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‘Generational amnesia’ softens fight for forests

Jul 22 2016/in News Coverage

Maybe if they scattered Pokémon Go characters among Vancouver Island’s forests, people would notice the loss of old-growth trees.

Or maybe our treehugger stereotype is outdated.

Or maybe we’re so over-stimulated by a steady diet of daily crises — terror attacks, drunken airline pilots, doping at the Olympics, Melania Trump’s plagiarism, the Taylor-Kanye feud — that it’s hard to get worked up about stories that take longer than a day or two to sort out. Maintaining a constant state of social media-driven self-righteous outrage can be exhausting. We’re built for sprints now, no longer have the stamina for marathons.

Which is what came to mind the other day when the Sierra Club of B.C. warned that “high and increasing old-growth logging rates on Vancouver Island will lead to an ecological and economic collapse unless the B.C. government changes course.”

The environmental group wants the provincial government to phase out the cutting of ancient trees and speed the transition to what it calls sustainable, value-added, second-growth logging.

This sort of story used to send Islanders flying to the barricades (to which they would then chain themselves). Carmanah, Walbran, Meares Island, the Texada lands on Salt Spring — the names of logging protests fall off the tongue like those of Second World War battlefields.

The future of the forests was once seen as being inextricably linked with the identity, economy and culture of the Island, and the resulting tugs-of-war were big news, not just here but abroad. In 1993, the legendary War in the Woods, the massive campaign against Clayoquot Sound logging, drew international attention as 850 protesters were charged. Activist rockers Midnight Oil —whose big, bald singer, Peter Garrett, later became Australia’s environment minister — played a concert at the protesters’ camp. Environmental lawyer Robert Kennedy, Jr. (another kind of rock star) waded into the fray. International pressure, the threat of boycott, eventually contributed to B.C. forestry reform.

It would be wrong to drag out some “if a tree falls in the forest” metaphor and say nobody cares about this stuff anymore. They do — and in the mainstream, too. In May the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, hardly a bastion of hemp-hatted hippies, called on the province to expand protection of old-growth forests in areas where they have, or are likely to have, greater economic value if left standing.

Also, the recent agreement over the future of logging on the central coast — what the romanticists like to call the Great Bear Rainforest — shows the maturation of the process, demonstrates what can be done when the players choose collaboration and negotiation over confrontation.

Still, the sense of urgency, the buzz that once pushed the issue to the front of the public’s consciousness, is absent.

The Sierra Club’s Jens Wieting cites a couple of potential factors. First, the subset of people who might usually be expected to bang the drum are invested elsewhere, often in issues related to climate change: LNG, oil pipelines, the Site C dam.

Yet the preservation of ancient trees, which serve as a carbon sink, is key to that issue, he argues. A 2009 Sierra Club report estimated Vancouver Island old-growth logging has cost almost six times as much carbon as B.C. puts out in a year.

“We need the forests in the fight against climate change,” Wieting says.

He also talks about what B.C. writer J.B. MacKinnon called the 10 Per Cent World, one in which people are used to having just a fraction of the natural diversity and abundance as they had before. We suffer from “generational amnesia,” forgetting what was in the past and accepting what we see today as normal. Remember that a century ago the Island was covered in old growth, Wieting says.

A Sierra Club analysis found that between 2004 and 2015, a total of about 100,000 hectares of old growth were cut, leaving only about 384,000 hectares of “relatively productive, unprotected old-growth rainforest ecosystems.” At that rate, it won’t take long to run out, robbing the Island of biodiversity, clean air and water, and long-term forestry jobs, it argues.

Sounds dramatic. Not Pokémon Go dramatic, but still …

Vancouver Island old growth on brink of collapse, environmental group claims

Jul 20 2016/in News Coverage

Vancouver Island’s forests are on pace for an ecological and economic collapse, according to new data collected by the Sierra Club of B.C.

The environmental advocacy group is calling on the B.C. government to help phase out old growth logging in favour of younger second growth trees.

“It’s urgent to enter this period of transition now and help industry move towards second growth logging in just a few years,” said the Sierra Club’s Jens Wieting.

“Then we have a possibility to have old growth forest for tourism, as a carbon sink and for our children to enjoy in 50 or 100 years.”

But the B.C. government is leery of sudden changes that might negatively affect the industry — one that contributes $2.5 billion to three levels of government and employs nearly 150,000 people.

New partners in conservation

Port Renfrew is one of many Vancouver Island communities searching for a future after logging.

At one time, logging trucks would dominate Highway 14 — the two hour coastal drive from Victoria to Port Renfrew.

“We have to acknowledge that the logging industry is responsible for the town being there in the first place,” said Dan Hager, president of the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce.

But what was once a logging community with a seasonal influx of anglers, has now exploded into a year round tourist destination.

About five years ago, the Ancient Rainforest Alliance successfully lobbied the B.C. government to protect Avatar Grove, a cluster of 80 metre-tall old growth Douglas fir and western red cedar thought to have sprung up 800 years ago — the same year Genghis Khan captured and burnt Beijing to the ground.

That’s when Hager really started to notice some changes.

“People love history and people love this idea of environmental tourism,” he said.

“Old growth, big trees are good for business.”

The business of old growth

This spring, the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce pitched a bold policy to the 36,000 businesses that make up the B.C. Chamber of Commerce (BCCC).

Its bottom line: old growth forests have greater economic value as a tourism attraction than as logs.

“We raised the flag and said,’Hey, it makes more sense to bring the tourists in than to take the logs out,'” said Hager.

The policy was overwhelmingly supported by members of the BCCC, and this week, management will individually write each of B.C.’s ministries outlining their new policies.

“Membership is open to the idea of how we can use old growth to promote tourism,” said Dan Baxter of the BCCC, “but at the same time we want to be careful that we balance the needs of the forest industry.”

