Forest Giveaway Plan for Timber Companies Threatens BC’s Public Forest Lands! Please SPEAK UP Now – May 30 noon Deadline!

/in /by


Things YOU can DO right now:

1. Take 30 seconds and “SEND a MESSAGE” to make your voice heard to BC’s politicians at: www.BCForestMovement.com

2. By 12 noon on May 30, be sure to write-in to the official input process (but don’t limit yourself to this flawed process). Write to Jim Snetsinger, public engagement coordinator on TFL expansion, at: forest.tenures@gov.bc.ca See the official government website on participating on their Blog site at: https://engage.gov.bc.ca/foresttenures/

Let them know that you:

– Oppose any move to expand Tree Farm Licences (TFL’s) in BC. TFL-expansion would increase the property rights for BC’s largest logging companies over public forest lands and undermine new forest protection measures, First Nations treaty settlement, and remove land that could be used to diversify forestry in BC for communities and smaller operators. Tree Farm Licences increase the compensation rights – to be paid by BC taxpayers – to private logging companies if significant new protected areas or First Nations treaties are settled on those public lands. This would make it more lengthy and difficult to settle land claims and protect forests for tourism, recreation, and biodiversity.

– Dispute the notion that Tree Farm Licences act as incentives for companies to treat the land in an environmentally-sustainable manner. Major logging companies are not communities – they are highly mobile, regularly buy and sell their TFL’s every few years, and are not tied to the land or to the area’s scenery, water quality, wild salmon, biodiversity, or tourism/recreational qualities. BC’s TFL’s are replete with examples of overcut forests, major soil erosion, destroyed salmon-spawning streams, locked gates, and the massive depletion of old-growth forests.

– Believe the BC government’s “consultation process” is flawed due to being framed around the question of “how” to expand Tree Farm Licences instead of “whether or not” this should be done. It also only lists “potential benefits” of TFL’s but no “potential problems”.

– Want the BC government instead to increase protection of BC’s overcut forests for all values and users – for endangered species, scenery, tourism, clean water, wild salmon, and long-term sustainable employment for forestry dependent communities.

3. Write Letters to the Editor, phone-in to radio programs, forward to your email contacts, share on Facebook and Twitter, and help get the word out!

***MORE INFO***

In April, the BC Liberal government revived their proposal to allow major logging companies to receive exclusive logging rights over vast areas of public forest lands through the expansion of Tree Farm Licences. Despite being killed by widespread public opposition in 2013, they’ve resurrected this “forest giveaway scheme” like a zombie, in a bid to increase property rights for timber corporations on our public lands. These lands are vital for wildlife, recreation, scenery, clean water, wild salmon, First Nations, and small forestry operators.

This proposal would make it harder to protect forests, settle First Nations land claims, and diversify forestry in BC in a way that truly supports forestry-dependent communities. Ultimately, it will further entrench the status quo of massive overcutting in BC by large corporations that is resulting in the collapse of human communities and ecosystems – a process well-advanced on BC’s southern coast, and now underway in BC’s interior.

What is a Tree Farm Licence?

A Tree Farm Licence (TFL) is a defined geographic area that is tens or hundreds of thousands of hectares in size that confers exclusive logging rights to one logging company on public (Crown) land. TFL’s currently constitute a small fraction of BC, about 15% of the province’s cut. Most of the province’s forests are found in Timber Supply Areas (TSA’s) where no specific geographic area is granted to one company for exclusive logging rights – instead many companies within each large TSA are each given a volume of wood (in cubic meters) through a Forest Licence (FL) to cut, as are a diversity of smaller companies and First Nations through other types of licences and Timber Sales.

A Rigged Consultation Process

While now gently billed as a “consultation process” regarding “area-based tenures” – which evokes images of Community Forests and family-run Woodlots – in reality the government’s proposal primarily aims to allow large companies that already have major “volume-based licences” (ie. Forest Licences) to convert them into Tree Farm Licences: “The Province is looking at options to convert some or a portion of some volume-based forest licences to new or expanded area-based tree farm licences” (BC Government’s “Discussion Paper: Area-Based Forest Tenures”, page 11).

