Archive for year: 2025

Victoria, BC — The Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) and Endangered Ecosystems Alliance (EEA) are calling on the BC and federal governments to tie the federal government’s $1.25 billion softwood lumber industry support package, announced by Prime Minister Carney in August and reaffirmed at his “strategic response fund” announcement to US tariffs last week, to help transition BC’s forest industry into a sustainable, value-added second-growth industry and away from old-growth logging. This shift is urgently needed to modernize and future-proof BC’s forest economy, supporting forest industry jobs while safeguarding the remaining endangered old-growth forests. Access to the funds should be conditional on industry applicants meeting stipulations that ensure this sustainable transition.

Under the federal package, $700 million will be available in loan guarantees to help forestry companies restructure and reduce reliance on U.S. exports. Another $500 million will support market diversification and the development of new products, such as low-carbon, wood-fibre-based insulation, while $50 million will retrain forestry workers affected by industry transformation. Given BC’s share of the Canadian timber industry, the province is expecting to receive 40–50% of this funding. The announcement comes as U.S. duties on Canadian softwood lumber imports reach 35.19%.

“This is an unprecedented economic opportunity for British Columbia to build a modernized, value-added, second-growth forest industry, while ending old-growth logging. We need to immediately shift the dependency of BC’s timber industry away from old-growth and log exports towards value-added, second-growth forestry, and here’s a first-rate opportunity to do so if the right stipulations are attached for companies to access the $1.2 billion federal fund. Conversely, failure to attach the right conditions to the funding can help reinforce BC’s economic path-dependency on logging its last old-growth stands into extinction,” said Ken Wu, Executive Director of the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance.

BC’s forest industry is in long-term decline, driven by decades of massive overcutting by the timber industry and compounded by climate impacts like pine beetle outbreaks and expanding wildfires. As old-growth stands are depleted and harvesting shifts to second-growth, BC has failed to retool its old-growth mills to handle the smaller logs. As a result, coastal second-growth logs are largely exported to foreign mills, and along with them, BC jobs.

In addition, raw log exports have historically been exempt from U.S. duties in the softwood lumber dispute, creating a further incentive to send unprocessed logs to U.S. mills — leaving BC with both the environmental loss and missed economic opportunity for processing jobs within the province.

To keep BC’s forestry sector competitive and sustainable, AFA and EEA are urging the province to use its share of federal funding to launch a “Smart Forest Industry” incentive program that accelerates investment in value-added and engineered wood products made only from second-growth stands. This program should include rebates provided from the log export “fees in lieu”, PST and property tax relief for value-added manufacturers, and government support for research and development into market expansion of sustainable second-growth wood products.

Additional measures that require government regulations are also needed, including quickly ending or phasing out raw log exports, establishing regional log sorts, and promoting eco-forestry practices, such as longer logging rotations, selective commercial thinning, and pruning lower limbs to produce higher-value saw logs. These would further scale up the transition, improving wood fibre supply and creating more jobs per cubic metre logged.

“BC is one of the last jurisdictions on Earth still logging old-growth forests. It simply can’t continue,” said TJ Watt, Campaign Director of the Ancient Forest Alliance. “Around the world, forestry sectors are embracing cutting-edge technologies to produce durable, engineered wood products from smaller, second-growth logs. BC has lagged behind. With wood fibre supplies dwindling and regulatory uncertainty growing, the province must act now to invest in a modern, sustainable forestry sector that creates long-term jobs and keeps BC competitive in the global market.”

