and title. But using First Nations’ rights as a weak excuse for logging the last vestiges of biological diversity in this province and removing our best defence against climate change is morally wrong. It is also an insult to First Nations.

Horgan has accepted the Pacheedaht call for a two-year deferral of old-growth logging in Fairy Creek. But the Squamish Nation has called for a similar ban in its territory, and others are expected to follow. We’ll see how far the government’s claimed respect for Indigenous rights extends.

During this latest war in the woods, Horgan’s government has been in denial about another fundamental reality: the declining value of B.C.’s aging forest industry.

Two decades ago, B.C.’s forest industry employed 91,000 citizens: today it employs fewer than 50,000 people. The industry accounts for a paltry two-per-cent share of GDP. Forest revenue is forecast at $1.1 billion this year, less than two per cent of total government revenues.

An analysis by Focus on Victoria magazine found that operating the Forests Ministry — managing timber sales, fighting wildfires, tree planting and other expenses cost taxpayers more than $10 billion between 2009 and 2019. During the same period the industry produced direct government revenues of $6 billion. That’s appalling math, and even worse stewardship.

The industry has closed 100 mills since the late 1990s. And contrary to Horgan’s explanation, this has nothing to do with fires and pine beetles, but everything to do with allowing existing tenure holders to harvest too much wood, too fast.

Not surprisingly, the government, the steward of this grand mess, hasn’t even bothered to issue a report on the state and conditions of our forests since 2010.  

Meanwhile, the government has allowed the export of raw logs to China, Japan and Korea to grow to an average of six million cubic metres. That amounts to the export of an estimated 3,600 full-time manufacturing jobs every year. 

Unlike the industrial forest business, tourism generated $22.3 billion in revenue in 2019 and employed more than 130,000 people. The millions of visitors didn’t come here to view clearcuts, flooded valleys or destroyed salmon habitat. They came to see the very same “super, natural” beauty that the government seems dedicated to erasing on behalf of a few special interests. 

The time for half measures, intentions and denial is over. British Columbians have spoken: they want to protect what few sylvan elders remain and end the destructive travesty in our forests.  

The political tool is simple: a moratorium on the logging of the province’s remaining old-growth forests.

And while reducing the scale of the industry, why not create a special and innovative fund to pay First Nations and other communities to protect and monitor the health of our forests?  

One obstacle remains: we must drag a premier stuck in a 19th-century culture of exploitation into the 21st century. It is time to manage our forests for the survival of all living things. 

Read the original article