In BC, only five major companies have been allocated two-thirds of the allowable cut under replaceable Forest Licences, meaning these large companies stand to primarily benefit from this scheme at the exclusion of others. Any expansion of small tenures like Community Forests, if it happens, would be very minor in comparison – they would primarily be used as a Trojan horse in an effort to placate public discontent, behind which the much larger corporate forest land giveaway would occur.

The scope of the new consultation is a rigged process that doesn’t ask “whether” or not Tree Farm Licences should be expanded, but instead asks “how” they should be implemented. The BC government’s Discussion Paper only lists “Potential Benefits” but no “Potential Problems”. Its starting assumption is that companies with volume-based licences should and will be allowed to convert them into Tree Farm Licences in regions throughout BC.

Despite the government’s attempts to downplay the proposal’s geographic extent – as if it will be limited to only pine-beetle affected regions (which is still an enormous part of the province) – their wider ambitions are revealed in their Discussion Paper: “Initially, these opportunities would be limited in number and would only be available in areas impacted by the mountain pine beetle. Over time, they could be offered in other parts of the province.” (BC Government’s “Discussion Paper: Area-Based Forest Tenures”, page 11)

Undermining Forest Protection and First Nations Land Claims

A core reason for the drive to expand Tree Farm Licences is to enhance the major logging companies’ claims to compensation and to undermine potential forest conservation measures (for fish and wildlife habitat, recreation, old-growth forests, endangered species, scenery, tourism, etc.) and First Nations treaties. Protected areas and First Nations land claims pose the main sources of “uncertainty” to the logging companies’ access to the remaining public timber supply. Again, the BC government makes this clear:

“The major benefit of such a change is the increased certainty of timber supply that an area-based tenure would apply to the licence holder.” (page 10, Discussion Paper: Area-Based Forest Tenures )

and

“The licence holder is compensated if the allowable annual cut of the licence is reduced by more than 5 per cent as a result of Crown land deletions.” (page 8, Discussion Paper: Area-Based Forest Tenures)

Not only would it be more expensive and difficult to establish provincial parks and conservancies (First Nations-orientated protected areas), the politics of Tree Farm Licences could also undermine new “forest reserves” or regulatory protections like Riparian Management Zones, Wildlife Habitat Areas, Ungulate Winter Ranges, Old-Growth Management Areas, Visual Quality Objectives, and Recreation Areas. The BC government is considering opening up forest reserves in the Central Interior in order to allow companies to continue overcutting our forests for a few more years – until the inevitable crash. It’s like burning up parts of your house for firewood after unsustainably squandering all your other wood sources. If forest reserves are removed, it could be politically more difficult to re-establish forest protections once companies are awarded Tree Farm Licences on those lands, as their expectations to exercise their logging rights within their defined geographic areas would be enhanced with their exclusive access rights.

The Myth of Tree Farm Licences Promoting Sustainability – Countless Examples of this Falsehood

The BC government propagates the myth that increased corporate control on public lands fosters better stewardship and greater sustainability in their Discussion Paper: “With area-based forest tenures, it is in the best interests of the licence holder to ensure the long-term sustainability of the area to secure future harvests.” (BC Government’s “Discussion Paper: Area-Based Forest Tenures”, page 8).

In reality, BC’s Tree Farm Licences are bought and sold frequently by highly mobile companies that themselves frequently change ownership. These big companies are not tied to the land like communities are, they are not looking at the long term. Nor is it in their financial interest to manage the forests for biodiversity, recreation, water quality or wild salmon, as they don’t make money from such things – they make money from the timber alone. Some of the province’s most notorious, internationally famous examples of massive clearcutting, overcutting, landslides, destruction of salmon streams, annihilation of old-growth forests, locked gates, and ruined scenery and recreational opportunities are in the province’s Tree Farm Licences.

