Vancouver Island old growth on brink of collapse, environmental group claims

/in /by

Vancouver Island’s forests are on pace for an ecological and economic collapse, according to new data collected by the Sierra Club of B.C.

The environmental advocacy group is calling on the B.C. government to help phase out old growth logging in favour of younger second growth trees.

“It’s urgent to enter this period of transition now and help industry move towards second growth logging in just a few years,” said the Sierra Club’s Jens Wieting.

“Then we have a possibility to have old growth forest for tourism, as a carbon sink and for our children to enjoy in 50 or 100 years.”

But the B.C. government is leery of sudden changes that might negatively affect the industry — one that contributes $2.5 billion to three levels of government and employs nearly 150,000 people.

New partners in conservation

Port Renfrew is one of many Vancouver Island communities searching for a future after logging.

At one time, logging trucks would dominate Highway 14 — the two hour coastal drive from Victoria to Port Renfrew.

“We have to acknowledge that the logging industry is responsible for the town being there in the first place,” said Dan Hager, president of the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce.

But what was once a logging community with a seasonal influx of anglers, has now exploded into a year round tourist destination.

About five years ago, the Ancient Rainforest Alliance successfully lobbied the B.C. government to protect Avatar Grove, a cluster of 80 metre-tall old growth Douglas fir and western red cedar thought to have sprung up 800 years ago — the same year Genghis Khan captured and burnt Beijing to the ground.

That’s when Hager really started to notice some changes.

“People love history and people love this idea of environmental tourism,” he said.

“Old growth, big trees are good for business.”

The business of old growth

This spring, the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce pitched a bold policy to the 36,000 businesses that make up the B.C. Chamber of Commerce (BCCC).

Its bottom line: old growth forests have greater economic value as a tourism attraction than as logs.

“We raised the flag and said,’Hey, it makes more sense to bring the tourists in than to take the logs out,'” said Hager.

The policy was overwhelmingly supported by members of the BCCC, and this week, management will individually write each of B.C.’s ministries outlining their new policies.

“Membership is open to the idea of how we can use old growth to promote tourism,” said Dan Baxter of the BCCC, “but at the same time we want to be careful that we balance the needs of the forest industry.”

Atmo Prasad — who manages and analyzes data for the province — is also wary of any sudden changes. He said shifting the logging industry to second growth trees is not practical right now.

“If they don’t have old growth, the amount of harvesting on the island will decrease quite dramatically,” Prasad said.

He crunched the numbers in 2013 and found that old growth logging made up 70 per cent of the island’s logging industry.

“I think market forces will dictate how much that happens,” said Prasad, referring to the potential long-term shift towards second growth forestry.

But for Wieting and the Sierra Club, that’s not fast enough.

Government leadership

“Right now, we only have very superficial information from the B.C. government,” said Wieting, highlighting how the lack of a common, comprehensive data set discourages transitioning to second growth logging.

The government lumps together what remains of old growth forest with high-elevation forest and wetlands, where only small old growth trees can grow, according to Wieting.

“It’s the productive, big tree type of ecosystem that we are most worried about,” said Wieting. “That’s the most endangered trees now — trees that can grow as tall as a skyscraper.”

Another roadblock is re-purposing and re-tooling the existing infrastructure.

“Several of these mills were designed and built for large diameter logs,” said Gary Bull, professor of forest resource management at UBC, “They’ve already run into a shortage of logs either because of export or because of the second-growth logs.”

But Wieting is hopeful.

“We’ve seen government leadership in the Great Bear Rainforest,” he said. “We know that solutions are possible.”

[CBC article no longer available.] 

The fight to save Echo Lake’s old trees and wildlife has begun

/in /by

Here's a new story in today's Globe and Mail about the old-growth forest campaign, spearheaded by local landowners Susan and Stephen Ben-Oliel and supported by the Ancient Forest Alliance, to protect all of the forests in the mountains surrounding Echo Lake (a rare lowland old-growth forest between Mission and Agassiz in Sts'ailes territory, and also the world's largest night-roosting site for bald eagles) from logging.

