Canada’s Largest Spruce Tree – The San Juan Spruce!

/in /by

San Juan Sitka Spruce

Seen here is the San Juan Spruce tree. It is Canada’s largest Sitka spruce tree and the second largest in the world! It grows on Vancouver Island alongside the San Juan River about 35 minutes from Port Renfrew, BC. The towering tree measures 38.3′ in circumference, reaches 205′ tall, and has a crown spread of 75′. By volume it contains 333 cubic meters of wood which is equal to 333 telephone poles!

Despite all of this the tree and surrounding forest has not been afforded any legislated protection from the BC Liberal government. We are calling on the province to protect the area of forest, both old-growth and second growth, from the San Juan Spruce to the nearby Red Creek fir.

GPS Location for the tree is:
lat = 48.5879222222,
lon = -124.186630556

Old-growth logging on Vancouver Island

Clearcuts blamed in First Nation flooding

/in /by

KINGCOME INLET – Clearcut logging and a receding glacier were pinpointed Tuesday as probable contributors to a devastating flood which swept through the remote First Nations community of Kingcome Inlet last month.

Indian Affairs Minister John Duncan and First Nations leaders, who converged on the village to take a first hand look at the damage, said a helicopter trip up the Kingcome River Valley was startling.

“Right at the glacier is an obvious unravelling of the slopes,” said Duncan,
who announced financial help adding up to $770,000 and said a key part of
the recovery plan will be a full hydrological assessment of the valley.

“I was expecting to see a significant event. What I wasn’t expecting was to
follow mud all the way to the headwaters and major, significant issues at
the head of the glacier,” said Duncan, adding that there will be no quick
fix.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo said the situation up
the valley means the community will remain vulnerable.

“It has been severely impacted by decades of clearcut logging and, at the
head of the glacier, I saw a torrent of mud and debris,” he said.

Increased monitoring will be necessary once residents return to the village
and one of the priorities will be ensuring the helicopter pad is usable at
all times, Duncan said.

Helicopters provided the only way out for about 120 residents when water
quickly rose up to four metres in parts of the village.

Wayne Goodridge, a pilot for West Coast Helicopters, the first to fly in
amid the flooding, said water was rising so fast it was uncertain whether
the helipad behind the school would remain usable.

“It was up to almost the top of the helipad – almost 15 feet. If it had gone
on any longer we would have been plucking them off the rooftops,” he said.

Apart from a handful of members of the Dzawada’enuxw First Nation who stayed when the water rose, most are now evacuated to Alert Bay, where residents are staying with friends and relatives.

In Kingcome Inlet, porches and steps have been knocked off homes, which are built on stilts to withstand regular, smaller floods. Mud fills crawl spaces and propane tanks lie at drunken angles.

Even though many electric meters were underwater, power has stayed on and Tuesday, as assessors and electrician pored over wiring and looked at other safety issues, Duncan said repair work could start on many of the homes.
“The sooner we can get people back in the community the better we will be.

Band council chairman Joe Willie said that although people are anxious to
get home, he is not yet sure it is safe.

Willie said he is pleased with support being offered by the federal
government, but the immediate offer of $100,000 for assessments and social
services help and $20,000 per house is not likely to go far. “We are an
isolated place and it costs a lot of money just to get materials in,” he
said. “Only one barge has agreed to come up the river. The rest wouldn’t
risk coming up the river.”

Although the river level has dropped, debris has collected in different
areas, creating hazards for boats. The small boats travelling the muddy
river take passengers to an open area of Broughton Archipelago to get on a
larger vessel.

The federal government is investigating building a road into the area and
about $900,000 has been spent on engineering costs, Duncan said.

Others would like to see logging companies, which have taken so much out of the area, help pay for some of the flood costs. Dave Darwin, who looks after Kingcome Inlet’s power, said the valley bottom was first stripped of all its old growth trees and then logging companies clearcut beside the main river and the tributaries. The river can no longer meander as it used to, he said.

“Maybe we can get some environmental group to finance a lawsuit,” he said.

Chief Bob Chamberlin, Musgamagw-Tswataineuk Tribal Council chairman, said the provincial government has some responsibility because it oversees
forestry. “The provincial government has enjoyed unlimited revenue from this place with no return to the First Nation that holds title. I think that
would be an interesting conversation,” he said.