AFA and EEA’s full list of policy recommendations for the provincial government to protect the remaining endangered old-growth forests and transition toward sustainable, value-added, second-growth forestry in BC is as follows:

• Establish a BC Protected Areas Strategy to proactively pursue the protection of priority ecosystems through shared decision-making with First Nations.
• Develop Ecosystem-Based Protection Targets to ensure endangered ecosystems and big-tree old-growth forests are fully protected in both legislated protected areas and in conservation reserves (forest reserves). The forthcoming Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework offers the greatest opportunity to implement these targets.
• Provide “solutions space” funding to First Nations to help secure the remaining 1.3 million hectares of priority old-growth deferrals by offsetting lost forestry revenues.
• Ensure a transition to sustainable logging of second-growth forests, which now constitute the vast majority of forest lands in southern BC.
• Close logging loopholes by ending logging in forest reserves such as Old-Growth Management Areas and Wildlife Habitat Areas, and ensuring commercial logging within parks or conservation reserves remains prohibited.
• Expand a smart forest industry by incentivizing value-added second-growth manufacturing, ending raw log exports, and promoting eco-forestry.
• Create a BC Conservation Economy Strategy to support eco-tourism, clean tech, and sustainable industries in protected areas.

“The province now faces a clear choice – keep funding destructive old-growth logging and raw log exports, or use this federal funding to transition to a value-added, second-growth forest industry that will build a resilient, sustainable economy for BC, while undertaking the vital and overdue protection of endangered ecosystems,” said Watt.

Cuteness alert! A baby black bear climbs a tree! 🐻🌲

This little cub on the west coast of Vancouver Island was likely born inside the hollow heart of an ancient redcedar, a favourite maternity den for mother bears in this region.

Newborn black bears are among the smallest mammals in proportion to their mothers. This cub likely weighed about 300 grams (just over half a pound) at birth, roughly one three-hundredth the size of its mother. These blind, nearly hairless little jellybeans stay in the den with their mother for 2–3 months before emerging as playful, fuzzy cubs.

Trees continue to provide safety as the cubs grow. At the first sign of danger, mother bears will send their babies scrambling up a tree trunk or use trees as a safe place for cubs while she forages nearby. In spring, black bears also visit hemlock trees like this one for a sugary treat, stripping away the outer bark of young hemlocks to feast on the sweet cambium when the sap starts to flow.

Thankfully, we were able to view this little cutie from a distance without meeting Mom and then carried on our way. You never know what you might stumble upon while exploring old-growth forests!

🐻 Help protect these incredible ecosystems by sending a message to decision makers today.

On the far western edge of Clayoquot Sound lies the Sydney River Valley, a fully intact rainforest watershed at the head of Sydney Inlet. In 2024, after years of advocacy, much of the watershed was permanently protected under the leadership of the Ahousaht and Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation. To learn more about this incredible valley and see photos, click the image below!

Victoria, BC — The BC Ministry of Environment and Parks has officially confirmed that provincial parks are off-limits to commercial logging, responding to a formal inquiry from the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) and Endangered Ecosystems Alliance (EEA). This comes amid growing public alarm that efforts to reduce the risk of forest fires can be misused to permit commercial logging in protected areas. While the confirmation provides some reassurance, the groups also warn that forest conservation reserves like Old-Growth Management Areas (OGMAs) may remain susceptible to commercial logging under the guise of fire-risk reduction, and like many conservation reserves, including Wildlife Habitat Areas (WHAs) and Visual Quality Objectives (VQOs), have logging loopholes that need to be closed.

In addition, the organizations are calling on the province to become proactive in working with First Nations with a goal to ensure legally binding surrogate protections that uphold the minimum protection standards (i.e. no logging, mining, or oil and gas development) of former parks and protected areas when they are affected by treaty and land title settlements.

In the letter to AFA and EEA, the Honourable Tamara Davidson, Minister of Environment and Parks, reaffirmed that “commercial logging in B.C. provincial parks is not occurring and is not permitted under the Park Act. Non-commercial tree removal is occurring in wildfire prevention projects to contribute to increased wildfire resiliency of adjacent communities and internal park values.” AFA and EEA raised the issue following reports of potential commercial salvage logging and fuel load reduction projects within parks.

“This is good news,” said Ken Wu, Executive Director of EEA. “Logging for profit in parks and protected areas, in this case under the guise of reducing the risk of forest fires, is a red line that must not be crossed under any circumstance, and any commercial logging for any reason in parks would set a dangerous precedent for scaled-up commercial logging in general in BC protected areas. This contrasts against non-commercial thinning, controlled burns and ecosystem-restoration efforts that sometimes are needed where decades of fire suppression have unnaturally altered fire-driven forest ecosystems. Unfortunately, we have seen increasing pressure from industry to allow commercial logging in parks and protected areas under the guise of fire management.. The provincial government will be held to its word that parks are safe.”