*****

Ken Wu hunts down giant, old trees for a living.

As executive director of the Ancient Forest Alliance, he has hiked most of the watersheds on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland, hoping to find – and save from logging – the last remaining pockets of old growth.

At Echo Lake, just a 90-minute drive east of Vancouver near Harrison Hot Springs, local landowners brought him a few years ago to see a magical forest, draped in moss, with towering trees where up to 700 eagles come to nest when salmon are spawning in the nearby Harrison River.

“Echo Lake is home to the largest night-roosting site for bald eagles on Earth,” said Mr. Wu, who in 2012 launched a campaign to save the area, then slated for logging.

In 2013, the British Columbia government set aside 55 hectares, protecting just over half the old-growth cedars and Douglas firs around the lake.

Mr. Wu wasn’t satisfied and since then has been pushing for the addition of another 40 to 60 hectares to the reserve, which would protect the key eagle area. “That would get the bowl, essentially the mountain and forest that rings Echo Lake. So it should be a no-brainer at this point,” he said.

But last week, he was shocked when he walked through the forest around the lake to find that the biggest and oldest trees in the unprotected area had been tagged and numbered. A small company with cutting rights to a woodlot on Crown land at the lake has laid out the route for an access road, which it plans to build while awaiting logging authorization, Mr. Wu said.

“The government hasn’t approved any cutting plans yet … so I think there’s still some time here to fight this. My worry is that if the road-building progresses too far, they will have sunk enough cost into the whole thing that they are going to argue they have to recover those costs by logging the cut blocks. So right now, we are cranking up the pressure,” said Mr. Wu, who is trying to raise public awareness about the threat to Echo Lake.

The Harrison area was logged in the early 1900s, but Mr. Wu said pockets of trees around Echo Lake weren’t touched because they couldn’t be easily reached. Others were passed up because they were considered too small at the time. Since then, they have grown into giants.

“Those cedars that are flagged now I suspect were about 50 years old [when the area was first logged] and 100 years later they are … essentially old-growth trees,” he said.

And they are rare.

“If you look at the entire region, and we’ve done it, we’ve explored this whole area, and it is exceedingly hard to find these types of lowland stands of ancient cedars. They are virtually non-existent – all logged, long ago,” Mr. Wu said.

In an e-mail, Vivian Thomas, a spokeswoman for B.C.’s Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, said trees have been marked by the woodlot owner as an inventory, “with the goal of retaining as many of the large Douglas fir older trees as possible.”

She also provided a fact sheet that states appropriate environmental measures are being taken around Echo Lake.

“Forest and resource values, including eagle habitat, are being adequately addressed by balancing established OGMAs [Old Growth Management Areas], a proposed wildlife management area and other reserve areas, with areas that remain available for timber harvesting,” the ministry states. “The woodlot holder is aware of the eagle roosting habitat potential and has committed to further identify and manage the values within the woodlot area.”

But Mr. Wu said it is clear when hiking through the forest that many giant, old cedars and firs will be lost if the government doesn’t change course. And if those trees fall, the eagles and other wildlife will suffer, he said.

“I would say logging these trees would have a detrimental effect because the eagles use the entire bowl. Essentially you see them come in from the Harrison River, they circle around the bowl and then they settle in the big trees along the side of the lake,” he said.

“Even if they left some high-value eagle trees, essentially you get the loss of the ecosystem on the north and west side of the lake,” Mr. Wu said. “When you go there, it is jam-packed with wildlife. There’s a giant bear that hangs out there, … there are cougars in the area; you can see the trees that they’ve scratched. There’s a little bobcat. … Ospreys are always over the lake. There’s a group of otters … so it’s not just an eagle issue, it’s a biodiversity issue.”

In his treks through the forests of the Lower Mainland, Mr. Wu has found only a few places with giant, old trees like those around Echo Lake.

And they are all in parks.

