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Ralliers hold a large sign reading "Ban Raw Log Exports" in Port Alberni

Photo Gallery: Timber Workers/ Environmentalists Rally in Port Alberni

Jul 27 2016/in Photo Gallery

On Friday, July 22, forestry workers from various sawmills and pulpmills from two major unions, the PPWC (Pulp, Paper, and Woodworkers of Canada) and Unifor, were joined by community members, politicians,first nations, and environmentalists in Port Alberni in a rally for sustainable forest policy in BC. The speakers called for an end to raw log exports, the protection of old-growth forests, support for First Nations sustainable economic development, and for incentives and regulations to support a sustainable, value-added, second-growth forest industry. Thanks to Cam Shiell and Arnold Bercov of the PPWC for organizing the rally!

See photo gallery here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1081148121979774.1073741906.823970554364200&type=1&l=13dba1db8e

Sierra Club calls for a moratorium on old growth logging

Jul 26 2016/in Announcements

High rates of logging old growth rainforest on Vancouver Island will lead to an ecological and economic collapse in a generation unless provincial government policy changes, warns a new Sierra Club study.

And B.C.’s Forest Practices Board also says the province, which acknowledges the critical ecological importance of old growth forest, needs to improve protection.

Using advanced digital mapping technology and government harvest data, the Sierra Club review of logging practices found that between 2004 and 2015 logging stripped 243,000 hectares of rainforest on Vancouver Island, and 100,000 hectares of that was old growth.

Indeed, rummage through reports that so often gather dust on legislature library shelves and you find a six-year-old forest ministry report admitting that in our remaining ancient coastal rainforests, only 21 per cent of stands over 250 years old are even nominally protected. It’s far worse on Vancouver Island, where only 11 per cent of the coastal Douglas fir rainforest with trees over 250 years old is protected.

Forest scientists like Jim Pojar say this forest should be considered the remnant of a dwindling non-renewable resource because the life cycle of these forests is so long that it will take 40 to 50 human generations before they recover to their original state.

Even then, he says, they won’t be anything like the forests that exist today, nor will the communities of plants, insects, birds and animals — about 400 species — that rely upon them.

Meanwhile, the Sierra Club study points out, even as the remaining rainforest vanishes under the chainsaw, the rate at which it’s being cut has increased by 12 per cent. And, it says, re-planted forests that won’t mature for another 250 years are already being logged after only 50 or 80 years as immature second and third growth.

Pojar, a forest ecologist who wrote the well-regarded guide, Plants of Coastal British Columbia, was an ecologist and researcher with the B.C. Forest Service for years. He recently authored a major study for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society on climate change and its implications for biodiversity and conservation policy.

“Given the amount and pace of climate change, all B.C. forest stands older than 150 years are non-renewable resources, and some of them should be removed from the timber harvesting land base,” says Pojar. “If logged they will not be replaced either naturally or artificially by mature and old stands with similar structure and function, even if they are allowed to grow old.

“Even if allowed to grow old they will not recover to the primary condition,” he says, “which is why I maintain that recovery of old growth forest is now an inappropriate, anachronistic concept, given rapid climate change, system unpredictability and scientific uncertainty.”

The giant trees found in B.C.’s ravaged and fragmented rainforest take up to 1,000 years to grow. Some cedar species are thought to exceed 2,000 years in maximum age. Yet only about 10 per cent of the biggest trees on Vancouver Island remain unlogged, according to the Sierra Club inventory. Pojar argues that B.C. still has the most extensive and impressive example of temperate rainforest in the world.

In other words, as this remaining old growth is sacrificed to private commercial interests, the public, which owns most of the remaining resource, will see nothing like it again until about the year 3016 — and possibly 4016 in the case of the very oldest trees.

But isn’t enough forest already protected? “No, there isn’t enough of the old growth in protected areas,” Pojar says, “especially where it used to be the dominant land cover. The Protected Areas Strategy and land use plans of the 1990s and 2000s made good progress, but old growth coast forest and some wet interior and high elevations forest is under-represented.”

What about all those replanted forests? “Young forests are still forests but they are very different from old growth structurally, functional and as habitat,” Pojar says. “Widespread conversion of old growth forests to young production forests on a 60 to 80-year rotation has major impacts.”

Which raises a rather simple question: Why are we still mowing down the last remnants of the rarest, most biologically significant forests on the planet when we’ve already profited handsomely from liquidating 90 per cent of it? When you’re down to the last 10 per cent of what’s essentially a non-renewable resource, doesn’t prudent common sense suggest stepping back from the brink and putting a moratorium on its destruction?

Forest industry in danger, say BC mayors

Jul 26 2016/in News Coverage

More than a decade after the provincial government made policy changes to BC’s forest industry, optimism about its future is waning, according to Truck Loggers Association (TLA), a forest contractor lobby group.

That is the view of mayors from 27 coastal communities surveyed by TLA for its community perspectives report on the BC coastal forest industry.

