Tahsis Village Council and members of the Tahsis community are joining forces with conservationists to oppose planned logging by Western Forest Products in the McKelvie Watershed, the last unlogged watershed in the Tahsis region, located in Nuu-chah-nulth territory.
The AFA commends the BC NDP government for protecting nearly 1,000 hectares of endangered Coastal Douglas Fir ecosystem on southeast Vancoucer Island and the Gulf Islands and calls for a provincial land acquisition fund to purchase and protect endangered ecosystems on private lands (which constitute the vast majority of BC's Coastal Douglas Fir zone)
July 5th, 2018, marks 25 years since the launch of the Clayoquot Sound mass blockades against the logging of ancient forest in Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island in Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations territory. Today, conservationists reflect on the impact of the historic movement and are urging the BC government to finally end the main forestry conflicts in BC.
VICTORIA, Unceded Lekwungen Territories – After visiting and documenting Schmidt Creek, the next valley slated for logging by government agency B.C. Timber Sales (BCTS), environmental organizations and Indigenous leaders are ramping up the call for the agency to discontinue logging permits in remaining endangered old-growth rainforests. The documentation of new BCTS logging roads in Schmidt Creek follows the recent discovery by the Ancient Forest Alliance of BCTS logging of endangered rainforest in the Nahmint Valley, near Port Alberni, including near record-sized ancient giants, wider than the biggest Douglas-fir in Cathedral Grove.
Check out our media release about the cutting of Canada's ninth-widest Douglas-fir tree in the Nahmint Valley near Port Alberni, despite BC Timber Sales – the BC government's logging agency which auctioned off the cutblock – having a policy which is meant to protect exceptionally large trees. The AFA is now redoubling its efforts to pressure the BC government to direct their logging agency to stop issuing old-growth cutblocks in BC, to implement a Big Tree Protection Order to protect BC’s biggest trees and grandest groves, and most importantly, to develop comprehensive, science-based legislation to protect endangered old-growth forest ecosystems across the province while ensuring a sustainable, value-added, second-growth forest industry.
Check out our media release about BC Timber Sales issuing cutblocks in some of Earth's grandest old-growth forest. Hundreds of hectares are being logged at breakneck speeds right now in the Nahmint Valley near Port Alberni, including thousands of old-growth western redcedars - some 4.3 meters (14 feet) in diameter - and exceptionally large Douglas-firs. BC's 5th and 9th widest Douglas-fir trees, according to the BC Big Tree Registry, were found on the expedition to the area.
Check out this news media release where the former co-leader of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand (1995 to 2009), Jeanette Fitzsimons, who successfully worked for an old-growth logging ban in that country by 2001, says the same can and should be done in British Columbia. This follows AFA's Executive Director Ken Wu's recent trip to New Zealand in April after speaking at a series of forestry and green building conferences about the importance of protecting BC's endangered old-growth forests while halting the importation of old-growth wood from BC into New Zealand.
Check out our media release in response to today's BC Budget announcement, regarding the lack of funding for a provincial land acquisition fund to purchase and protect endangered old-growth forests and ecosystems on private lands. Despite repeated requests from conservation groups and thousands of concerned citizens, the NDP government has yet to prioritize the urgent need for a dedicated fund to purchase private lands of high conservation and recreational value and add them to the province's protected area system.
Vancouver Island’s famed old-growth forests near Port Renfrew - known as Canada’s “Tall Trees Capital” - have attracted the attention of internationally acclaimed artist Kelly Richardson, who will feature these ancient forests in an upcoming digital art installation to be projected on IMAX screens across the country as part of an upcoming large-format film series.
The Ancient Forest Alliance commends the BC government and Ministry of Forests on their proposal to increase the amount of Coastal Douglas-Fir ecosystem protected on public (Crown) lands on Vancouver Island’s southeast coast and the southern Gulf Islands.The proposed new protected areas total 1,125 hectares and expand upon a similar process in 2010 that resulted in the issuance of similar land use orders which protected 2,024 hectares of public lands on southeast Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast.
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