Read more: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/the-fight-to-save-echo-lakes-old-trees-and-wildlife-has-begun/article30847824/

New calls for a moratorium on old-growth logging

/in /by

Here’s a new Focus magazine article by Briony Penn about Vancouver Island’s old-growth forests, featuring forest ecologist Dr. Andy MacKinnon, Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce president Dan Hager, Jens Wieting of the Sierra Club, AFA, Ahousaht and Tofino councils, and the growing support among businesses, chambers of commerce, and municipal councils for protecting BC’s old-growth forests.

******

WHEN THE BC CHAMBER OF COMMERCE and the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities (AVICC) recently came out championing the protection of old-growth forests on Vancouver Island, it was hailed as a historic and tectonic shift by environmentalists. Yet it’s probably more accurately described in earthquake terms as “fault creep”—the “slow, more or less continuous movement occurring on faults due to ongoing tectonic deformation.”

Political and business associations have finally caught up with the economic reality, climate change, public attitudes, business opportunities, and scientific data—and not a moment too soon.

In typical island fashion, it takes a poster boy from elsewhere with home-spun prairie logic to signal that shift. Handsome Dan Hager, the head of the Port Renfrew Chamber and business owner of Handsome Dan’s Wild Coast Cottages, looked in his guest books one day and noticed that his guests were coming year round to visit old trees at the Avatar Grove. Since then, with just a handsome Saskatchewan smile and anecdotal stories of full beds and full-time staff, he’s managed to convince the entire BC Chamber of Commerce of the value of leaving old growth close to towns.

This likely amuses botanist and Metchosin Councillor Andy Mackinnon. His 30 years of collecting compelling scientific data on the value of old growth on Vancouver Island is not as “hot” on the current media radar, although he’s being effective in other ways. With his own moniker the “fun guy” (pun on fungi, his research specialty), Mackinnon has spread his own charismatic mycelia alongside Hager’s in the slow and continuous movement towards improving Vancouver Island land use planning.

Mackinnon, a forest researcher with the provincial government, has recently retired from public service and jumped into political life. He won a seat on Metchosin council in 2014 and has been looking for ways to get science back into policy and planning ever since. Mackinnon managed to get a resolution asking for a moratorium on the logging of old growth on Vancouver Island passed by his Metchosin Council, and then Colwood’s, this spring. That was subsequently endorsed at AVICC’s AGM in April. His advocacy was triggered by his frustrations as a government scientist. He says, “You felt you were gathering a lot of good information that wasn’t being incorporated into policy and management.” Mackinnon’s first priority was to stop the old-growth logging while Vancouver Island still had some left to save.

His resolution for a moratorium was borrowed from the Ahousat chiefs—also known as the Hawiih of Clayoquot Sound— who had announced their own moratorium on industrial logging of old-growth forests in October last year. It hasn’t gone unnoticed by Mackinnon that the Ahousat have been slowly, more or less continuously, suggesting to Western governments the values of old growth. Their data goes back several thousand years. Their resolution included a community “Land Use Visioning” process intended to protect a traditional way of life while diversifying livelihoods.

The mayor of Tofino shared this resolution with Mackinnon and he fashioned a similar moratorium for Metchosin with a request to the provincial government to revise the old Vancouver Island Land Use Plan. The resolution’s preamble states that old-growth forest is increasingly rare on Vancouver Island and has significant values as wildlife habitat, a tourism resource, a carbon sink and much more. It also noted that current plans on provincial Crown land call for logging the remaining old-growth forest outside of protected areas, Old-Growth Management Areas (OGMAs), and similar reserves, over the next 10-20 years.

Mackinnon is not new to the science of why it is important to protect old growth. He was on the scientific team that wrote the provincial Old Growth Strategy (OGS) starting in 1989. At the time, the OGS was cutting-edge policy. The 1992 report began with the acknowledgement that old-growth forests “represent a wide range of spiritual, ecological, economic and social values” and outlined the framework to plan for conserving old growth. It was the time of the “war in the woods”—from Clayoquot Sound to Carmanah—and logging still constituted the dominant industry in parts of northern Vancouver Island. The same year, the NDP created the Commission on Resources and Environment to provide independent land use recommendations to cabinet for Vancouver Island, and the OGS was folded into this new Vancouver Island Land Use Plan (VILUP) and the Forest Practices Code. (Clayoquot Sound was excluded from VILUP because it came under a separate scientific commission.)