Rewarding Corporations for Overcutting BC’s Public Forests

Recently, two of the BC Interior’s major companies, Canfor and West Fraser, overcut almost a million cubic meters of live green timber where they were supposed to be only taking beetle-killed wood. Incredibly, the companies were let off the hook by Forest Minister Steve Thomson without penalties.

Instead of penalizing companies that are overcutting our forests, this government is now looking to potentially reward them by further entrenching their unfettered access to vast tracts of public forest lands through new Tree Farm Licences.

This is the BC Liberal government’s attempt to facilitate the last great timber grab by the major companies to log until the end of the resource – at the expense of communities and ecosystems. Only a large-scale, broad-based mobilization of British Columbians who speak up can stop this corporate land grab in BC.

Sustainable Forestry Needed – Slower, Value-Added, Diverse

With employment in BC’s forest industry now almost half of what it was a couple decades ago due to resource depletion (ie. cutting too much, too fast, of the biggest, best trees in the easiest to reach lower elevations), industry deregulation, corporate concentration, raw log exports, and mechanization, the BC Liberal government must have the wisdom and courage to implement real solutions. Reducing the grossly unsustainable rate of cut, promoting value-added manufacturing through incentives and regulations, providing access to forests and logs for a greater diversity of smaller and community-based forestry operations in BC, restricting raw log exports, diminishing wood waste, and protecting and conserving more endangered forests, are all needed. Increasing corporate control over the land base, obstructing new forest protections, and helping to entrench further overcutting for a few more years, are the last things BC needs.   

Submission by Vicky Husband to the BC Government’s TFL-Expansion Plans

/in /by

Re: Area-Based Forest Tenures Consultation and Discussion Paper

Dear Mr. Snetsinger,

I intend to keep my remarks brief and to the point, partly because I want my comments to be clear and unambiguous, and partly because I believe this consultation process is simply a shameful subterfuge to justify the further privatization of BC’s public forests.

I have always been opposed to the creation of Tree Farm Licences. The public has also consistently rejected this particular form of forest tenure, as Forest Minister Dave Parker found out when the Social Credit government tried to convert all replaceable licenses to TFLs in the 1980s, and Minister Thomson found out when he experienced widespread backlash against Bill 8 last year. The reason is simple: TFLs have always enabled monopolistic corporate control of our public forests and, over the long term, have not maintained the public benefits that were promised when they were awarded. The sorry state of BC’s coastal forests and coastal forest industry, where the majority of current TFLs exist, provides all the evidence needed to reject the creation of any more TFLs: Western Forest Products now monopolizes the coastal log supply; TimberWest continues to hold a TFL despite the fact it has shut down all its processing facilities; and, what remains of our unprotected coastal old growth forests are increasingly being cut down for log exports.

Past processes for awarding TFLs have also been highly suspect, all too often involving questionable actions by elected officials. An extreme example of this was when Forest Minister “Honest Bob” Sommers was convicted in 1958 for taking kickbacks related to the awarding of this form of tenure, which at the time were called Forest Management Licenses. When the name was changed to Tree Farm Licenses in the 1960s many of us felt this was a more accurate description of what these tenures were really all about: farming trees, not managing forests. In reality, TFLs should be called Timber Farm Licences, as they have always and only been about maximizing “timber” cutting at the expense of forest ecosystems. West Fraser Mills’ submission to your consultation process speaks to this issue when the company states clearly that the reason they want an expansion of their current TFL is to effect an immediate increase in their AAC and achieve more efficient “timber utilization.”

In short, TFLs are all about maximizing timber cutting, not forest ecosystem management, and they have always resulted in monopolistic corporate control over our public forests with little long term public benefit. As such, for the sake of the future of BC’s public forest ecosystems, the BC government must not issue any more of these timber farm licenses.