However, the immediate concern has to be those driven from their homes,
Chamberlin said. “It has been 17 days now and every day we wait it’s going
to get worse,” he said. “There are 30 children displaced from their homes
and their community and we need to make proper plans.”

Example of spectacular temperate rainforest on Vancouver Island contrasted with nearby logging of old-growth forest.

Losing legacies in the cut block

/in /by

“They aren’t logging old-growth anymore, are they?” This is one of the most common questions I hear when I talk to people about protecting B.C.’s endangered ancient forests. The sad reality is that here in B.C., we are still cutting down trees that started growing at the time of the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and were already 500 years old when Columbus “discovered” North America. B.C.’s ancient forests — on crown, or public land, and in the most critical ecosystem types and wildlife habitat — are still being devastated by logging. The Ancient Forest Alliance — an organization that supports grassroots activists, including the Ancient Forest Committee here at SFU — has been exploring the back roads of B.C., finding unprotected groves and recently clear-cut valleys in order to raise public awareness about the continued logging of old-growth. Early this year, a fellow old-growth forest campaigner, exploring the Gordon River valley on Vancouver Island, found a valley-bottom cut block full of newly cut stumps, many of which would take over 15 people to surround! A forest that would have been like something out of a fantasy was destroyed in a few weeks, reduced to . . . well, probably matchsticks. This is going on as we speak in B.C.’s “back stage” — something so unthinkable that even when I am standing there talking about protecting old-growth forests, people will ask, “Protecting them from what?”

A delicate balance

Unlike the younger, second-growth forests that develop from tree plantations, old-growth forests, largely undisturbed by industrial logging, have developed for hundreds of years into complex ecosystems connecting many different forms of life. The trees vary in age and height and grow farther apart, letting sunlight in through the canopy to the forest floor, where a rich understory can grow and provide food and shelter to many species. Big mossy tree limbs provide tree-top nesting platforms for an old-growth dependent seabird, the marbled murrelet. Dead and decaying wood also provides habitat for many species, and mechanisms within the forest act to filter water and store atmospheric carbon, which, if released, would contribute to climate change. Stepping into an old-growth forest feels like walking into a natural cathedral.

The industry digs own grave

The other side to this argument is one we hear all the time: “Old-growth logging is necessary . . . forestry is the backbone of B.C.’s economy.” But although it certainly boosts corporate profit, old-growth logging does little for the forestry workers who depend on the industry’s sustainability for their livelihood. How could using up the last of a resource that takes many hundreds of years to re-grow — if at all — be sustainable? The majority of forestland on Vancouver Island and the southwest coast is second-growth, offering the potential for a sustainable second-growth industry in these areas. Yet the government foolishly adopts the rhetoric that old-growth logging is sustainable, even as they stand by the logging of Vancouver Island’s last 10 per cent of productive valley-bottom old-growth and last one per cent of coastal dry Douglas Fir old-growth. Ironically, the main threats to forestry jobs lie in the industry itself, including the overcutting and elimination of old-growth, especially in lower elevation, more accessible areas. Furthermore, as ancient forests are logged to extinction, most sawmills in B.C., designed for old-growth rather than smaller second-growth logs, are being shut down by the B.C. government rather than being re-tooled to accept smaller logs. This government’s support for exporting logs rather than re-tooling sawmills is basically supporting the exporting of jobs while requiring even more trees to be cut.

Logging of our ancient forests is a luxury that can’t be sustained. Companies are not committed to sustainable jobs or habitats — what they are committed to is short-term corporate profit, and our old-growth forests are the price we are involuntarily paying for that. The B.C. Liberal government is continuing to hand over logging rights to large-scale logging companies — basically, the right to convert our public land to tree farms, to devastate our ecosystems and deplete a crucial and unique resource. We have seen this happen so many times in history . . . the collapse of the Atlantic cod stocks to name just one instance. Will we stand around and watch it happen again?