While non-commercial wildfire risk reduction efforts, such as thinning and prescribed burns, can play a role in restoring fire-driven Interior ecosystems where natural cycles have been disrupted, commercial logging under the guise of fire management in parks poses serious ecological risks and sets a dangerous precedent.

In BC’s fire-driven Interior ecosystems dominated by lodgepole pine, Interior Douglas-fir, western larch, and Ponderosa pine, decades of fire suppression by the province, carried out to maximize timber values for logging companies, have disrupted natural fire cycles. In many areas, this has resulted in unnaturally dense stands with increased fuel loads. This includes the dense growth of in-grown trees (between the larger forest giants) that would normally be burned off by regular, natural ground fires, which then act as “fire ladders” that enable flames to climb from the forest floor into the canopies.

The forest giants (large Ponderosa pine, Interior Douglas-fir and western larch) are normally fire-resistant along their lower trunks due to their extremely thick, fire-resistant bark under natural circumstances and often survive successive natural fire cycles. However, due to fire suppression by the Forest Service over many natural fire cycles, the increased fuel loads and the dense fire ladder trees, combined with climate change, are today creating more intensive forest fires that, in some cases, can burn down entire stands down. In these instances, ecosystem restoration in protected areas in the form of non-commercial thinning, prescribed burns, and where appropriate, an ecological wildfire policy of allowing natural wildfires to burn where it is deemed safe for human communities, can be merited to help restore the ecology of these fire-driven ecosystems (much biodiversity is dependent on the aftermath of these fires, where life proliferates) and to minimize the ultimate fire risk for any nearby communities. BC Parks has already used these methods over the years.

However, commercial logging for profit in parks under the guise of fire management would be a completely different activity. It would open the door to include targeting the larger, more commercially valuable trees that are actually the most fire-resistant, and introduce many more impacts, including soil compaction, erosion, damage to watersheds, and habitat fragmentation.

“Decades of research have shown that industrial logging can actually increase fire risk and severity, as it replaces structurally complex natural forests with densely stocked plantations of smaller fire-prone trees,” stated Ian Thomas, Ancient Forest Alliance researcher. “At the same time, clearcuts are the most susceptible environments for fires to ignite, often from the use of logging machinery and workers. Any commercial logging in parks would increase the fire risk and set a dangerous precedent for a much greater scale of logging that is far more destructive than any non-commercial ecosystem-restoration initiatives. At stake is the primary value of protected areas, which exist to allow ecosystems to flourish under the natural processes that have shaped them for thousands of years. Fire and insect outbreaks are part of the natural set of disturbances for many ecosystems and, in fact, are essential drivers of biodiversity and ecosystem health.”

The conservation groups also point out that fire risk is also not a relevant justification for logging in Coastal or Interior rainforest ecosystems, which are not fundamentally fire-driven ecosystems like the drier forest types. Any attempts by industry or government to frame old-growth logging in these wet ecosystems as a fire-risk reduction strategy must be firmly rejected as sheer timber-centric opportunism.

While parks have been confirmed to be off-limits to commercial logging, concerns remain about regulatory conservation areas, such as Old-Growth Management Areas (OGMAs) and Wildlife Habitat Areas (WHAs).

“It’s reassuring to receive confirmation that provincial parks are off-limits to commercial logging amid growing concerns,” said TJ Watt, Campaign Director of AFA. “Now, we need the same level of clarity extended to forest conservation reserves. Logging under the pretense of fire management within OGMAs is another clear red line for us. Commercial logging has no place in BC’s protected areas, now or ever.”

Additionally, regulatory loopholes allow the boundaries of OGMAs to be shifted under pressure from the timber industry and permit commercial logging in several types of WHAs that are designated to protect old-growth dependent species, including spotted owls, northern goshawks, and mountain caribou.