It strikes me that this self-evident conclusion may be precisely why your consultation process isn’t asking the fundamental question of whether more TFLs should be awarded or not. Instead, your discussion paper merely asks for feedback on the evaluation criteria for awarding more TFLs and what benefits the government ought to ask for in return. As your first blog post points out:

“With regard to this consultation, the two questions are: What benefits should government seek if it allows the conversion of a volume-based forest licence to a tree farm licence? What criteria should government evaluate applications against?”

Your failure to ask for public comment on the primary question of whether the government should give itself the power to award more TFLs is precisely why I believe this process is simply a cynical attempt to justify the awarding of more TFLs.

As many other commentators have said, this consultation process is not about area-based versus volume-based forest management. In fact, it’s not about forest management at all. If it were truly about forest management, in the sense of the stewardship of our complex forest ecosystems, the history of TFLs would preclude the government from even contemplating awarding more of these timber farm licenses.

I would add the following observations for your consideration:

1. Issuing more TFLs without resolving aboriginal rights and title issues in this province will only add to the growing tensions between the provincial government and First Nations. Awarding more TFLs now will simply result in more court challenges and higher compensation claims from corporations when land claim settlements are eventually reached.
2. Converting replaceable forest licenses to TFLs without re-inventorying our public forests, especially in areas impacted by the Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic, will result in more forest land base coming under corporate control than the existing volume-based licenses would warrant if the government had better inventory data and our interior forests were not impacted by climate-related pest epidemics.
3. Under the current Forest Act, TFLs can be traded or purchased by foreign national governments, and the BC government can do nothing to prevent this from happening. This potential outcome should be clearly communicated to the general public so they fully understand the implications of turning our public forests into what are effectively tradable commodities in a globalized marketplace in which foreign national enterprises are increasingly becoming the major players (as is evident in BC’s LNG sector).

Mr. Snetsinger, as a registered professional forester I believe you have an obligation to put the health of our public forest ecosystems ahead of the interests of the corporations that are currently pushing the government to give them more direct control over those public forests so they can create more timber farms. As you ought to know, timber farms will never have the genetic and species diversity or the resiliency to adapt to climate change, and the corporatization of our public forests will only make our forest-dependent communities even more vulnerable to the negative consequences of globalization.

As a former Chief Forester for this province I urge you to advise the government to stop trying to justify the creation of more TFLs and concentrate instead on much more pressing forest stewardship issues, such as:

1. Reducing the cut in the Interior MPB impacted areas to sustainable levels. By sustainable I mean levels that will ensure the remaining healthy forests are protected while the pine forest ecosystems ravaged by the MPB grow back.
2. Revisiting and making fundamental changes to FRPA. FRPA must be amended as soon as possible to ensure that all forest ecosystem values are protected and objectives for these values are legally enforceable. Otherwise, as we are experiencing, the government has effectively turned the entire public forest land base into timber farms, as it no longer has the legal means to protect the full range of critical values in our public forest ecosystems.
3. Consulting with the public on a new vision for the stewardship of BC’s public forest ecosystems. Decades of poor forest management, the implications of climate change, and a dramatically changing marketplace all demand that the public be fully engaged in the development of a new vision for the stewardship of their single, largest, renewable and publicly owned resource.

I know that others have made similar recommendations to you; it is my hope that you will include such recommendations in your final report.

For clarity, with respect to the questions you’ve asked in this so-called public consultation process I wish to make my position on TFLs clear:

1. The government has no social license to create more TFLs; the rejection of Bill 8 should have made this abundantly clear.
2. TFLs do not serve the public interest, only private interests.
3. There are no criteria, situations, circumstances, or rationalizations that would justify creating new TFLs.

Vicky Husband

Thank You to Earth Day Local Business Fundraisers!

/in /by

On behalf of B.C's endangered old-growth forests, we'd like to say 'Thank You' to all of the local businesses who held an event to support us on Earth Day, April 22nd: North Park Bike Shop, Ananda Ayurveda, Cafe 932, and the Grassroots Eco-Salon.  The AFA is supported by thousands of individual donors and small and independent businesses who allow us to continue our forest-saving campaigns.  Thank you so much for your support! 

