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Endangered Ecosystems Alliance Executive Director, Ken Wu, stands beside a giant Sitka spruce tree in an old-growth forest west of Lake Cowichan in Ditidaht territory.

BC Launches Vital Conservation Financing Mechanism to Protect Old-Growth Forests and Ecosystems

Oct 26 2023/in Media Release

For Immediate Release
October 26, 2023

Starting with an initial $300 million of provincial and philanthropic funding, the indispensable fund that will “fuel” or power the creation of new protected areas by supporting First Nations protected areas initiatives will continue to grow with additional federal, provincial, and private funds. Conservationists give thanks to Premier Eby for fulfilling a key commitment.

Today, the BC government made good on a vital conservation commitment made last December by Premier David Eby to develop a conservation financing mechanism to fund Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) by funding First Nations’ economic, capacity, stewardship, and management needs linked to protecting ecosystems. The new fund consists of a $150 million provincial contribution and $150 million to be raised by the BC Parks Foundation, the official charitable fund of the province’s BC Parks agency, for a total of $300 million to start. The fund is likely to grow quickly with major federal protected areas funding soon, additional provincial protected areas funds (conjoined with the federal funds via the BC Nature Fund and BC Old-Growth Funds, two additional funds currently under negotiation), funds from the international philanthropic community, and contributions from private citizens over time.

“This is a vital step forward to protect nature in British Columbia on a major scale — Premier Eby should be thanked for this. Conservation financing is the indispensable ‘fuel’ to power along the establishment of new protected areas in BC — without it, the large-scale protection of the most endangered and contested ecosystems, such as those with the largest trees and greatest timber values, would be largely impossible,” stated Ken Wu, executive director of the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance. “Since 2017 my colleagues and I have been calling on the province to undertake conservation financing, and three years ago we launched the main campaign with diverse allies calling for federal and provincial conservation funding to protect old-growth forests and endangered ecosystems – and today Premier Eby has delivered. This is a huge conservation victory for the many thousands of people who’ve spoken up for years for this.”

“This conservation financing mechanism puts major wind in the sails for the protection of old-growth forests in BC. After we’ve spent years relentlessly focusing on the centrality of conservation financing to support First Nations’ protected areas initiatives, Premier Eby has delivered on one of his three big commitments now. His other major commitments include doubling the protected areas in BC from 15% now to 30% by 2030 — this funding will make it possible as the fund grows — and targeting protection for biodiverse areas, which we interpret to mean the potential development of ecosystem-based protection targets which haven’t happened yet. We will continue working to ensure these commitments come to fruition,” stated TJ Watt, campaigner and photographer with the Ancient Forest Alliance.

Ancient Forest Alliance Campaigner & Photographer, TJ Watt, stands beside an unprotected old-growth redcedar tree in the Jurassic Grove near Port Renfrew in Pacheedaht territory.

In BC, it’s important to note that the province cannot unilaterally establish protected areas and “just save the old-growth” on Crown lands — the support of local First Nations governments is a legal necessity in their unceded territories. Protected areas establishment and logging deferrals move at the speed of the local First Nations whose territories it is. The BC government’s policies and funding can facilitate or hinder, help speed up or slow down, the abilities of First Nations to protect ecosystems. Conservation financing is a vital enabling condition that can speed up the protection of old-growth forests.

Across BC, First Nations have an economic dependency on forestry jobs and revenues, including in old-growth logging — a dependency fostered and facilitated by successive BC governments. Many First Nations also have an economic dependency on other resource industries, including mining and oil and gas. Hence, conservation financing to fund First Nations’ sustainable economic alternatives in ecotourism, clean energy, sustainable seafood, non-timber forest products (eg. wild mushrooms), and other industries, linked to the establishment of new protected areas, is vital for First Nations to be able to transition from their dependency on old-growth logging revenues and jobs and other resource industries in endangered ecosystems. Without conservation financing, the establishment of new protected areas in areas with high timber values would be like asking First Nations to simply jettison their main source of revenues and jobs — something that no major human population would do without economic alternatives and support.

On BC’s Central and North Coasts (ie. the Great Bear Rainforest), a conservation financing investment of $120 million in 2006 ($30 million from the province, $30 million from the federal government, $60 million from conservation groups) for First Nations sustainable economic development and stewardship needs, resulted in the protection of about one third of the region, about 1.8 million hectares. The initial investment, as a result of interest and carbon offsets, has ended up providing over $300 million in investments to First Nations’ owned businesses and stewardship initiatives, supporting over 100 First Nations-owned businesses, funding over 1000 jobs, and raising the average per household income substantially in First Nations communities.