According to Mackinnon, “those were exciting times with the opportunity to do broad land use planning and establish new protected areas.” Before 1992, only 6 percent of Vancouver Island had any protected status and what was protected was mostly rocks and ice at the top of mountains. By the end of the planning process in 2000, the protected areas reached 12 percent of Vancouver Island with a slightly better representation of diverse lowland ecosystems. That included some of the big, old trees in valley bottoms known as “productive lowland old-growth forests.” The VILUP decisions established the upper Carmanah Valley, the lower Walbran Valley, Tashish Kwoi and Brooks Nasparti Provincial Parks as large protected areas.

The target of protecting 12 percent of the land base had come from the international Bruntland Commission and its landmark report Our Common Future. The report called for doubling the area of protected areas globally—which, at that time, also sat around 6 percent.

Mackinnon supported the plan then because it at least doubled the protection and was achievable politically, but it fell short in many regards. Many scientists had recommended quadrupling the area protected to take in forest stand and ecosystem diversity, and climate change wasn’t being factored in yet. The compromise was partly addressed in a series of special management zones created to maintain areas of old growth and high biodiversity within forest tenures on Crown land.

In 2001, with a change in provincial government from NDP to Liberal, the Old Growth Strategy and VILUP were sent to the shredders, special management zones were cancelled, and the Forest Practices Code was gutted. Since then, apart from a handful of tiny isolated groves, like Avatar Grove, being designated OGMAs or Land Use Objective areas, no ancient forests have been set aside in protected areas on Vancouver Island.

In the absence of any provincial leadership on island old growth, the Sierra Club has taken the lead role in mapping island forests. Mackinnon says, “When people asked my ministry how much old growth there was left, I would have to say: ‘Go talk to the Sierra Club.’” Jens Wieting of the Sierra Club of British Columbia notes that, as of 2012, less than 10 percent of the productive lowland old-growth forests remain. These are the forests that businesses like Handsome Dan’s benefit from, not the older, scrubby trees in the mountain tops that the provincial government still includes in their tally of old growth.

According to Wieting, the state of old growth on Vancouver Island is now an ecological emergency. Of that 10 percent that remains, only 4 percent has been set aside in parks or OGMAs and 6 percent is up for grabs. The Sierra Club’s recent Google Map press release visually shows how that remaining unprotected old growth is at risk.

This situation has brought a return of the wars in the woods, with conflicts over Walbran, Klaskish and East Creek. The battle is being led by the Ancient Forest Alliance, Western Canada Wilderness Committee and others. These last watersheds of remaining unprotected old-growth lowland forest are where the greatest value are for all stakeholders. The stakes are even higher with an increased understanding of the value of these forests for sequestering carbon.

Sierra’s data shows around 9400 hectares of Island old growth being logged annually and 17,000 hectares of second growth, some of it highly endangered ecosystems. Second-growth forests eventually become old-growth forests so we need to pay attention to these as well. Only saving old-growth forests is like only looking after elders and not nurturing the young. For forest ecologists, this is a compelling rationale for reopening the Vancouver Island Land Use Plan and reconsidering the mix of different forests and age classes of stands. This would entail planning for future reserves of old growth in forest types where there is hardly any old growth left, like the Douglas-fir forests of Vancouver Island where old growth has been reduced to 1 percent of the remaining stand.

Wieting’s argument is that “with every new clearcut, more biodiversity of the original ecosystem disappears.” That’s the ecological argument for a new target of quadrupling protected areas—nature needs half. But what about the economic argument?