Tricks with numbers

Pat Bell, minister of forests and range, recently announced that we have more old-growth now that we have had in the past! Should we be reassured that this government is working miracles by growing thousand-year-old trees in mere decades? Or should we wonder if something is fishy about the statistics behind this claim? The government has stated again and again that there is still plenty of old-growth left and that much is still protected. But what they are including in these claims of abundant old-growth and generous protection is low-productivity old-growth — the tiny alpine trees and shore pine bog trees that are old but tiny, and definitely not sought out for logging . . . at least not yet. Of course the government is not logging all of this low-productivity old-growth, and of course they can easily protect it without a thought to industry demands — do they need to be commended for this? Only about 10 per cent of Vancouver Island’s original, productive old-growth is protected, and only about 25 per cent of the original productive old-growth is left (10 per cent if we count only productive valley-bottom old-growth, where we find the biggest trees and most biodiversity). Basically, there is very little left, and much in need of protection!

Legacies in the forest

Coastal First Nations cultures in B.C. have to a large extent co-evolved and co-existed with coastal old-growth forests, and this ecosystem remains central to many First Nations peoples along the coast, for the uses provided by the trees themselves — for canoes and totem poles — and for the support old-growth provides to salmon and other species. While there is interest among some First Nations in logging old-growth forests in certain areas, many support land-use plans calling for increased protection for old-growth. For instance, the Squamish First Nations pushed the B.C. Liberal government to establish new provincial conservancies in their “Wild Spirit Areas” in the Elaho and Sims Valleys, and these areas are now protected through new legislation.

The last of the last

There were times in history when it seemed perfectly acceptable to look out across the land and claim that there was more than we could ever take. We are past that time. We should have learned by now — we have taken too much before, and we are still taking too much. This is not an issue of the environment versus jobs; it is an issue of survival versus corporate profit. Logging endangered old-growth is not sustainable for our jobs, our children’s jobs, our futures, or those of the next generations.

The fact that we are one of the only places on the planet that still has ancient temperate rainforests such as these is both a gift and a responsibility. While appreciating the beauty and ecological importance of these forests, we must also recognize the threats that they face, and the need to act for their protection.

What do we want?

The B.C. Liberal government has recently implemented new protected areas on Vancouver Island, amounting to around 10 per cent of the remaining endangered ancient forests on the island. This is an important first step, and one that should be commended. However, there is so little left in endangered areas such as Vancouver Island that we need to keep demanding that the remaining 90 per cent of the island’s endangered ancient forests be protected, along with sustainable logging of second-growth that makes up much of the rest of forestland on the island. As well, we need to ask for a provincial old-growth strategy that would inventory old-growth in the province and protect it where it is most scarce. Along with these demands we are also asking for a ban on the export of raw logs to make sure that as many jobs as possible are provided for the amount of wood that is cut.

We are not asking for a change overnight, but a guarantee of protection measures in the most critically endangered habitats (Vancouver Island, the Lower Mainland and the southern Interior), which would include specific timelines to allow for transitions in the industry to take place — from immediate protection in the most endangered areas to a few years’ transition time in other endangered areas.

A new campaign

The Ancient Forest Alliance is currently launching a 100,000 Strong for Ancient Forests and B.C. Forestry Jobs campaign, aiming to get 100,000 signatories calling for an end to the logging of B.C.’s endangered ancient forests and a ban on raw log exports. You can help to reach this goal by signing the online petition and downloading copies for others to sign, at ancientforestpetition.com

Tangible solutions

Solutions to issues as complex as this must be reached through a variety of measures. To reach these goals, we engage in actions such as petitions, public outreach events (like hikes or slideshows), rallies, and protests. We also encourage people who support this cause to engage with their political representatives and the general public. Let others know about this campaign. Write letters to your local politician, to Premier Gordon Campbell, and to the Minister of Forests and Range, Pat Bell. Writing letters and asking for change from politicians may seem ineffective, but politicians know that each letter represents hundreds of people who feel the same way yet don’t act. In fact, pressure to get with the program may be easier than expected, especially in certain political ridings around SFU. Two MLAs in Burnaby (MLA Richard Lee in Burnaby-North and Harry Bloy in Burnaby-Lougheed) are in power by only a few hundred votes (548 for Richard Lee and 696 for Harry Bloy). Public voices (especially from SFU students, many of whom are in their ridings) will have much sway on their fragile balance of power, and their readiness to enact such policy changes.