Several loopholes or gaps remain in the BC government’s protected areas and conservation financing initiatives that the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance and Ancient Forest Alliance will continue to work to close.

Just as conservation financing was linked to protection targets (specific valleys and ecosystem retention targets) in the Great Bear Rainforest, the new conservation financing mechanism needs to be tied to “ecosystem-based targets”, that is, protection targets developed for each ecosystem that ensure that all ecosystems, including the most endangered and contested landscapes such as “high productivity” old-growth forests with the greatest timber values, are protected based on science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge. These targets should be developed by a Chief Ecologist (similar to BC’s Chief Forester, but with an ecological lens) and various science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge committees – new positions that are currently under consideration as the province develops a Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework. The province already has mapped the most at-risk old-growth forest types via their Technical Advisory Panel (TAP) and it’s vital that these conservation financing funds are linked to those deferral targets as priority, potential protected areas. Linking the conservation financing mechanism to the development of the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework (BEHF), (in particular should it develop ecosystem-based protection targets) is vital once the initiative is finalized.
The province’s conservation funds (and/or other provincial funds currently under development) should also be used to immediately provide funding for First Nations to help offset lost logging revenues when being asked to accept logging deferrals in their unceded territories as identified by the government’s old-growth science panel, the Technical Advisory Panel (TAP). This “solutions-space” funding, as was used successfully in Clayoquot Sound, will be critical in helping ensure the deferral of the roughly 1.4 million hectares (more than half) of priority old-growth deferrals that remain outstanding from the original 2.6 million hectares.
Ensuring that conservation financing supports only protected areas that meet the standards and permanency of true protected areas – meaning supporting designations that exclude commercial logging (while protecting First Nations cultural harvesting of individual trees, such as monumental cedars for dugout canoes and totem poles), mining, and oil and gas developments, and whose boundaries cannot be readily shifted. Provincial Conservancies and a few other provincial designations termed “Protected Areas” are designations that exclude commercial logging, mining, and oil and gas development, but that protect First Nations subsistence and cultural rights (hunting, fishing, gathering, cultural cedar harvest), co-management authority, and rights and title, and would have the standards and permanency of real protected areas. Conservation regulations such as Old-Growth Management Areas (which allow moveable boundaries to let companies log the biggest trees, to be replaced by “protecting” areas with smaller trees) and Wildlife Habitat Areas (which can still allow commercial logging, for example in Spotted Owl and Northern Goshawk ‘buffer’ areas) would not meet the threshold of real protected areas unless their loopholes are closed.

“We’re watching with great concern as the province might be looking to establish new ‘flexitarian’ designations – tenuous or fake ‘protected areas’ that still allow logging or boundary shifts to occur. These types of loopholes can easily result in the high-grade logging within such ‘protected areas’ of the very geographically limited monumental old-growth stands and the most endangered ecosystems, which can often constitute one or two percent or less of any major landscape area,” stated Ken Wu, Endangered Ecosystems Alliance executive director.

Endangered Ecosystems Alliance Executive Director, Ken Wu, beside an old-growth redcedar tree in the unprotected Eden Grove near Port Renfrew in Pacheedaht territory.

“The big campaign now will be for ecosystem-based protection targets — without them, we’ll see a massive number of hectares of new protected areas in alpine and subalpine areas with little to no timber value, and that skirt around saving the big timber that will still get logged. Without ecosystem-based targets, it’s like calling in fire trucks to hose down all the houses that are not burning, while the houses on fire get ignored. Ecosystem-based targets means you aim protected areas establishment right, to save the most endangered and least represented ecosystems”, stated Ken Wu, EEA executive director.

“Premier Eby has done something great today and we thank him. We still have to close several gaps and loopholes, related to linking conservation financing to ecosystem-based targets and the most at-risk old-growth, to ensure protected areas integrity moving forward, and to ensure deferral funding comes from various government sources. But make no mistake, this is a very good day,” stated TJ Watt, AFA campaigner.

