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SAVE OUR CLIMATE AND ANCIENT FORESTS!

Nov 18 2010/in Announcements

The ANCIENT FOREST ALLIANCE’s Special INFO NIGHT, CELEBRATION, and FUNDRAISER!

Please support the new organization in its crucial, formative first year! See great speakers, have a drink, meet other supporters, and make a donation if you can!

Elizabeth May, John Horgan, Ken Wu, TJ Watt, Adriane Carr, Jens Wieting, and other speakers…

TUESDAY, NOV. 30, 2010
Ambrosia Centre,
638 Fisgard St.,
VICTORIA, BC
7:00- 8:00 pm Presentations and Slideshows! (FREE)
8:00-9:00 pm Fundraiser, Drink, and Socialize! (Donations during the pledge auction…)

Confirm and invite others on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=143700762345115&index=1

BC’s old-growth forests are vital for mitigating climate change by storing far more carbon per hectare than the second-growth tree plantations that replace them.

Conversely, climate change is destroying our old-growth forests by killing more trees through intensified winter storms, droughts, and disease.

With Stephen Harper recently killing Canada’s only climate change legislation through the unelected Conservative Senate just before the UN Climate Summit begins in Mexico (the follow-up to last year’s Copenhagen summit) and with the BC Liberal government still contending with a straight face that “we have more old-growth forests today than we did historically” (Forest Minister Pat Bell on the “Voice of BC” in September), we SERIOUSLY must expand the movement for our forests and climate!

The Ancient Forest Alliance, a new organization launched in January of this year, has grown by leaps and bounds with thousands of supporters. We‘re almost 1 year old and if we are to sustain and expand our campaign into a more powerful provincial force, we need YOUR support!

We’ve organized numerous hikes, expeditions (including finding the Avatar Grove), slideshows, rallies, and petition drives, brought on board many new allies, and garnered a huge amount of provincial and national media coverage on our campaigns. See some of what we’ve done at: www.ancientforestalliance.org/news.php

But we need YOUR help to keep going and growing!

PLEASE COME OUT and INVITE FRIENDS and FAMILY to JOIN US!

So…

In the 1^st Hour: Hear some of Canada’s MOST ACCOMPLISHED long-time forest activists and see a truly SPECTACULAR SLIDESHOW

In the 2^nd Hour: We hope you stay for this, to donate during the PLEDGE AUCTION, along with having a drink or two (if you stay you get a FREE drink ticket for the bar if you’re 19 or older) and SOCIALIZING with the other supporters and AFA activists from Victoria and Vancouver.

Here is a list of the evening’s presentations. Each will be quite brief:

“Ecology and Politics of BC’s Ancient Forests, the spectacular Avatar Grove, and the First Year of the Ancient Forest Alliance,” spectacular slideshow by TJ Watt and Ken Wu of the Ancient Forest Alliance

“The UN Climate Summit in Cancun, Stephen Harper’s sabotage of Canada’s Climate Bill, and Prospects for Climate Progress,” by Elizabeth May, Author of “At the Cutting Edge: The Crisis in Canada’s Forests” and co-author of “Climate Change for Dummies”, former executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada, and current national leader of the Green Party of Canada

“BC’s Climate and Forests Campaign: The push for forest protection and climate conservation areas in BC”, by Jens Wieting, Sierra Club of BC coastal forest coordinator.

NDP MLA John Horgan with also speak on his support for saving the ancient forests of the Avatar Grove!

“Grassroots movements and environmental activism: Some lessons from the 1980’s and ‘90’s”, by Adriane Carr, former Wilderness Committee executive team member and Clayoquot Sound campaigner and deputy Green leader of Canada

Adriane will also be the Pledge Auctioneer to help us raise funds that night! (she’ll explain how a Pledge Auction works)

For more info contact the Ancient Forest Alliance at info@ancientforestalliance.org

Avatar Grove: Don’t Miss It

Nov 16 2010/in News Coverage

Many of you will have seen James Cameron’s movie, Avatar. It’s set in the distant world of Pandora, where industrialization threatens both the indigenous people and the planet’s environment.