Ancient Forest Alliance seeks support

/in /by

Co-founders of the newly formed Ancient Forest Alliance Ken Wu and TJ Watt will host an informative and inspiring slideshow featuring spectacular photographs of Canada’s largest trees tonight, Wednesday, Oct. 6.

The presentation by Wu and Watt will include discussion of the stunning ecology and complex politics surrounding B.C.’s old-growth forests and forestry jobs, and slides of the Red Creek Fir, San Juan Spruce, Cheewhat Cedar and the newly discovered and threatened Avatar Grove. It will be held at Central Hall from 7 to 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 6.

Admission is by donation.

“Time is running out for our endangered old-growth forests and B.C.’s coastal forestry jobs,” said AFA campaign director Wu in a press release. “Salt Spring Island is famous as a hub of environmental consciousness — it may very well have the highest density of tree-huggers in North America! It’s a key place for us to build support and expand the campaign to protect our ancient forests, ensure sustainable second-growth forestry, and to ban raw log exports to foreign mills.”

The AFA says that to date, about 75 per cent of Vancouver Island’s productive old growth forest has been logged according to satellite photos, including 90 per cent of the flat valley bottoms, while only six per cent of its original, productive old-growth forests are protected in parks. Meanwhile thousands of forestry jobs are being lost as millions of cubic meters of raw logs are exported each year to foreign mills.

Arnold Bercov

Common Ground: Newsbytes

/in /by

On September 16, in a seemingly unlikely event, the Ancient Forest Alliance stood in solidarity with members of the Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Canada and the United Steelworkers union in Nanaimo as part of the ongoing fight to ban raw log exports in BC. AFA forest campaigner TJ Watt spoke alongside union officials Nanaimo MLA Leonard Krog and Nanaimo-North Cowichan MLA Doug Routley to the hundreds of workers in attendance, denouncing the export of raw logs and calling for the protection of BC’s threatened forestry jobs.

“Under Gordon Campbell’s BC Liberals we have seen over 60 mills shut down across the province since 2003 while raw log exports have nearly doubled,” said Watt. “It’s time to ban raw log exports in BC, to rejuvenate local mills and to once again provide secure jobs for the thousands upon thousands of forestry workers who have been kicked aside by this backwardspolicy…Exported logs equals exported jobs.”

The AFA believes there can be a solution that works for both our ancient forests and our forestry workers. “The BC Liberal government needs to stimulate investment in the retooling of old-growth sawmills so they can handle second-growth trees. With 90 percent of the most productive lands on Vancouver Island having already been logged, the future of this industry is in sustainable second-growth forestry,” says Brendan Harry, communications director of the Ancient Forest Alliance.”

It is inevitable there will be a transition to logging of only second-growth forests in the not so distant future as the remaining old-growth forests become decreasingly accessible to the coastal logging industry in areas like Vancouver Island and the southern mainland. The Ancient Forest Alliance calls on the BC Liberal government to make this transition happen now, in a planned, rational way, allowing for the protection of what little endangered old-growth ecosystems are left and ensuring a smooth shift to sustainable second-growth logging instead.

“If the industry does not adjust in order to process second-growth trees, what happens down the road when that’s basically all that’s available? Where are the forestry jobs going to be?” Watt wonders. “The rest of most of the world is logging second, third, fourth growth and making it work. We need to be moving up the value chain, not down it. In the end, it’s about the long-term sustainability of a resource and an industry and right now we’re moving in completely the wrong direction.”

From Ancient Forest Alliance, www.ancientforestalliance.org

AFA's Ken Wu stands beside a giant endangered redcedar in the Upper Avatar Grove.

Activists make “Avatar” pitch

/in /by

Ken Wu and TJ Watt are committed to preserving as much of the natural environment as they can.

The two colleagues are key members of an outfit called the Ancient Forest Alliance. Wu may be better known to some as a longtime member of the Wilderness Committee, formerly the the Western Canada Wilderness Committee.

The Alliance staged a media event on September 28 at an area near Port Renfrew which has been dubbed “Avatar Grove.”

