The Ancient Forest Alliance – Towards 2017

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What have we accomplished? Where are we headed?

Please DONATE at https://16.52.162.165/donations.php

You can also still order 2017 calendars and cards at: https://16.52.162.165/store.php


Dear Ancient Forest Alliance supporter:

2016 has been the most significant and successful year so far for the Ancient Forest Alliance since our founding in 2010!

Not only did we grow significantly in 2016 because of your support – allowing us to build greater organizational capacity to achieve the enormous policy shift needed to save BC’s old-growth forests and ensure a sustainable, second-growth forest industry – but we’ve also made enormous leaps in the campaign towards actually achieving these goals.

At the Ancient Forest Alliance, we hold a philosophy that for the environmental movement to succeed in its fundamental goals, it must expand far beyond engaging its limited “echo chamber” of core environmental activists. We believe environmentalists must place a greater emphasis on green businesses and jobs, solutions and alternatives, and include far more diverse groups of people who are often not considered “environmentalists” in the typical sense – but who nonetheless share an interest in a healthy planet.

This is not a philosophy that comes out of the blue, but from decades of experience in the environmental and ancient forest movement. The Ancient Forest Alliance’s co-founder and executive director, Ken Wu, has been working for 26 years to protect old-growth forests in British Columbia. We recognize that the same old approach of mobilizing already-dedicated environmental activists, by itself, will simply not achieve our goals. A much broader, larger-scale movement is needed involving new and different groups of people. And we’re on our way there, thanks to YOUR help!

Major progress:

You might have heard that earlier this year, the BC Chamber of Commerce – the largest business lobby in the province, representing 36,000 businesses – passed a resolution calling on the province to expand the protection of BC’s old-growth forests in order to support the economy. This resolution – a tectonic shift in the political landscape of BC – was the culmination of similar resolutions passed by the Port Renfrew, Sooke, and WestShore Chambers of Commerce as a result of their collaboration with the Ancient Forest Alliance and our work with hundreds of BC’s tourism and local businesses.

In addition, the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM), representing city, town, and regional governments across the province, also passed a resolution calling on the province to end logging of old-growth forests on Vancouver Island, while BC Nature (formerly the Federation of BC Naturalists) representing 53 naturalist clubs across the province called for an end to logging in BC’s iconic Central Walbran Valley.

This major expansion of voices for saving ancient forests is no accident, but has been fundamentally driven by the Ancient Forest Alliance’s work to diversify and expand the old-growth forest movement beyond its environmentalist base. In particular, it has been our work with the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce to successfully protect the Avatar Grove in 2012, subsequently building a boardwalk there and promoting a major eco-tourism economy based on big trees and old-growth forests, that has been a foundation and a driver for this year’s major progress in rounding up new allies.

We’ve also been working closely with several forestry workers unions and increasing numbers of faith congregations, and have launched a “Chinese-language ancient forest tours program” for the half a million Mandarin and Cantonese speakers in the Vancouver region, as part of our efforts to diversify, grow, and significantly strengthen the ancient forest movement.

In addition, earlier this year, the bar was raised to increase the amount of old-growth protection across BC as a result of the final Great Bear Rainforest agreement announced last May, where 70% of the forests were protected on BC’s central and northern mainland coast – which contrasts to the 9% of productive forests currently protected on Vancouver Island. This was due to the excellent work of the Rainforest Solutions Project organizations, who undertook decades of protests, markets campaigns, and negotiations to achieve this amazing leap forward. A large part of the agreement’s success is due to the environmental groups’ support for a fund to help finance First Nations’ sustainable economic development as an alternative to old-growth logging – a needed initiative for the rest of the province which we fully support.

So like no other time, heading into 2017 we have a new and most powerful momentum with us to protect ancient forests.

Because of your tremendous help, the Ancient Forest Alliance has grown from our founding in 2010 from just 1 full time staff and 300 donors, to 8 staff and 15,000 donors today, with a budget approaching half a million in 2017, overwhelmingly raised through individual grassroots donors like yourself.

With this capacity, we’ve been able to build a much broader, diverse and ultimately more powerful movement that will have the strength to ensure the protection of our last old-growth forests and ensure a sustainable, second-growth forest industry.

This coming year, we plan to:

1. Continue to expand the ancient forest movement among businesses, unions, faith groups, scientists and academics, outdoor recreation groups, and diverse cultural/ linguistic groups.
2. Collaborate with numerous organizations to end the logging of endangered old-growth forests across the province, to support sustainable economic development for local communities, and to support First Nations conservation plans.
3. Continue to explore and document endangered old-growth forests across BC with professional photography and videos.
4. Engage the news media on a major scale, particularly in the lead-up to the May 2017 provincial election.
5. Release several new ancient forest books and a smart phone app (details to be disclosed soon!)
6. Complete the Avatar Grove boardwalk (which was actually completed in October of this year, but was damaged soon after by a severe storm) near Port Renfrew, with an official launch in the spring of 2017.
7. Push for the immediate implementation of a new “legal tool” to protect BC’s biggest trees and grandest groves, as promised by the BC government a few years ago.
8. Issue a new report regarding a BC Natural Land Acquisition Fund, a provincial fund to purchase and protect endangered ecosystems on private lands, including old-growth forests.
9. Work with local activists to highlight and campaign for endangered old-growth forest “hotspots” on the southern coast and beyond.
10. Hire a new campaigner and other staff to increase our capacity to do all of this!

