Deadline to Submit Avatar Grove Protection Comments this Wednesday, Nov. 9th!

Please WRITE a QUICK EMAIL to PROTECT the AVATAR GROVE and ALL of BC’s Endangered Old-Growth Forests.
 
After almost two years of intense public pressure led by the Ancient Forest Alliance and the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce, the BC government is looking to officially declare Avatar Grove off-limits to logging. They are proposing to include the Avatar Grove within 59 hectares of new Old-Growth Management Areas (OGMA’s), pending the completion of public input that closes this Wednesday, November 9.
 
This is a great step forward for the most spectacular, easily accessible stand of unprotected old-growth cedars and Douglas-firs on southern Vancouver Island. The Avatar Grove is extremely rare, valley-bottom ancient forest, about 95% of which has been logged on the South Island.
 
However, the logging company will be compensated with 57 hectares of forest (27 hectares of old-growth, 30 hectares of second-growth), while thousands of hectares of old-growth forests are logged each year across Vancouver Island, tens of thousands of hectares across BC, and millions of hectares of BC’s old-growth forests remain in jeopardy. Already 75% of the original, productive old-growth forests have been logged on Vancouver Island.
 
PLEASE TAKE 3 minutes to WRITE a quick EMAIL by this Wednesday, November 9 to the BC government at:
 
Ministry of Forests: RenfrewOGMA@gov.bc.ca
BC Forest Minister Steve Thomson: steve.thomson.mla@leg.bc.ca 
Premier Christy Clark: premier@gov.bc.ca 
 
***BE SURE to include your FULL NAME and ADDRESS so they know you are a real person!
***Please reference: Renfrew Amendments 2011
 
 
TELL THEM that you:
 
– Support the protection of Avatar Grove as an Old-Growth Management Area (OGMA) in the Renfrew 2011 Amendment and ultimately as a conservancy or park.
 
– Want ALL of BC’s endangered old-growth forests protected through a Provincial Old-Growth Strategy.
 
– Want the BC government to ensure the sustainable logging of second-growth forests and to ban the export of raw logs to foreign mills.