Global BC News was on the scene along with the Sooke News Mirror.

The Ancient Forest Alliance guided a group to an unprotected stand of old growth trees – starting with a 10-minute drive from the townsite and finishing with a hike of about the same length of time.

Juan de Fuca MLA John Horgan (NDP) and Mike Hicks, the CRD’s Juan de Fuca Regional Director, toured an area named for its spectacular trees, some estimated at over a thousand years of age. The name is borrowed from the blockbuster 3D movie Avatar which was released last winter.

Along with the group was John Cash of Port Renfrew – former head of the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce and representative with the Sooke Region Tourism Association.

Standing out in a group of huge trees, a massive cedar described as the “gnarliest tree in Canada” was focused upon. Wu made on-camera statements in regard to the Alliance’s desire for some sort of provincial protection of areas such as the grove. The politicians in the party had clearly bought in… using their camera time to exhort the provincial government to waste no time in placing the grove off limits to timber harvesting.

“BC’s endangered ancient forests are incredibly valuable for many reasons,” stated alliance co-founder Watt in a press release which had preceded the expedition. “Not only are they among the most at-risk ecosystems in the world but they’re probably some of the most beautiful places on the planet.”

As it happened, the visit to Avatar Grove took place on a spectacular sunny day in Port Renfrew.

The 36-year-old Wu is a graduate from UBC’s Ecological Science department. He has worked as a treeplanter and flying squirrel biologist in the old-growth forests on the mainland coast, and was the executive director and campaign director of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee in Victoria for over 10 years. He left them in January and founded the Ancient Forest Alliance with Watt and a couple other former WCWC activists.

Watt, 26, has been photographing for about 10 years and has a diploma in professional photography.

“Growing up in rural Metchosin near Sooke gave me a strong appreciation for the intricacies our native ecosystems and the fine balance required to keep them flourishing,” he told the Sooke News Mirror. “I spent a lot of time exploring the backwoods around home looking for big trees or unique natural features which led me to expand my search area to include the rest of B.C., where I now scout for the remaining groves of old-growth forests, record sized trees, and, unfortunately, giant stumps.”

Regarding the unofficial name given to the area, Wu explained the connection with the James Cameron movie (reportedly the top grossing movie of all time), comparing the local rain forest environment with the fictitious setting of the story in which resources from a heavily-forested planet are targeted for extraction. Wu made no bones about the advantages his cause could realize by adopting such a well-known name. He also dismissed the suggestion that the environmental group would ever be taken to task over copyright infringement in using it.

Ancient Forest Alliance campaign director Wu, in the aforementioned press release referred to Federal Member of Parliament Dr. Keith Martin as having expressed support for old growth preservation in the past.

“Whether by supporting their (forests’) protection in new CRD regional parks, provincial protected areas, or in an expanded Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, local politicians like Hicks, Horgan and Martin are vital to ensure that a solution is implemented that protects the last remnants of ancient forests here while a sustainable second-growth forest industry is developed.”

John Horgan, in his post-tour comments, said,

“It’s a good opportunity for me, as the local MLA, to be out here in Renfrew, just minutes from town, in a spectacular grove of old growth trees. I certainly support encouraging more activity (logging) in the second-growth forest… for jobs on the land base. But when we find giants like this, the province has an obligation to protect them and I’ll do everything I can to make sure that happens.”

Regional director Mike Hicks described the behemoths as “world class,” especially in terms of their accessibility.

“It’ll be the biggest draw,” said Hicks, “much like Clayoquot Sound was for Tofino, this is a draw for Port Renfrew. So it just has to stay… simple as that.”

Input for this article had been sought from the Ministry of Forests, but no response had been received as of press time.

CHEK News: Avatar Grove Sees Visit From Provincial NDP Politician and Regional Representitives

/in /by

The following CHEK TV clip covers a trip with the Ancient Forest Alliance and MLA John Horgan and CRD Director Mike Hicks to the Avatar Grove and the San Juan Spruce (the largest spruce tree in Canada, second largest on Earth). Note that in the clip a giant cedar is mistakenly shown in the place of the San Juan Spruce and that the gnarly cedar is not Canada’s largest cedar (which is the Cheewhat  Cedar, a couple hours to the north), but rather the gnarliest or burliest tree in Canada. Also note that the area is not Grants Grove, which is located perhaps 10 kilometers to the north of the Avatar Grove.