…and much more!!

And why are we doing all this?

BC’s old-growth forests are among the most awe-inspiring natural wonders on Earth – in league with the Serengeti plains of East Africa and the Grand Canyon in America. Next to California’s redwoods, BC’s coastal old-growth forests are the grandest of all forests. These ancient forests are vital to support unique old-growth dependent species, tourism, clean water, wild salmon, the climate, and the cultures of numerous First Nations who use old-growth cedars to make canoes, long houses, masks, and countless items of cultural importance.

Unfortunately, large-scale clearcutting still threatens millions of hectares of our old-growth forests. Already 75% of the original, productive old-growth forests have been logged on BC’s southern coast, including well over 90% of the richest forests with the largest trees in the valley bottoms.

Logging old-growth forests is like extracting fossil fuels – it’s a non-renewable resource. This is because under BC’s system of industrial forestry, the ensuing second-growth stands are to be re-logged every 50 to 80 years, never to become old-growth again.

Instead, we should be doing what almost every other western country is doing – only harvesting our second-growth forests, which now dominate BC’s productive forest lands. And we should do it sustainably, on much longer rotations, while fostering a value-added, second-growth manufacturing industry that employs British Columbian workers – rather than shipping the raw, unprocessed logs to mills in China and the USA.

However, with all of 2016’s momentum as we head into 2017, we believe that the time is coming for a major breakthrough for protecting old-growth forests across BC.

Please consider the Ancient Forest Alliance as a priority for your final donations in 2016! Our thousand year old ancient forest ecosystems will be most grateful.

Please donate at: https://16.52.162.165/donations.php

For the Wild,

Ken Wu, TJ Watt, Joan Varley, Hannah Carpendale, Amanda Evans, Kent MacWilliam, Ezra Bloom, Tiara Dhenin

Ancient Forest Alliance

Ancient Forest Alliance

New Drone Video of the Endangered Echo Lake Ancient Forest released

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For Immediate Release
December 8, 2016
 
New Video Released of the Endangered Echo Lake Old-Growth Forest, includes amazing Drone Footage
 
Today the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) has released a new HD video that includes spectacular drone footage in the endangered old-growth forests around Echo Lake, between Mission and Agassiz, east of Vancouver.  
 

 
 
The new video follows up on the AFA’s previous drone video “Climbing Big Lonely Doug: Round 2” released a few months ago with already 74,000 views on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ancientforestalliance/videos/1094270450667541/ as well as the organization’s first drone video, released last year, “Save the Central Walbran Valley – Canada’s Grandest Ancient Forest at Risk” at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyMPXHOjlK0
 
The original Echo Lake video (no drone involved) was released by the organization in October of 2012 – watch it here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPstV14oZ6s
 
Local landowners and conservation groups are dismayed at road-building and old-growth logging plans that have been approved by the BC Liberal government in the community drinking watershed at Echo Lake, an extremely rare and endangered lowland old-growth forest between Mission and Agassiz, famous for its monumental redcedars and Douglas-firs, wildlife, and hundreds of roosting bald eagles during the fall salmon run. The region around the Chehalis, Harrison, and Fraser Rivers is considered to have the greatest concentrations of bald eagles on Earth in some years, where as many as ten thousand eagles arrive in November and December during the fall salmon migration.
 
Echo Lake is one of the very last unprotected lowland old-growth forests left in the Lower Mainland region – most remaining unprotected old-growth forests consist of much smaller trees on steep slopes at higher elevations. It is in the traditional, unceded territory of the Sts’ailes First Nation band, who run the Sasquatch EcoLodge and whose members run eagle watching tours nearby, and who have expressed concerns about the fate of the old-growth redcedars around the lake. 
 
In 2013 after a campaign by local landowners and the Ancient Forest Alliance, the BC government protected 55 hectares of the old-growth forests on the Crown lands on the south side of Echo Lake in an Old-Growth Management Area (OGMA). However, they left out a similar amount of old-growth and mature forests from the OGMA on the north and west sides of Echo Lake within a Woodlot Licence where the ancient trees are now threatened with logging.
 
Remotely-piloted drones equipped with high definition video cameras are a new tool being used by conservationists like the Ancient Forest Alliance to monitor and document endangered ecosystems like BC’s old-growth temperate rainforests.
 