Atmo Prasad — who manages and analyzes data for the province — is also wary of any sudden changes. He said shifting the logging industry to second growth trees is not practical right now.

“If they don’t have old growth, the amount of harvesting on the island will decrease quite dramatically,” Prasad said.

He crunched the numbers in 2013 and found that old growth logging made up 70 per cent of the island’s logging industry.

“I think market forces will dictate how much that happens,” said Prasad, referring to the potential long-term shift towards second growth forestry.

But for Wieting and the Sierra Club, that’s not fast enough.

Government leadership

“Right now, we only have very superficial information from the B.C. government,” said Wieting, highlighting how the lack of a common, comprehensive data set discourages transitioning to second growth logging.

The government lumps together what remains of old growth forest with high-elevation forest and wetlands, where only small old growth trees can grow, according to Wieting.

“It’s the productive, big tree type of ecosystem that we are most worried about,” said Wieting. “That’s the most endangered trees now — trees that can grow as tall as a skyscraper.”

Another roadblock is re-purposing and re-tooling the existing infrastructure.

“Several of these mills were designed and built for large diameter logs,” said Gary Bull, professor of forest resource management at UBC, “They’ve already run into a shortage of logs either because of export or because of the second-growth logs.”

But Wieting is hopeful.

“We’ve seen government leadership in the Great Bear Rainforest,” he said. “We know that solutions are possible.”

[CBC article no longer available.]

The fight to save Echo Lake’s old trees and wildlife has begun

Jul 12 2016/in News Coverage

Here's a new story in today's Globe and Mail about the old-growth forest campaign, spearheaded by local landowners Susan and Stephen Ben-Oliel and supported by the Ancient Forest Alliance, to protect all of the forests in the mountains surrounding Echo Lake (a rare lowland old-growth forest between Mission and Agassiz in Sts'ailes territory, and also the world's largest night-roosting site for bald eagles) from logging.

*****

Ken Wu hunts down giant, old trees for a living.

As executive director of the Ancient Forest Alliance, he has hiked most of the watersheds on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland, hoping to find – and save from logging – the last remaining pockets of old growth.

At Echo Lake, just a 90-minute drive east of Vancouver near Harrison Hot Springs, local landowners brought him a few years ago to see a magical forest, draped in moss, with towering trees where up to 700 eagles come to nest when salmon are spawning in the nearby Harrison River.

“Echo Lake is home to the largest night-roosting site for bald eagles on Earth,” said Mr. Wu, who in 2012 launched a campaign to save the area, then slated for logging.

In 2013, the British Columbia government set aside 55 hectares, protecting just over half the old-growth cedars and Douglas firs around the lake.

Mr. Wu wasn’t satisfied and since then has been pushing for the addition of another 40 to 60 hectares to the reserve, which would protect the key eagle area. “That would get the bowl, essentially the mountain and forest that rings Echo Lake. So it should be a no-brainer at this point,” he said.

But last week, he was shocked when he walked through the forest around the lake to find that the biggest and oldest trees in the unprotected area had been tagged and numbered. A small company with cutting rights to a woodlot on Crown land at the lake has laid out the route for an access road, which it plans to build while awaiting logging authorization, Mr. Wu said.

“The government hasn’t approved any cutting plans yet … so I think there’s still some time here to fight this. My worry is that if the road-building progresses too far, they will have sunk enough cost into the whole thing that they are going to argue they have to recover those costs by logging the cut blocks. So right now, we are cranking up the pressure,” said Mr. Wu, who is trying to raise public awareness about the threat to Echo Lake.

The Harrison area was logged in the early 1900s, but Mr. Wu said pockets of trees around Echo Lake weren’t touched because they couldn’t be easily reached. Others were passed up because they were considered too small at the time. Since then, they have grown into giants.

“Those cedars that are flagged now I suspect were about 50 years old [when the area was first logged] and 100 years later they are … essentially old-growth trees,” he said.

And they are rare.

“If you look at the entire region, and we’ve done it, we’ve explored this whole area, and it is exceedingly hard to find these types of lowland stands of ancient cedars. They are virtually non-existent – all logged, long ago,” Mr. Wu said.

In an e-mail, Vivian Thomas, a spokeswoman for B.C.’s Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, said trees have been marked by the woodlot owner as an inventory, “with the goal of retaining as many of the large Douglas fir older trees as possible.”

She also provided a fact sheet that states appropriate environmental measures are being taken around Echo Lake.

“Forest and resource values, including eagle habitat, are being adequately addressed by balancing established OGMAs [Old Growth Management Areas], a proposed wildlife management area and other reserve areas, with areas that remain available for timber harvesting,” the ministry states. “The woodlot holder is aware of the eagle roosting habitat potential and has committed to further identify and manage the values within the woodlot area.”

But Mr. Wu said it is clear when hiking through the forest that many giant, old cedars and firs will be lost if the government doesn’t change course. And if those trees fall, the eagles and other wildlife will suffer, he said.

“I would say logging these trees would have a detrimental effect because the eagles use the entire bowl. Essentially you see them come in from the Harrison River, they circle around the bowl and then they settle in the big trees along the side of the lake,” he said.

“Even if they left some high-value eagle trees, essentially you get the loss of the ecosystem on the north and west side of the lake,” Mr. Wu said. “When you go there, it is jam-packed with wildlife. There’s a giant bear that hangs out there, … there are cougars in the area; you can see the trees that they’ve scratched. There’s a little bobcat. … Ospreys are always over the lake. There’s a group of otters … so it’s not just an eagle issue, it’s a biodiversity issue.”

In his treks through the forests of the Lower Mainland, Mr. Wu has found only a few places with giant, old trees like those around Echo Lake.

And they are all in parks.

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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