“If British Columbia is serious about meeting its 30% protection target, logging loopholes must be closed to end logging in conservation reserves,” said Wu. “The province claims to have protected 19.7% of its land base, but when these loopholes are accounted for, the actual level of meaningful protection is closer to 16%. This is far short of the 30% by 2030 target set by both the provincial and federal governments.”

As the needed reconciliation with BC First Nations moves forward via land title rulings and future treaty settlements, existing park lands are and may increasingly come under First Nations jurisdiction. Conservationists are calling on the BC NDP government to be proactive in attempting to work towards legal agreements with First Nations to ensure the ongoing protection of these old-growth forests and ecologically vital areas under First Nations governance authority. The province has largely done this in the Haida land title case for the parks and conservancies in Haida Gwaii, but should also undertake a similar effort for the former Nuchatlitz Provincial Park in the unceded territory of the Nuchatlaht First Nation on Vancouver Island to see if they are interested in expanding their system of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) in the place of the former park if they are provided the needed support.

AFA and EEA support the rights and titles of First Nations, as well as First Nation co-management and co-governance of provincial parks and conservancies, while ensuring ecosystem health at all times. In protected areas, the groups advocate for rigorous protection standards that prohibit commercial logging, mining, and oil and gas development, as is currently the case, while protecting the rights of First Nations to hunt, fish, forage, and harvest individual trees for cultural purposes (such as for dugout canoes, longhouses, totem poles, etc.), as well as to co-manage or co-govern the lands. The organizations support the temporary closures of parks for First Nations cultural purposes, while also safeguarding public recreational access for much of the time in partnership with the First Nations stewards. A shortage of recreational lands in general in many parts of the province underscores the need for more protected areas in BC, as well as to address the overarching ecological imperative.

AFA and EEA are calling on the BC government to:

• Ensure that commercial logging under the guise of wildfire risk reduction remains prohibited in both legislated protected areas and regulatory conservation reserves.
• Close logging loopholes within Old-Growth Management Areas (OGMAs) and Wildlife Habitat Areas (WHAs).
• Proactively engage with First Nations to identify high-priority candidate areas for new Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs), typically under Conservancy legislation.
• Become proactive in working with First Nations towards ensuring legally-binding surrogate protections (Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas or IPCAs) with the requisite funding needed by First Nations where existing provincial protected areas are impacted by land title and treaty settlements.

“If we are to have hope of securing the vital and overdue protection of endangered ecosystems in BC, we can’t be stuck second-guessing whether the government has backtracked and opened the door to commercial logging in parks and reserves,” said Watt. “What’s needed now is proactive leadership from the province to ensure the protection of candidate protected areas in priority ecosystems through shared decision-making with First Nations.”

A beautiful highlight of Vancouver Island’s endangered Garry oak meadows is the shooting star flower. These vivid magenta to lavender-coloured blooms, with their swept-back wing-like petals and fused anthers forming a pointed beak, seem like flocks of tiny hummingbirds in mid-flight.

On Vancouver Island, we have two species of this flower: the few-flowered or dark-throat shooting star and Henderson’s shooting star. The few-flowered shooting star (pictured here) is distinguished by its narrower, elongated leaves.

The shooting star is unusual among flowers because it produces no nectar for pollinating insects. However, its protein-rich pollen is a critical food source for larval bees, making it valuable to queens just starting their colonies and seeking protein for their first round of developing offspring.

The flower is choosy about its customers, only releasing pollen to insects that can practice something called “buzz pollination” (also called “sonication”). In this technique, an insect vibrates its thoracic muscles at a frequency that dislodges the stuck pollen from the flower.

Not all pollinators have mastered this nifty trick. Honeybees, for instance, seem incapable of buzz pollination and so cannot effectively pollinate the shooting star. Our native bumblebees, however, are buzz masters, providing a critical ecological service and gaining privileged access to this protein-rich prize.

Shooting stars are an early highlight of our oak meadows and woodland glades. By the time the camas is in full flood, the last magenta meteors of shooting stars are already fading in the grass under the dreamy murmur of bumblebee wings.