*POSTPONED* Date TBA: Kwakiutl First Nations Community RALLY in Port Hardy

/in /by

*POSTPONED* Date TBA:

A community rally will be held sometime in the near future by the Kwakiutl First Nation band in Port Hardy on northern Vancouver Island, asking the BC government and major forest companies to respect their land and their treaty. The rally will be in regards to Island Timberlands’ logging of a 700 year old ancient redcedar forest near their reserve in late December without consulting the band.

*** Take note it is a 6 hour drive from Victoria to Port Hardy.

Watch a short report on the current situation in Kwakiutl territory in the CTV series, First Story, called “The Treaty and the Trees” from April 16: https://bc.ctvnews.ca/

See the photo album of the Ancient Forest Alliance’s visit to the Kwakiutl protest in February at: https://www.facebook.com/ancientforestalliance/

VIDEO: “Big Lonely Doug,” Canada’s 2nd largest Douglas-fir tree!

/in /by


Port Renfrew, Vancouver Island, 2014 – “Big Lonely Doug,” a recently found old-growth Douglas-fir tree standing alone in a clearcut on southern Vancouver Island, has been officially measured to be the second largest Douglas-fir tree in Canada. Last week, renowned forest ecologist Andy MacKinnon, who manages the BC Big Tree Registry run by the University of British Columbia and is also the co-author of the best-selling “Plants of Coastal British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon,” measured the goliath tree.
Click here to watch on AFA’s YouTube channel.

For Immediate Release
April 24, 2014
“Big Lonely Doug” Officially Measured and Confirmed as Canada’s 2nd Largest Douglas-fir Tree
Port Renfrew, Vancouver Island – “Big Lonely Doug”, a recently found old-growth Douglas-fir tree standing alone in a clearcut on southern Vancouver Island, has been officially measured to be the second largest Douglas-fir tree in Canada. Last week, renowned forest ecologist Andy MacKinnon, who manages the BC Big Tree Registry (see: https://bigtrees.forestry.ubc.ca/) run by the University of British Columbia and is also the co-author of the best-selling “Plants of Coastal British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon”, measured the goliath tree. The results are as follows:
Big Lonely Doug dimensions:

  • Height: 70.2 meters or 230 feet
  • Circumference: 11.91 meters or 39 feet
  • Diameter: 3.91 meters or 12.4 feet
  • Canopy Spread: 18.33 meters or 60.1 feet
  • Total Points (“AFA Points” – American Forestry Association, NOT Ancient Forest Alliance!): 714.24 AFA points.