The interviews and drone footage for the new Echo Lake video were taken in the late summer and early fall of this year, when road-building seemed imminent at Echo Lake and preliminary logging surveys had taken place. However, so far the road construction has yet to commence, a fortunate situation for the area’s forests that may allow time for a diplomatic solution for all parties involved.
 
“Drones not only allow us to get spectacular footage of our ancient forests to help raise public awareness, but they enable us to see what’s going on with remote logging operations that are normally hard to directly access. It can take hours to hike into these rugged sites where companies normally believe they can log with little scrutiny. However, with our drone, we can now see and film what’s going on in such areas”, stated TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance photographer and campaigner who made the new Echo Lake drone video.
 
“From what we can see with our drone, it appears that so far the logging company has not yet begun building a road into the Echo Lake area…this gives us a bit of time to find a more diplomatic solution for the logging licensee and all the parties involved, if the BC government were to have the political will to ‘swap out’ the Woodlot Licence at Echo Lake for second-growth forests elsewhere. The Ministry of Forests has changed the boundaries of the Woodlot Licence in the past, in the 1990’s, and they can do it again”, stated Ken Wu, Ancient Forest Alliance executive director.
 
More Background Info
 
Landowners Stephen and Susan Ben-Oliel, who own a private land parcel on one side of the lake, and who draw their drinking water from the area, were informed last summer by consultants hired by C&H Forest Products that the logging company was planning to begin construction of a 1400 metre long logging road in their Community Watershed. The planned road on Crown lands leads to stands of old-growth redcedars and Douglas-firs on the northwest side of Echo Lake. The couple also discovered a series of recently flagged and spray-painted old redcedars alongside the main trail by Echo Lake in preparation for logging. Over a thousand people have now hiked the trail around Echo Lake since 2013, when the Ancient Forest Alliance began organizing guided tours through the area.
 
Last year, Forest Minister Steve Thomson stated that there were no logging plans for Echo Lake – See Global TV at: https://globalnews.ca/news/1906359/clear-cutting-threatens-echo-lake-eagle-colony/   
 
However, the Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource operations recently approved C&H Forest Products’ road building plans. Conservationists are concerned that once major sections of road are constructed, the company will be motivated to carry out its logging plans in order to recuperate its costs.
 
See spectacular images of Echo Lake Ancient Forests at: https://16.52.162.165/photos-media/echo-lake/
 
See various news media articles about Echo Lake from the Vancouver Sun, Globe and Mail, Global TV etc. at the bottom of the campaign page at: www.ProtectEchoLake.com
 
“The BC government needs to work with the local Woodlot Licensee, First Nations, the adjacent private land owners like myself, and conservationists to ensure the area’s legal protection. This could entail shifting the Woodlot License boundaries into an area of second-growth forest with an equivalent timber value and then expanding the Old-Growth Management Area around all of Echo Lake,” stated Susan Ben-Oliel.
 
Several biological surveys or “bioblitzes” have been organized by the Ancient Forest Alliance that have helped to inventory the area’s large diversity of flora and fauna. Many species at risk such as various species of bats, frogs, snails, dragonflies, and mosses have been found by biologists and naturalists. The data has been submitted to the BC Ministry of Environment’s Wildlife Species Inventory. 174 species of plant, 55 vertebrate, 153 invertebrate, and 38 fungi species were found during the two days of the 2014 bioblitz, while the 2015 bioblitz data is still being compiled.  See the 2014 bioblitz media release at: https://16.52.162.165/news-item.php?ID=868
 
The Ancient Forest Alliance is also calling for a larger provincial plan to protect the remaining endangered old-growth forests across BC while ensuring sustainable second-growth forestry jobs.
 
In the Lower Mainland, about 80% or more of the original, productive old-growth forests have already been logged, including about 95% of the high productivity, valley bottom ancient forests where the largest trees grow and most biodiversity is found. See before and after maps for BC’s southern coast (Southwest Mainland and Vancouver Island) at: https://16.52.162.165/ancient-forests/before-after-old-growth-maps/
 
“How many jurisdictions on Earth still have trees that grow as wide as living rooms and as tall as downtown skyscrapers? What we have here is something exceptional on the planet. Our ancient forests make British Columbia truly special – while we still have them,” stated Ken Wu, Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner. “More than ever we need the BC government to have the wisdom to protect our incredibly rare and endangered old-growth forests in places like Echo Lake”.

Thank You to Patagonia Victoria!

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THANKS most gratefully to Patagonia Victoria for supporting the Ancient Forest Alliance for a 3rd year with a huge donation yesterday of $2500! The donation comes as part of the participation of Patagonia Victoria/Banff /Calgary of Elements Inc. in the 1% For the Planet program. Patagonia Victoria has also supported the movement to protect old-growth forests in BC by hosting numerous events in their store and helping to mobilize community members. In addition, Patagonia stores everywhere are donating 100% of their sales from Black Friday – worth a whopping $10 million – to environmental groups across the continent! Please show your gratitude to them this Holiday Season!