City of Powell River mayor Dave Formosa participated in the survey and said that when local forest contractors fold it has a ripple effect throughout communities.

“We’ve seen contractors go out of business in Powell River,” said Formosa. “First, you see job loss. These contractors are huge, great community supporters. It leaves a big hole.”

TLA represents more than 450 independent sawmills, logging contractors, small-tenure harvesters, road builders, trucking firms, log brokers, value-added wood re-manufacturers and industry suppliers in BC coastal forest communities. The lobby group last surveyed the mayors in 2004, just as the BC Liberals launched its forestry restructuring strategy.

It was a plan that consolidated forest tenures, deregulated management practices and did away with harvest allocations that historically required BC companies to supply provincial sawmills and pulp and paper mills.

“Many coastal communities that were once heavily reliant on the forest industry are still reeling from the impacts of tenure consolidation and mill closures,” TLA stated in the report.

TLA director Howie McKamey, former owner of Goat Lake Forest Products, said Powell River has not been spared from any of the transitional pain.

“Powell River has definitely had some challenges,” said McKamey. “Powell River has been hit hard by changes in logging over the past 10 years.”

Those tough times were not just the result of changing government policy, but also a holdover from the global economic collapse of 2008, he said.

“The forest industry went through a real tough period from 2008 to 2012,” said McKamey. “Not only did log and lumber values go quite low, but we all had to buckle up because contract rates dropped down to just allow survival in the whole industry.”

Contractors who had taken on debt for retooling prior to the collapse found themselves seeking creditor protection or going out of business, said McKamey. “It’s been a tough go,” he added.

Recently, the issue for TLA has been for those contractors who survived. The price for logs and lumber has come up, but contractor rates have not, said McKamey.

“Markets have improved substantially and licensees’ profits and margins have come up, but it’s been a real struggle to get any improvement in contract rates,” he said.

While the forestry companies in the province operate through tenure agreements with the government, purchasing trees through auction or by harvesting private land, the actual logging, hauling, sorting and trucking itself is completed by contractors.

Low rates have made it even more difficult for companies to invest in new equipment.

“There’s a lot of pretty good contractors electing to get out of the business because for the investment and risk, the return is just not there,” said McKamey.

This trend is fuelling job losses that are having an effect on communities that once relied heavily on forest industry jobs.

In 2004, 88 per cent of community leaders surveyed said they felt positive about forestry’s future in their community, but in the recent survey that number has dropped down to 56 per cent.

In the latest survey, 62 per cent of community leaders said they think the forest industry is in worse shape today.

During the last decade, an estimated 70 sawmills have closed and 30,000 forestry jobs in the province have been lost.

Log-export critics say the BC Liberals’ changes to the forest practices code and creation of private-managed forest lands have only made the problem worse.

“The key issue is the structure of the forest industry,” said Ken Wu, executive director of the Ancient Forest Alliance. “It’s dominated by a few giant corporations and there aren’t any incentives or government regulations to stop the massive export of raw logs.”

Since 2009, provincial statistics for the export of whole, unprocessed timber has tripled in volume.

According to TLA, since the restructuring more than 25 forestry contractors have sought bankruptcy protection, including some in Powell River.

“Policy changes in 2003 have not yielded as much positive impact as expected,” stated the report.

There is consensus that more needs to be done. People in coastal communities, both rural and urban, need to have a better understanding of the sustainability of the coastal forest industry, stewardship practices and the benefits it offers to all British Columbians, the TLA report concluded.

According to Wu, the problem is not that the government went ahead with changes 12 years ago; the forest industry had already been in steady decline since the 1980s.

While he said he has sympathy for the small operators and contractors, the blame for the current situation rests on the shortsightedness of an industry that has depleted old-growth forests and has not reinvested in mill infrastructure to handle second-growth wood, said Wu.

According to Wu, even the provincial business lobby and local governments around the region have supported the idea of protecting what is left of BC’s old growth.

“What we need to do is do more with less, and focus on the second growth,” said Wu.

He added that instead of trying to market BC old growth and raw logs in China, the industry needs to find markets for value-added, sustainable, second-growth products.

That is an idea mayor Formosa likes the sound of. “I always have been a huge proponent, seeker and researcher of that,” said Formosa.

While optimism about logging on the coast might be flagging right now, Formosa is not one of the mayors who is gloomy about forestry’s future.

“I don’t see it as a sunset industry,” he said. “It’ll always be here and it’s a part of what and who we are.”

2025 Activity Report & Financials

Apr 30 2026

2025 was a milestone year for the Ancient Forest Alliance and the old-growth campaign. Despite the BC government's backsliding on many of its old-growth commitments, there was still much work to be proud of, including celebrating our 15th year working to protect ancient forests. Check out our 2025 Activity Report & Financials to see the impact YOU made on 2025, plus, find out what we have in store for 2026!

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