This makes Big Lonely Doug the second largest Douglas-fir tree in British Columbia and Canada in terms of total size, based on its “points” (ie. a combination of circumference, height, and crown spread) and the second largest in circumference. Big Lonely Doug was first noticed by Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner TJ Watt several months ago as being an unusually large tree, and the organization returned several weeks ago to take preliminary measurements. Official measurements were taken last Friday.
The world’s largest Douglas-fir tree is the Red Creek Fir, located just 20 kilometers to the east of Big Lonely Doug in the San Juan River Valley, and is 13.28 meters (44 feet) in circumference, 4.3 meters (14 feet) in diameter, 73.8 meters (242 feet) tall, and has 784 AFA points.
Conservationists estimate that Big Lonely Doug may be 1000 years old, judging by nearby 2 meter wide Douglas-fir stumps in the same clearcut with growth rings of 500 years. Big Lonely Doug grows in the Gordon River Valley near the coastal town of Port Renfrew on southern Vancouver Island, known as the “Tall Trees Capital” of Canada. It stands on Crown lands in Tree Farm Licence 46 in the traditional territory of the Pacheedaht First Nation band.
Conservationists are calling for provincial legislation to protect BC’s biggest trees, monumental groves, and endangered old-growth forests.
“We’re encouraging the province to keep moving forward with its promise to protect BC’s largest trees and monumental groves, and to also protect BC’s endangered old-growth ecosystems on a more comprehensive basis,” stated Ken Wu, AFA executive director. “The days of colossal trees like these are quickly coming to an end as the last unprotected lowland ancient forests in southern BC where giants like this grow are almost all gone.”
The BC Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations is currently working to follow up on a 2011 promise by then-Forest Minister Pat Bell to develop a new “legal tool” to protect the province’s biggest old-growth trees and grandest groves. Such a legal mechanism, if effective and if implemented to save not just individual trees but also the grandest groves, would be an important step forward in environmental protection and for enhancing the eco-tourism potential of the province. More comprehensive legislation would still be needed to protect the province’s old-growth ecosystems on a larger scale, to sustain biodiversity, clean water, and the climate, as the biggest trees and monumental groves are today a tiny fraction of the remaining old-growth forests which remain mainly on more marginal growing sites with smaller trees.
BC’s old-growth forests are important to sustain numerous species at risk that can’t live or flourish in second-growth stands; to mitigate climate change by storing over twice as much atmospheric carbon per hectare than the ensuing second-growth tree plantations that they are being replaced with; as fundamental pillars for BC’s multi-billion dollar tourism industry; to support clean water and wild salmon; and for many First Nations cultures who use ancient cedar trees for canoes, totems, long-houses, and numerous other items.
“The vast majority of BC’s remaining old-growth forests are at higher elevations, on rocky sites, and in bogs where the trees are much smaller and in many cases have low to no commercial value. It’s the productive valley-bottom stands where trees like the Big Lonely Doug grow that are incredibly scarce and are of the highest conservation priority right now,” stated TJ Watt.
See previous media coverage on Big Lonely Doug at:
• Global TV https://globalnews.ca/news/1235236/canadas-second-largest-douglas-fir-tree-may-have-been-found-near-port-renfrew
• Times Colonist https://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/vancouver-island-douglas-fir-may-be-canada-s-second-biggest-1.916676
• Vancouver Observer https://www.vancouverobserver.com/news/canadas-second-largest-douglas-fir-discovered
• CHEK TV https://www.cheknews.ca/?bckey=AQ~~,AAAA4mHNTzE~,ejlzBnGUUKY1gXVPwEwEepl35Y795rND&bclid=975107450001&bctid=3374339880001
• Huffington Post https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/03/26/big-lonely-doug-tree_n_5038519.html?1395881730
• MetroNews [Original article no longer available]

Towering Vancouver Island tree officially second-largest in the country

/in /by

As trees go, it is one colossal conifer.

Tape measures confirm that a Douglas fir tree on Vancouver Island is officially the second-largest in Canada.

According to the B.C. Big Tree Registry run by the University of British Columbia, the tree stands 70.2 metres high, about as tall as an 18-storey building. It has a diameter of 3.91 metres — almost as long as a mid-sized car.

Dubbed “Big Lonely Doug” by those who found it, it takes 11.91 metres of tape to wrap round the base of the enormous evergreen and at the top, the tree’s canopy spreads 18.33 metres across.

Conservationists believe the tree near Port Renfrew, on southern Vancouver Island, could be as much as 1,000 years old.

The country’s largest Douglas fir, located in the San Juan River Valley 20 kilometres east of Big Lonely Doug, stands 73.8 metres tall and has a circumference of 13.28 metres.

Environmentalists opposed to clear-cut logging are calling on the government to stop logging in old-growth forests like the ones where these towering trees are found.

Read more: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/towering-vancouver-island-tree-officially-second-largest-in-the-country/article18202501/

Check out Canada’s second largest Douglas-fir tree (photos)

/in /by

That's one big tree.

Dubbed “Big Lonely Doug”, this Douglas-fir is the second largest tree of its species (Pseudotsuga menziesii) in Canada.

Forest ecologist Andy MacKinnon, who runs the B.C. Big Tree Registry, made it official last week, when he measured the thing.

Here's the stats:

Height: 70.2 metres or 230 feet
Circumference: 11.91 metres or 39 feet
Diameter: 3.91 metres or 12.4 feet
Canopy spread: 18.33 metres or 60.1 feet
Big Lonely Doug, found in the Gordon River valley on southern Vancouver Island, is estimated to be 1,000 years old.