The 1992 VILUP included a careful economic analysis with projections to 2012. What is most interesting is how accurate those projections were. They predicted continuing declines in the resource sectors and continuing increases in importance of tourism and other service industries like high tech and filmmaking, light manufacturing and pension and investment incomes. The plan states, “These shifts in economic structure will be reinforced by the in-migration of retirees to the Island, the aging of the resident population, increasing demand for and scarcity of wilderness recreation opportunities, technological change, and resource depletion.”

According to the VILUP, back in 1992 forestry and logging provided 10,565 jobs (3.6 percent) on Vancouver Island. By 2012, StatsCan numbers show, that had declined to 4700. Pulp and paper mills employed 12,900 people in 1992, but by 2012 that had fallen to one-half of that.

Compare that to 4800 jobs in the “information and cultural industries,” 9800 in the “arts, entertainment and recreation industries” and 5800 in the mysterious-sounding “personal and laundry services.” The largest employers—by far—on Vancouver Island are in the service industries with 20,000 to 50,000-plus jobs, per sector, in health, education, professional services, high tech, trade and tourism (accommodation and food services). Even the recent Vancouver Island State of the Economy report by the Vancouver Island Economic Alliance, in a curiously conservative analysis, points out the only fast growth areas are in the professional, scientific and high tech sectors—the people who fill up Handsome Dan’s Wild Coast Cottages.

The age-old problem for northern Vancouver Island rural communities of boom and bust resource-based economies was pinpointed accurately in the 1992 plan, with various recommendations for diversification.

In the ensuing years, though, there was minimal action taken to diversifiy. There was little public investment in a number of critical areas: infrastructure for making value-added wood products, transportation systems, an old-growth strategy, marketing of tourism to these areas, and creating value for ecosystem services. The BC Liberals weren’t, apparently, paying heed to the shifting economic landscape. New Zealand, with roughly comparable economic forecasts, land base and population, looked at its data back then and brought in a moratorium on old-growth logging while investing heavily in ecotourism infrastructure and marketing. Total tourism expenditure today in New Zealand is $29.8 billion, increasing at 10 percent per year. Vancouver Island tourism generates $2.2 billion annually.

Better late than never, Mackinnon’s resolution will now go to the Union of BC Municipalities AGM in September. So far the provincial government hasn’t responded to his request for a meeting. With Hager working the business community on a modified resolution specifically referring to old growth close to settlements, both Mackinnon and Hager argue that it will be hard for the provincial government to ignore both local governments and the business sector.

Once a moratorium is in place, Mackinnon would like to see innovative planning—with a foundation based on scientific principles—adapted for Vancouver Island. He points to the land use plans for Clayoquot Sound and the Great Bear Rainforest, both of which he participated in and which were spearheaded by First Nations. The Great Bear Rainforest Agreements in particular incorporated First Nations concerns, economic realities that included real conservation financing, and carbon credit projects for First Nations.

As Jens Wieting suggests, “We have a lot to learn from what went on in both these regions—and fast, because climate change means that we have even less time to save rainforest as we know it.”

As for Handsome Dan, he says, “I’m no treehugger and I don’t need to rely on any science. I just see the logic because the economics are black and white. The trees left standing are good for my business.” Hardly earthshaking, but a welcome tectonic nudge to an island that has so much natural capital to offer its inhabitants and the world.

[Original article no longer available]

 

Rare Lowland Old-Growth Forest at Risk – Road-building and Logging Surveys Underway at Echo Lake, the World’s Largest Night-Roosting Site for Bald Eagles, east of Vancouver

/in /by

Road-building is scheduled to begin this week and preliminary logging surveys of the old-growth redcedars are underway by Echo Lake, an extremely rare, lowland old-growth forest about 2 hours east of Vancouver between Mission and Agassiz. Echo Lake is part of the drinking watershed for local people, is home to the largest night-roosting site for bald eagles on Earth, and harbours much wildlife including bears, cougars, bobcats, wintering black-tailed deer, osprey, numerous bats, and various Species at Risk. Local landowners and conservationists are redoubling efforts to convince the BC government to protect the endangered north and west sides of the lake.