Some of you may have heard that we have our own ‘Avatar Grove’ on southern Vancouver Island. Located just 15 minutes from Port Renfrew, the Grove is a magnificent place populated with oldgrowth red cedars including ‘Canada’s Gnarliest Tree,’ a giant tree with a 12 foot wide, contorted burl.

I recently took a trip to Port Renfrew to see the trees for myself. Ken Wu and TJ Watt of the Ancient Forest Alliance gave myself, Mike Hicks, the Juan de Fuca Electoral Area director, and Jon Cash of the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce a tour of Avatar Grove and a nearby clearcut littered with giant stumps. The contrast was striking.

I believe there is more value in oldgrowth forests standing up than there is lying on the ground. They sustain species at risk, assist in our attempt to fight climate change, and encourage opportunities for education and eco-tourism. Rather than logging this area, providing a few months of short-term employment, I would rather we develop a plan to get more value from our oldgrowth forests.

Forest-dependent communities, First Nations and local government need to know the province’s land base can still provide jobs. But what is missing is the provincial government’s plan to make it happen.

Long-term, stable jobs can be created on the land base. Let’s focus on better managing our second growth forests. Developing value added industry by providing log owners opportunities for sales here on Vancouver Island.

Much of our productive lands on Vancouver Island have already been logged so it’s obvious that the future of forestry is in sustainable second-growth harvesting. Sawmills need to be re-tooled to deal with second-growth timber. Updating the mills will keep workers in the forest and support our local economies.

Our second growth forests can and should provide local employment not just in the woods but through remanufacturing wood locally. Our region was built on forestry and I believe we can be sustained by local value added manufacturing.

Eco-tourism is crucial to this plan. Encouraging travelers from across the globe to visit our region, stay in hotels, eat in local restaurants, shop at local stores – the economic benefits are obvious. And we get to share with the world what we already know, that the beauty and the majesty of Vancouver Island is unmatched and that we will do all we can to preserve it.

I’d encourage you to visit Avatar Grove. To take it all in before, sadly, it may be too late.

Log exports a thorn in the side of communities

Nov 14 2010/in News Coverage

While some business owners argue that raw log exports keep lumber companies solvent while they wait for the industry to turn around, others point out that tens of thousands of jobs have been lost in the lumber industry and raw log exports discourage creating new ones.

I have long opposed raw log exports. I’ve heard from too many people who lost their jobs and have seen strong companies like Madill shut down because our local lumber industry was in decline.

Now that the industry seems to be on an uptick with the Western Forest Products mill in Ladysmith starting up again, we still need a national forest strategy to keep the industry healthy and sustainable.

New Democrats have some solid ideas on what a strategy should include. We know that offering one-off programs like the green transformation fund can help immediate problems but we need other cost effective and efficient policies working together to support a long-term revitalization of the forestry sector.

A value-added tax credit program that escalates along with the level of local production would encourage job creation in forestry towns. Companies that ship raw logs would not qualify for this credit but others that use raw logs locally to produce paper, or veneer or other lumber products would.

Loan guarantees for large and small operations with significant business in the forestry sector is another important strategy to improve the industry. Guarantees give banks assurances that they will be paid back and helps release credit into the marketplace.

It is a strange situation that while consumers can access record-low mortgage rates right now, small and medium-sized businesses have had trouble getting credit.

With loan guarantees, lumber companies can re-tool and modernize their operations while maintaining their payroll.

None of these will work without concerted effort to reduce or eliminate the effect of unfair US subsidies for American mills. Providing a similar level of subsidy to Canadian mills could cost between $2 and $5 billion — but that isn’t what stakeholders here want. They want to compete on a level playing field.

So it is up to the federal government to negotiate with the Americans to ensure unfair subsidies are not propping up mills there.

That includes companies here deciding to export raw logs to their American operations to keep them profitable while Canadian mills close for lack of fibre.

Jean Crowder is the NDP Member of Parliament for Nanaimo-Cowichan.

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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