The Ancient Forest Alliance, which sent out the photos, is calling for provincial legislation to protect big trees like this.

Read more: https://www.straight.com/blogra/633296/check-out-canadas-second-largest-douglas-fir-tree-photos

B.C.’s ‘Big Lonely Doug’ is the second-largest tree in Canada

/in /by

 

PORT RENFREW — As trees go, it is one colossal conifer.

Tape measures confirm that a Douglas fir tree on Vancouver Island is officially the second-largest in Canada.

According to the B.C. Big Tree Registry run by the University of B.C., the tree — dubbed “Big Lonely Doug” by those who found it — stands 70.2 metres high, about as tall as an 18-storey building, and has a diameter almost that of a mid-sized car.

It takes 11.91 metres of tape to wrap round the base of the enormous evergreen and at the top, the tree’s canopy spreads across 18.33 metres.

Conservationists believe the tree near Port Renfrew, on southern Vancouver Island, could be as much as 1,000 years old.

The country’s largest Douglas fir, located in the San Juan River Valley 20 kilometres east of Big Lonely Doug, stands 73.8 metres tall and has a circumference of 13.28 metres.

Environmentalists opposed to clear-cut logging are calling on the government to stop logging in old-growth forests such as the ones where these towering trees are found.

Read more: https://www.theprovince.com/technology/Vancouver+Island+Lonely+Doug+second+largest+tree+Canada/9771718/story.html

Renowned forest ecologist Andy MacKinnon (left) stands with members of the AFA after measuring Big Lonely Doug.

Big Lonely Doug Officially Measured and Confirmed as Canada’s 2nd Largest Douglas-fir Tree

/in /by

For Immediate Release

April 24, 2014

“Big Lonely Doug” Officially Measured and Confirmed as Canada’s 2nd Largest Douglas-fir Tree

Port Renfrew, Vancouver Island – “Big Lonely Doug”, a recently found old-growth Douglas-fir tree standing alone in a clearcut on southern Vancouver Island, has been officially measured to be the second largest Douglas-fir tree in Canada. Last week, renowned forest ecologist Andy MacKinnon, who manages the BC Big Tree Registry (see: https://bigtrees.forestry.ubc.ca/) run by the University of British Columbia and is also the co-author of the best-selling “Plants of Coastal British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon”, measured the goliath tree. The results are as follows:

Big Lonely Doug dimensions:

  • Height: 66 meters or 216 feet
  • Circumference: 11.91 meters or 39 feet
  • Diameter: 3.91 meters or 12.4 feet
  • Canopy Spread: 18.33 meters or 60.1 feet
  • Total Points (“AFA Points” – American Forestry Association, NOT Ancient Forest Alliance!): 701 AFA points.

This makes Big Lonely Doug the second largest Douglas-fir tree in British Columbia and Canada in terms of total size, based on its “points” (ie. a combination of circumference, height, and crown spread) and the second largest in circumference. Big Lonely Doug was first noticed by Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner TJ Watt several months ago as being an unusually large tree, and the organization returned several weeks ago to take preliminary measurements. Official measurements were taken last Friday.

The world’s largest Douglas-fir tree is the Red Creek Fir, located just 20 kilometers to the east of Big Lonely Doug in the San Juan River Valley, and is 13.28 meters (44 feet) in circumference, 4.3 meters (14 feet) in diameter, 73.8 meters (242 feet) tall, and has 784 AFA points.

Conservationists estimate that Big Lonely Doug may be 1000 years old, judging by nearby 2-meter-wide Douglas-fir stumps in the same clearcut with growth rings of 500 years. Big Lonely Doug grows in the Gordon River Valley near the coastal town of Port Renfrew on southern Vancouver Island, known as the “Tall Trees Capital” of Canada. It stands on Crown lands in Tree Farm Licence 46 in the traditional territory of the Pacheedaht First Nation band.