Lower Avatar Grove

The battle to save Avatar Grove

/in /by

Near the end of a December day last year, TJ Watt, a long-time environmentalist, discovered a seemingly overlooked area of old growth forest only 15 minutes from Port Renfrew on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

Watt has actively campaigned for the protection of BC’s old growth forests for many years. On this occasion, he had embarked on a two-day hike to explore the Gordon River valley in search of any remaining old growth forest — or at least remnants, in the form of giant tree stumps. As darkness fell on the second day, what he found was truly special.

Spotting the tell-tale forked tops of old growth cedars on a hillside, Watt and a friend hiked deeper into the woods. “As soon as we stepped into the forest we knew we had found something exceptional,” he recalls. “We’ve lost 96 percent of the valley bottom old-growth on southern Vancouver Island so to find an area like this within the remaining four percent — and have it be so close to town and a paved road — was just unbelievable.”

The gigantic Douglas firs, cedars, and hemlocks found in old growth forests are valuable commodities for the logging companies. The valley bottoms are the most easily accessible for logging, so most of those trees have been harvested already. Companies then turn to harvesting the hills or mountainsides. Outside Port Renfrew, the surrounding area had been logged, but somehow this 10 hectare plot had been left standing.

Within weeks, Watt and other prominent local activists created the Ancient Forest Alliance, a group that has since grown to 8000 members. Ken Wu, the group’s campaign director, is no stranger to the old growth forest issue. It was his idea to name this area of the Gordon River valley, “Avatar Grove”.

The name was a clever move to capitalize on the popularity of the James Cameron film, Avatar. But the connection was much deeper. “If you’ve seen the film, you can see it’s about protecting old growth forest,” Wu insists. Even the forest scenes with its giant ferns and big trees resembled BC’s old growth forests.

Despite the uniqueness of Avatar Grove, this rare patch of old growth forest appeared to be in jeopardy. When Watt returned to the site two months later, he found the area had been flagged for logging and road development.

A Surrey, BC, logging company, Teal Jones, has permission to harvest trees on 60,000 hectares on land in the Gordon River valley. The province granted permission through tree farm licence (TFL) 46. Despite appeals to the BC Ministry of Forests to save Avatar Grove, the government has taken no action to halt logging. A Teal Jones representative says the company has not yet made a decision to cut down those trees.

The Ancient Forest Alliance wants the Ministry to make Avatar Grove and the surrounding 90 hectares off-limits to logging. “The Avatar Grove presents the finest opportunity for the public to easily gain access world class old-growth forest, in a wilderness setting on flat gentle terrain,” says Watt. “It contains dozens of giant alien-shaped red cedars, some measuring up to 13 feet across, as well as rare old-growth Douglas fir — and it’s already becoming the Cathedral Grove of Port Renfrew.”

Cathedral Grove, located on the highway near Port Alberni on Vancouver Island, attracts one million visitors a year, says Watt. The road is regularly the site of traffic jams as buses, cars, and campers pull over to park. Trails allow visitors to wander through this preserved old growth forest and marvel at the circumference and height of these forest giants.

Avatar Grove, he says, has the potential to attract just as many tourists to Port Renfrew, and thereby stimulate the local economy.

West Coast old growth forest consists of giant Sitka spruce, Douglas fir, western hemlock, and both red and yellow cedar trees. Protecting these forest giants is more than a matter of keeping a few big trees for tourists to view. Old growth forests support a level of biodiversity not found in second growth forest. The giant trees are also valuable as carbon “sinks”, absorbing harmful greenhouse gases that are a factor in global warming.

Eighty percent of productive forest land in BC southern coast is already second growth. To complaints that protecting old growth forest will cost forest industry jobs, Wu counters, “The total transition to second growth trees is inevitable. Why not do it now, instead of waiting until all the unprotected old-growth forest is gone?”

The “jobs versus tourism” conundrum often plagues logging communities, where saving trees may be regarded as sacrificing vital jobs. Past confrontations between loggers and environmentalists show what happens when people see their livelihoods threatened.

