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September 12, 2025
By Curtis Blandy

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Conservation groups and environmental advocates are urgently calling on the BC government to take action in protecting old-growth forests.

This call to action comes on the five year anniversary of the Old Growth Strategic Review (OGSR) which offered the Province recommendations that would need to be acted upon in order to properly protect BC’s old-growth.

The Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) and the Endangered Ecosystem Alliance (EEA) say they believe the BC government is stalling on putting these recommendations into action and are backsliding on promised policy.

Back in 2020, the OGSR was completed and issued to the Province with 14 recommendations to protect the most at-risk old growth, ensure Indigenous involvement, enhance forest management transparency and shift the forestry sector towards sustainability.

When this occurred, the BC NDP committed to implementing all of the recommendations within three years, and are now two years overdue, according to the AFA.

“The BC government promised an ecological paradigm shift in its system of old-growth forest management, but five years later, they have resumed their heel-dragging on policy progress to buy time for the destructive status quo of old-growth liquidation,” stated Ken Wu, executive director of Endangered Ecosystems Alliance (EEA).

Logging the last stands of forest giants today is like coming across groups of elephants or great whales and slaughtering them all. It’s both unethical and unnecessary, given the second-growth alternative.”

Second-growth logging refers to harvesting trees from forests that have regrown after a previous logging operation, fire or other major disturbance.

“The BC NDP government can and must create a vibrant, sustainable, value-added second-growth forest industry while protecting the last old-growth stands: we can log 80 year old trees, instead of 800 year old trees, like the rest of the industrialized world, and we can and must do it sustainably while creating more BC jobs,” continued Wu.

The AFA says that one of the most urgent steps the Province should take is to provide funding to secure logging deferrals for all 2.6 million hectares of the most at-risk old-growth forests identified by its own independent science panel.

As of this publication, less than half (about 1.2 million hectares) have been issued deferrals.

Additionally, the AFA says that another unfulfilled commitment from the OGSR is making ecosystem health and biodiversity conservation a top priority in all land-use decisions.

In order to support the implementation of the OGSR, the AFA and EEA have created their own list of recommendations to protect endangered old-growth forests and transition toward sustainability:

• Establish a BC Protected Areas Strategy to proactively pursue the protection of old-growth through shared decision-making with First Nations
• Develop Ecosystem-Based Protection Targets to ensure endangered ecosystems and old-growth forests are fully protected
• Provide “solutions space” funding to First Nations to help secure the remaining 1.3 million hectares of priority old-growth deferrals
• Ensure a transition to sustainable logging of second-growth forests, which now constitute the vast majority of forest lands in BC
• Close logging loopholes 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 export, and promoting eco-forestry
• Create a BC Conservation Economy Strategy to support eco-tourism, clean tech, and sustainable industries in protected areas

As a way to highlight their position, the AFA have shared a number of photos which show old-growth logging that has taken place over the past five years.

“The devastating images released today expose the cost of government inaction on protecting old-growth forests,” said TJ Watt, campaign director of AFA.

“If the Province carries on down the same road for another five years, the chance to safeguard these incredible ecosystems for biodiversity, species-at-risk, wildlife habitat, First Nations cultures, and future generations may be gone forever.”

The BC Green Party has also spoken out about the 14 OGSR recommendations not being implemented.

“It has been five years since the release of the Old Growth Strategic Review, and while this should be a moment to celebrate bold action to protect old growth, instead we are marking half a decade of delay, indecision, and government inaction,” said Rob Botterell, MLA for Saanich North and the Islands.

“When the government waffles instead of acting, communities are left with division, uncertainty, confrontation and now, the risk of a more escalated and militarized police presence.”

Botterell specifically pointed to the Upper Walbran area, near Fairy Creek, where blockades have been set up recently to try to stop old-growth logging.

In an email statement to Victoria Buzz, Forests Minister Ravi Parmar said, “In the Walbran, 85% of old growth is already protected. Throughout all of BC, we have taken action to defer over 2.4 million hectares since November 2021, on top of the nearly 3.7 million hectares that were already protected.”

He stated the BC government has working with First Nations on stewarding BC’s lands in a way that advances reconciliation while balancing ecological protection and economic prosperity.

“Recommendations from the Old Growth Strategic Review are embedded in our current work throughout the province. We have 15 Forest Landscape Tables developing plans to guide forest stewardship in local communities, reflecting their values, including the protection of old growth.”

“The future of forestry is one that is respectful, puts reconciliation into action, and is sustainable for generations to come.”