Aug 29 2012

Media Release: Canada’s Finest Cedar Grove Marked for Logging

The Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) is bracing for a potential, major escalation in BC’s “War in the Woods” as survey tape marking the “falling boundary” for logging has been recently discovered in the finest, unprotected stand of monumental old-growth western redcedar trees in Canada:the "Castle Grove" in the unprotected Upper Walbran Valley west of Lake Cowichan on southern Vancouver Island. The Castle Grove is an extensive stand of densely-packed enormous redcedars, including the “Castle Giant”, a 16 foot (5 meter) diameter cedar that is one of the largest trees in Canada.

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Aug 29 2012

Markers stir fears of Walbran logging

Members of the Ancient Forest Alliance found the tape in the Upper Walbran Valley, near Castle Grove, which contains the Castle Giant, a western red cedar with a five-metre diameter. The tree is listed in the provincial big tree registry as one of the widest in Canada.

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Aug 29 2012

Survey tape sparks logging concerns in Vancouver Island old-growth forest

The Vancouver Island old-growth forest that, over the decades, has sparked bitter confrontations over logging is again in the spotlight after survey tape was found near a grove of massive western red cedars.

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Ancient Forest Alliance
Aug 27 2012

Ben Parfitt and Anthony Britneff: B.C. MLAs take wrong approach to timber supply crisis

The real tragedy in the committee members’ recommendations is that they are well aware of where the real challenges lie. The committee acknowledges the essential importance of improved forest inventories—looking at how many healthy trees we have. Why isn’t this the first order of business? B.C. needs an expedited, thorough assessment now, before we have committed to even more unsustainable logging rates. To proceed with logging increases before such work is done is irresponsible and an insult to forest-dependent communities across the province.

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Photo by TJ Watt
Aug 16 2012

Environmentalist bristles over report urging more logging

A government report looking at the pine beetle's impact in B.C.'s central interior has taken the wrong approach in urging more logging, says the executive director of Ancient Forest Alliance. Ken Wu says the report's recommendation to increase the timber supply and value of pine-beetle wood could allow for logging in protected forests.

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Today the Special Committee on Timber Supply released its report on how to deal with a timber shortfall in BC’s Central Interior in relation to the forest industry’s regional overcapacity. See article for link to PDF.
Aug 15 2012

Media Release: Timber Committee Opens Back Door for Potential Logging of Protected Forests

Today the Special Committee on Timber Supply released its report on how to deal with a timber shortfall in BC’s Central Interior in relation to the forest industry’s regional overcapacity. Of greatest environmental concern was the committee’s recommendation to create local committees to review the possibility of opening up protected forest reserves for logging. The committee also recommends continued overcutting, logging of “marginal” stands (ie. slow growing subalpine forests) and creating more “area-based tenures” ie. increasing private property-like rights on public forest lands.

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Ancient Forest Alliance
Aug 7 2012

Lift on logging restraints would be ill-advised

As members of a hastily convened committee of the provincial legislature meet to consider a controversial government proposal to escalate logging activities in British Columbia's already hard-hit Interior forests, questions arise about whether the commit-tee is in any position at all to make an informed decision.  

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The stump of a 14ft diameter old-growth redcedar freshly cut in 2010 found along the Gordon River near Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island.
Aug 1 2012

More logging won’t cure forestry trade’s ills

The B.C. Liberal government stirred up controversy recently by proposing to remove scenic forest protections in the Harrison, Chehalis and Stave Lakes regions near Vancouver. Their “quick-fix” attempt to provide more timber for logging fails to recognize that the coastal forest industry’s 20-year decline has fundamentally been driven by their own resource depletion policies.  

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