Logging Avatar Grove, Wu explains, would provide a few months’ work for half a dozen people. On the other hand, preserving the space as a tourist attraction would create a sustainable source of income for Port Renfrew indefinitely.

Watt says, “The Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce is in full support of having the area protected and local businesses are already seeing the increased traffic from those who come to town because of the trees.”

The Ancient Forest Alliance is circulating a petition to pressure the BC government into protecting not just Avatar Grove, but all areas in the province where old growth forest is rapidly disappearing due to logging. The group hopes to collect 100,000 names to show the extent of its public support.

Until then, curiosities like Canada’s “gnarliest” tree are at risk of being cut down. A redcedar in Avatar Grove was given this unofficial distinction because of a burl on its trunk of over 12 feet across, giving the tree an alien-like appearance, as Watt’s many photographs reveal.

Watt says, “If the Avatar Grove is lost, Port Renfrew won’t get another chance like this for another thousand years.”

Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) Launches the “100,000 Strong for Ancient Forests and BC Forestry Jobs” Campaign

/in /by
The Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) launched a campaign today to get 100,000 British Columbians to sign a petition (see ancientforestalliance.org/ways-to-take-action-for-forests/petition/) calling on the BC government to protect the province’s endangered old-growth forests and forestry jobs. The “100,000 Strong for Ancient Forests and BC Forestry Jobs” public education and mobilization campaign will be the largest grassroots mobilization effort undertaken by BC’s ancient forest movement since the Clayoquot Sound campaign of the early 1990’s. It will entail a large number of presentations, community meetings, protests (including three pickets this week at Premier Gordon Campbell’s office and BC Liberal MLA’s Harry Bloy and Richard Lee’s Burnaby offices), public hikes and campouts, online advocacy, and an effort to enlist 3000 to 5000 volunteers to circulate petitions across BC. People can sign the petition online, on Facebook, and via hardcopies. At the culmination of the campaign, the petition will be delivered to the BC government at a thousands-strong rally at the BC Legislative Buildings.
 
“Time is running out for our increasingly scarce ancient forests as the markets for old-growth cedar return and as the BC government works to ramp-up sales of old-growth lumber and raw logs in China,” states Ken Wu of the Ancient Forest Alliance. “With the use of the internet and social media, we have an added advantage in working to snowball public support behind our new outreach and mobilization efforts, relative to the ancient forest campaigns of the early 1990’s.”
 
The petition, which was posted online a few months ago (ancientforestalliance.org/ways-to-take-action-for-forests/petition/), has so far picked up about 3500 signatures with very little effort.
 
See “before” and “after” maps of Vancouver Island’s remaining old-growth forests at:  https://16.52.162.165/ancient-forests/before-after-old-growth-maps/
 
See spectacular photogalleries of Canada’s largest trees and stumps at:
 
“If you ask the average British Columbian in the year 2010 if they’d like to see our endangered old-growth forests protected, the sustainable logging of second-growth forests instead, and a ban on raw log exports, the vast majority will say ‘yes’! Very few people today, except those with ancient, old mindsets, are still arguing that we should finish off the last of the unprotected old-growth forests on Vancouver Island and continue exporting raw logs to foreign mills,” stated TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner. “Unfortunately the BC Liberal government holds this outdated and ultimately distastrous view. But we’re confident we have the vast majority of the public on our side, and we’re going to start rounding them up through this campaign.”
 
Last week on Shaw TV’s “Voice of BC” in response to a question about protecting Vancouver Island’s old-growth rainforests, Forest Minister Pat Bell stated that “we have more old-growth today than we had historically.”
“What a ridiculous, delusional and ultimately destructive mindset this government has towards our globally significant ancient forests! Somehow a hundred years of industrial logging on Vancouver Island has resulted in more old-growth forests standing today, according to our Minister of Forests,” stated Ken Wu, campaign director of the Ancient Forest Alliance. “The BC Liberal government is still in a state of convenient denial about the status of our old-growth forests. Once we have 100,000 people directly signed up with our campaign, we’ll have enough leverage to make the BC Liberals an endangered species by the next provincial election – unless they change their tune.”
 