Mission, BC – Local landowners and conservation groups are dismayed at road-building and old-growth logging plans that are underway in a community watershed at Echo Lake, an extremely rare and endangered, lowland old-growth forest between Mission and Agassiz, famous for its monumental cedars and Douglas-firs, wildlife, and hundreds of roosting bald eagles during the fall salmon run (see the Vancouver Sun https://www.vancouversun.com/Province+urged+protect+Harrison+eagles/7371025/story.html).

Landowners Stephen and Susan Ben-Oliel, who own a private land parcel on one side of the lake, and who draw their drinking water there, were informed on Monday by consultants hired by C&H Forest Products that the logging company is planning to begin construction this week 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 have 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, although they have not approved any cutting plans at this time. Conservationists are concerned that once major sections of road are constructed, the company will be in a strengthened position to obtain approval for their logging plans in order to recuperate their costs. C&H Forest Products have a Woodlot Licence on the unprotected north and west sides of Echo Lake, while a 55 hectare Old-Growth Management Area protects the south side of the lake.

“Judging by their flagging tape and the route of their planned logging road, it appears the licensee intends to log the spectacular stands of monumental old-growth redcedars by Echo Lake – which is sort of like shooting a herd of endangered rhinos, as giant redcedars like these are almost all gone in this region,” stated landowner Stephen Ben-Oliel. “The company has informally stated that they might leave some of the individual old-growth Douglas-firs and maples, but their assurances lack detail, leave out the old-growth cedars, are purely verbal, and are not backed up by any legally-binding government regulations or laws. In addition, the risks posed by road-building and logging in the community watershed where where we and other families draw our drinking water from are also a cause for alarm.”

“Echo Lake is a globally significant area that should be a no-brainer for full government protection, especially considering how small it is, a hundred or so hectares in total size. It’s the world’s largest night-roosting site for bald eagles – that alone should make full protection of the forests in the ‘bowl’ surrounding the lake a given, not even factoring in its importance for much more biodiversity,” stated Ken Wu, Ancient Forest Alliance executive director. “We need the BC government in this election year to step forward and protect all of Echo Lake’s old-growth and mature forests on Crown lands.”

See the media release from 2013: https://16.52.162.165/news-item.php?ID=565

See spectacular images of Echo Lake Ancient Forests at: https://16.52.162.165/photos-media/echo-lake/

See a Youtube Clip at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPstV14oZ6s&feature=youtu.be

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.

More Background Info

Echo Lake is the largest night-roosting site for bald eagles on Earth, where as many as 700 bald eagles roost in the ancient Douglas-fir and cedar trees around the lake at night during the fall salmon runs. Along the nearby Chehalis and Harrison Rivers, as many as 10,000 bald eagles come to eat the spawning salmon during some years, making the area home to the largest bald eagle/ raptor concentration on Earth.


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 the lake within a Woodlot Licence where the ancient trees can still be logged.

The area 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.

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 TJ Watt, 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 like at Echo Lake”.

Sustainable Forest Rally (July 22, Port Alberni)

/in /by

The Ancient Forest Alliance will be supporting the forestry workers with the Pulp, Paper, and Woodworkers of Canada (now the Public and Private Workers of Canada) at a rally they are organizing in Port Alberni on July 22. Please come out if you can in solidarity with them and local Port Alberni activists to support a sustainable, second-growth forest industry and to end the export of raw, unprocessed logs out of Canada! https://www.facebook.com/events/1342362639111734/

Photo Gallery: Avatar Boardwalk Construction – June 18/19 2016

/in /by

For the second time this month, volunteers have worked with the Ancient Forest Alliance to construct boardwalk at the Avatar Grove. This round was a huge success! Together we completed 50+ feet of new walkways over many of the areas that flood in winter time and added a beautiful staircase leading off the road to our new viewing platform in the Lower Grove. Volunteers also worked hard to add mesh traction to the many steps, cut and carried over 100 planks of wood into the bush, mixed cement and moved heavy rocks, and did it all with a great attitude and smiles. Thank you all so much!! We're making tremendous progress thanks to the help of the many dedicated individuals who've come out and the donations made by AFA supporters and local businesses. We're working to finish the boardwalk this summer, hopefully after 1 or 2 more work parties. The boardwalk is necessary to help protect the area's ecological integrity and improve visitor access and safety. Stay tuned for further info if you'd like to help out, contact boardwalk coordinator TJ Watt: tj@15.222.255.145 Trail building or construction experience is an asset (we can use more of you!) but not required.