Conservationists are calling for provincial legislation to protect BC’s biggest trees, monumental groves, and endangered old-growth forests.

“We’re encouraging the province to keep moving forward with its promise to protect BC’s largest trees and monumental groves, and to also protect BC’s endangered old-growth ecosystems on a more comprehensive basis,” stated Ken Wu, AFA executive director. “The days of colossal trees like these are quickly coming to an end as the last unprotected lowland ancient forests in southern BC where giants like this grow are almost all gone.”

The BC Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations is currently working to follow up on a 2011 promise by then-Forest Minister Pat Bell to develop a new “legal tool” to protect the province’s biggest old-growth trees and grandest groves. Such a legal mechanism, if effective and if implemented to save not just individual trees but also the grandest groves, would be an important step forward in environmental protection and for enhancing the eco-tourism potential of the province. More comprehensive legislation would still be needed to protect the province’s old-growth ecosystems on a larger scale, to sustain biodiversity, clean water, and the climate, as the biggest trees and monumental groves are today a tiny fraction of the remaining old-growth forests which remain mainly on more marginal growing sites with smaller trees.

BC’s old-growth forests are important to sustain numerous species at risk that can’t live or flourish in second-growth stands; to mitigate climate change by storing over twice as much atmospheric carbon per hectare than the ensuing second-growth tree plantations that they are being replaced with; as fundamental pillars for BC’s multi-billion dollar tourism industry; to support clean water and wild salmon; and for many First Nations cultures who use ancient cedar trees for canoes, totems, long-houses, and numerous other items.

“The vast majority of BC’s remaining old-growth forests are at higher elevations, on rocky sites, and in bogs where the trees are much smaller and in many cases have low to no commercial value. It’s the productive valley-bottom stands where trees like the Big Lonely Doug grow that are incredibly scarce and are of the highest conservation priority right now,” stated TJ Watt.

See previous media coverage on Big Lonely Doug at:

• Global TV https://globalnews.ca/news/1235236/canadas-second-largest-douglas-fir-tree-may-have-been-found-near-port-renfrew
• Times Colonist https://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/vancouver-island-douglas-fir-may-be-canada-s-second-biggest-1.916676
• Vancouver Observer https://www.vancouverobserver.com/news/canadas-second-largest-douglas-fir-discovered
• CHEK TV https://www.cheknews.ca/?bckey=AQ~~,AAAA4mHNTzE~,ejlzBnGUUKY1gXVPwEwEepl35Y795rND&bclid=975107450001&bctid=3374339880001
• Huffington Post https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/03/26/big-lonely-doug-tree_n_5038519.html?1395881730
• MetroNews https://metronews.ca/news/victoria/981658/photos-giant-douglas-fir-tree-found-in-b-c-may-be-largest-in-world/

Big Lonely Doug Officially 2nd-Largest Fir in Canada

/in /by

PORT RENFREW, B.C. – As trees go, it is one colossal conifer.

Tape measures confirm that a Douglas fir tree on Vancouver Island is officially the second-largest in Canada.

According to the B.C. Big Tree Registry run by the University of British Columbia, the tree stands 70.2 metres high, about as tall as an 18-storey building. It has a diameter of 3.91 metres — almost as long as a mid-sized car.

Dubbed “Big Lonely Doug” by those who found it, it takes 11.91 metres of tape to wrap round the base of the enormous evergreen and at the top, the tree's canopy spreads 18.33 metres across.

Conservationists believe the tree near Port Renfrew, on southern Vancouver Island, could be as much as 1,000 years old.

The country's largest Douglas fir, located in the San Juan River Valley 20 kilometres east of Big Lonely Doug, stands 73.8 metres tall and has a circumference of 13.28 metres.

Environmentalists opposed to clear-cut logging are calling on the government to stop logging in old-growth forests like the ones where these towering trees are found.

Read more and view photos at: https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/04/24/big-lonely-doug-second-largest-fir-canada_n_5206970.html?1398364327