Bell and the Ministry of Forests and Range also consistently cite highly misleading statistics, stating that “almost 900,000 hectares of the 1.9 million hectares of Crown lands on Vancouver Island are old-growth.”
 
“What Bell fails to mention is that half of the 900,000 hectares of the old-growth forests he refers to consist of stunted trees growing in bogs, on granite rock faces, and in the subalpine ‘snow forests’, most of which can’t be profitably logged. Their arguments are fundamentally dishonest, as the whole controversy is not over stunted bonsai trees, but rather over the moderate to high productivity stands where the forest giants grow, where the endangered species live, and where the actual logging takes place,” stated Wu. “Bell also conveniently forgets to mention the 600,000 hectares of private forest lands on Vancouver Island where virtually all of the old-growth has been eliminated – these are private lands that were publicly regulated until the BC Liberal government removed them from their Tree Farm Licenses a few years back.”
The petition calls on the BC government to:
  • Undertake a Provincial Old-Growth Strategy that will inventory and protect the remaining old-growth forests in regions where they are scarce (eg’s. Vancouver Island, Southern Mainland Coast, Southern Interior, etc.)
  • Ensure the sustainable logging of second-growth forests, which now constitute the majority of forest lands in southern BC.
  • End the export of BC raw logs to foreign mills in order to ensure a guaranteed log supply for BC wood processing facilities.
  • Assist in the retooling of coastal BC sawmills and the development of value-added facilities to handle second-growth logs.
  • Undertake new land-use planning processes to protect endangered forests based on new First Nations land-use plans, ecosystem-based scientific assessments, and climate mitigation strategies through forest protection
75% of the productive ancient forests have been logged on Vancouver Island, while less than 10% of our productive forests are in protected in parks and Old-Growth Management Areas, and the situation is similar throughout southern BC. Tens of thousands of hectares of ancient forests fall each year in BC.
 
Old-growth forests are important for species at risk, tourism, the climate, clean water for salmon and people, and many First Nations traditional cultures.
 
Forestry jobs are declining as the biggest and best old-growth trees in the valley bottoms and lower slopes are logged-off, resulting in diminishing economic returns as the trees get smaller, less valuable, and more expensive to reach on higher, steep terrain. Old-growth mills are closing as the resource runs out, while vast quantities of coastal second-growth logs are being exported raw to foreign mills due to a lack of government incentives for investments in second-growth mills in BC. Over the past decade about 70 BC mills have closed down and 20,000 BC forestry jobs have disappeared, in large part due to resource depletion, raw log exports, and deregulation of the industry.
 
“If the coastal industry does not retool in order to process second-growth logs, what happens down the road when that’s basically all that is available? Where are the forestry jobs going to be?” Watt wonders. “The rest of most the world is logging second, third, and fourth growth stands now and making it work, and we can too. We need to be moving up the value chain, not down it. In the end, it’s about the long term sustainability of the ecosystem and of an industry, and right now we’re moving in the completely wrong direction.”
Image from Ancient Forest Alliance rally for old-growth forests and forestry jobs in Vancouver

Week of Action for Ancient Forests – MLA Office Pickets This Week!

/in /by

As part of a Week of Action for Ancient Forests and the launch of the 100,000 Strong for Ancient Forests and BC Jobs campaign, Ancient Forest Committees (AFCs) around Greater Vancouver, paired with the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA), are picketing at three Liberal MLA offices, starting at Gordon Campbell’s office tomorrow (Monday, October 4th), calling for an end to old-growth logging in southern BC and a move toward sustainable forestry and forestry jobs.

See which one is closest to you and come on out for half and hour! Banners, chanting and other ancient forest activists!

Monday, October 4

Premier Gordon Campbell’s MLA office, 3615 West 4th avenue in Kitsilano, 12 NOON

Wednesday, October 6
Liberal MLA’s Richard Lee’s office (MLA Burnaby-North),1833 Willingdon Ave (at Lougheed Highway), 12 NOON
Friday, October 8
 Liberal MLA’s Harry Bloy’s office (MLA Burnaby-Lougheed), 202-3355 North Road (at Cameron St.), 12 NOON