See the photo album at: https://www.facebook.com/ancientforestalliance/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1061996910561562

To donate to the boardwalk construction, please visit: https://16.52.162.165/avatar-grove-boardwalk-now-completed-and-open/
 

Photo Gallery: Cameron Valley Ancient Forest with the Vancouver Sun

/in /by

Last week Vancouver Sun's columnist Stephen Hume came with us to see the endangered Cameron Valley Ancient Forest (ie. “Firebreak”), a truly spectacular lowland stand of densely-packed, monumental old-growth Douglas-firs akin to a “second Cathedral Grove”. This grove stands out as among the finest remaining old-growth Douglas-firs anywhere left on the planet and is of international conservation significance. You can read the resulting news article here: https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/stephen-hume-axing-old-growth-a-crime-against-nature

On our visit we also passed nearby second-growth clearcuts where one can see just how soon many of these trees are logged again. When you log an ancient forest, it doesn't come back. We also checked out a cougar den which is thought to be abandoned after Island Timberlands clearcut to within a few meters of the entranceway. And finally, we toured the world-famous Cathedral Grove as Island Timberlands has plans to log Mt Horne, the old-growth on the hillside above the park. The Ancient Forest Alliance and Port Alberni Watershed-Forest Alliance are continuing to push to save these and many other endangered areas nearby. [o] Photos by TJ Watt.

See the photo album at: https://www.facebook.com/ancientforestalliance/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1061910110570242

Axing old growth a crime against nature

/in /by

The Vancouver Sun's columnist Stephen Hume came with us to see the endangered Cameron Valley Ancient Forest (ie. “Firebreak”), a truly spectacular lowland stand of densely-packed, monumental old-growth Douglas-firs akin to a “second Cathedral Grove”. This grove stands out as among the finest remaining old-growth Douglas-firs anywhere left on the planet and is of international conservation significance. Please share and add your voice to the comments section at the end!

********

CATHEDRAL GROVE — When I pulled into Cathedral Grove, the stand of 800-year-old Douglas fir about half way between Nanaimo and Port Alberni on Vancouver Island, every parking space was occupied.

Camera-wielding tourists stood enthralled. They stared up into a canopy soaring the height of a 20-storey building overhead, thronged the trails flanking Highway 4 and posed for selfies beside trees so thick at the base it would take 15 people standing shoulder-to-shoulder to circle the trunk.

Most visitors wouldn’t know — but might certainly care — that a scant 30 minutes drive away is the Cameron Valley Firebreak, another, equally accessible, equally stunning equivalent to Cathedral Grove that’s apparently destined to be mowed down for two-by-fours and toilet paper.

It was once protected as critical winter range for Roosevelt elk and blacktail deer. But in 2004, during a push for deregulation, the province removed the lands from its regulatory authority under a tree farm licence. Logging began in 2012.

Environmentalists, biologists and ordinary citizens describe the Cameron Valley Firebreak — it was originally left as a dense water-soaked barrier intended to stall wildfires — as a sacred space at the spiritual core of what we mean by Super Natural B.C. They can’t believe the province would stand by while it’s turned into stumps and slash.

After a rain-soaked hike through the grove, I can only agree. You’d have to be bereft of sensitivity to let such a place be destroyed.

At Cathedral Grove, I waited on the shoulder until someone left, then dashed in to grab a spot before the next tourist arrived, of whom there have now been more than eight million. And they just keep coming.

Anyone who doubts the long-term economic value of parks need only pass through this small but world-famous example of the coastal forest for which B.C. is renowned, probably unjustly considering the disrespect with which we treat this near-sacred legacy. In fact, when CBC ran a national survey to determine the seven wonders of Canada, Cathedral Grove outscored the Stanley Cup.

What’s officially MacMillan Provincial Park, a 300-hectare patch that took 25 years of lobbying by the public, including loggers, who seem to have a better developed ideas of transcendent spiritual value than politicians, was finally set aside in 1944. It is considered an internationally significant example of the Douglas fir old growth forest that once covered much of Vancouver Island.

Yet since it was established, more than 90 per cent of the remaining ancient forest it represents has been destroyed under a provincial forestry strategy that calls for liquidation of old growth. Less than three per cent of this original forest type is protected.

Indeed, Cathedral Grove is one of those places in danger of being loved-to-death by enthusiasts. The province was only narrowly prevented from going ahead with a 2001 scheme for a football field-sized parking lot, gift shop, food concession, interpretive centre, picnic area and facilities, all of which required clearing precisely what people were coming to see.

I was there to meet with Jane Morden, a conservation-minded woman from Port Alberni, the heartland of coastal logging culture; Mike Stini, an expert in ungulate habitat who’s concerned about disappearing winter range for deer and elk; and Ken Wu and TJ Watt of the Ancient Forest Alliance, a group of environmental activists anxious to save the last fragments of this seriously endangered ecosystem.

They wanted to show me the accidentally preserved stand farther up the Cameron River. Given the endangered nature of this Douglas fir old growth, they argue, the province has a moral duty to intervene on the public’s behalf to ensure that it’s saved from the chainsaws and toilet paper factories.

So we went bouncing back into the bush — and not far into the bush, at that — in TJ’s 18-year-old van.

We hiked into an astonishing, breathtaking grove of ancient forest, trees growing when Magna Carta was signed. Beneath them, the atmosphere cooled abruptly. Underfoot the ground was springy with mattress-like layers of needles and moss. Unusual, colourful fungi burst from the forest floor. Streams cascaded over old logs.

Among the immense Douglas fir were many cedar trees showing distinctive signs of cultural modification — bare trunks where First Nations harvesters had stripped bark for baskets, dress and ancient spiritual ceremonies.

Frankly, the activists are right. This shouldn’t be destroyed. We don’t need to cut down any more of these mystical fragments of ancient forests that define the place we choose to live. If we do, it’s only out of greed.

Read more: https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/stephen-hume-axing-old-growth-a-crime-against-nature

Ancient Forest Alliance

Voice of BC: Water, Trees & Climate

/in /by

The AFA's Ken Wu joins Ben Parfitt of the Centre for Policy Alternatives on a pundit panel on the Voice of BC (aka “the Vaughn Palmer show”) on aspects of forest, water, and climate policy in BC. Here it is: https://vimeo.com/171124862

Old-Growth Maps

/in /by

In our campaign to protect the old-growth forests of Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland, there has been a huge amount of misleading PR stats thrown around by the logging companies and BC government in the media recently to make it sound like lots of old-growth forests remain and much has been protected – this is completely false. They are including vast tracts of stunted, low productivity bog and subalpine stands with low to no commercial value along with the productive stands, and also attach stats from the northern coast (ie. the Great Bear Rainforest, where much more old-growth remains and much more has been protected due to the concerted efforts of enviro-groups) to the southern coast (where very little has been protected, relatively little old-growth remains, and where the forests are much grander with different ecosystems). The fact is that 75% of the productive old-growth forests have been logged on the southern coast, including over 91% of the high productivity, valley bottom old-growth forests where the largest trees grow, while only 8% of the productive forests have been protected in parks and Old-Growth Management Areas. Take note too that of 5.5 million hectares of original old-growth forests on the southern coast, 2.2 million hectares are considered low productivity (ie. bogs, high altitude, steep rocky slopes with stunted trees, etc.) – and if you go to the northern rainforest, most of the landscape is low productivity old-growth forests (or alpine rock and ice). See the stats and the “before and after” maps here, based on BC government and satellite data:
https://16.52.162.165/ancient-forests/before-after-old-growth-maps/