Old-growth forests are vital to support unique and endangered species, climate stability, clean water, wild salmon, First Nations cultures, and BC’s multi-billion dollar tourism industry. They have unique characteristics that are not replicated by the ensuing second-growth tree plantations that they are being replaced with and that are logged every 50 to 70 years on BC’s coast, never to become old-growth again. Well over 80% of the original, productive old-growth forests (medium to high productivity sites where most big trees and timber values reside) have already been logged, and over 5 million hectares of big tree, rare (by ecosystem type), and very ancient old-growth forests remain unprotected in BC.

Watch this small video series by the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance’s Ken Wu explaining conservation financing, BC’s old-growth policy progress and remaining loopholes, and ecosystem-based targets.

See the news article and the media release that launched the campaign in 2020 for conservation financing from the provincial and federal governments.

The Canadian Press: Poor data hinders B.C. old-growth logging deferrals, advocates say

Oct 24 2023/in News Coverage

October 22, 2023
By Brenna Owens
The Canadian Press
Published in The Globe and Mail – Read the original article.

Irreplaceable ancient forests that should meet criteria for interim protection are being left open to logging in British Columbia due to outdated and inaccurate government data, advocates and an ecologist who advised the province say.

“The deferral process was intended to stop the bleed,” said Karen Price, an ecologist who served on the provincially appointed panel that identified 2.6 million hectares of high-priority old growth and recommended it be set aside from logging.

“It was intended to be a quick and dirty stopgap so First Nations and everyone could get together and do sensible planning, and it has not worked that way.”

In November 2021, B.C. announced a process to temporarily defer harvesting in those priority forests, provided First Nations agreed with the proposal in their territories, allowing time for longer-term planning.

It followed an earlier pledge by the province to implement the recommendations from an old-growth strategic review, which urged B.C. to act within six months to defer harvesting in ecosystems at high risk of irreversible biodiversity loss.

The Forests Ministry did not provide the latest deferral numbers. Staff are working on an update that’s expected in the coming weeks, a spokesperson said.

In a statement last July, the ministry said deferrals had been implemented across 1.2 million hectares identified by the panel, while an estimated 11,578 hectares of proposed deferrals were logged between November 2021 and December 2022.

But Price said old growth remains unidentified and open to logging due to “problematic” data that underestimates its age, especially for ancient forests.

The advisory panel worked with provincial data, specifically the vegetation resources inventory, based mostly on aerial images, Price explained.

AFA’s Ian Thomas beside a 10 foot wide cedar stump cut in an area missed for logging deferral on northern Vancouver Island, BC.

But the expert panel had access to on-the-ground data from nearly 7,000 sites throughout B.C. and used it to confirm the remote data.

The panel found the accuracy of projected age of trees in the database dropped “considerably” for stands older than 200 years, Price said.

The discrepancy increases with age, so “ancient forests are severely under-represented in the inventory data,” the panel said in a supplementary report.

That means B.C.’s deferral process is missing areas that should meet the criteria for high-priority old growth at risk of permanent loss, Price said.

A statement from the Forests Ministry this month said a total of 2.33 million hectares of old-growth forests have been “deferred or protected,” a figure that includes areas identified by First Nations in addition to the advisory panel.

B.C. is improving data collection on forests, it said. That includes the use of light detection and ranging technology, known as LiDAR, to help governments, First Nations and resource-based companies make better decisions, the ministry said.

TJ Watt, a photographer and co-founder of the Ancient Rainforest Alliance, said he recently visited a cut block on northern Vancouver Island, where he saw a three-metre-wide stump in a stand classified by the province as being 212 years old.

“Walking into the forest, one could tell this is a highly productive ancient forest filled with giant cedar trees,” Watt said of the area in Quatsino First Nation territory.

Many trees in the grove were likely at least 500 years old, he said.

An incredible trio of ancient cedars at risk on northern Vancouver Island, BC.

B.C. hasn’t publicly stated which nations have agreed to the proposed deferrals, but Watt said the area wasn’t captured by the deferral mapping in the first place.

Details contained in B.C. government mapping show the “interpretation date” for the area’s vegetation data was January 2000, nearly 24 years ago, he said.

Watt said he isn’t aware of any process for the public to flag potentially misclassified old-growth for deferral consideration.

The old-growth advisory panel used three categories to identify areas of high priority for potential deferral: ancient, remnant, and big-treed.

B.C. classifies ancient forests as 250 years and older in ecosystems that experience more frequent natural disturbances, such as wildfire, and 400 years and older in moist or high-elevation areas where such events are rare, Price said.

It’s in those less-frequently disturbed areas, often found along the coast, where the issue of ancient forests missing from B.C.’s data is “widespread,” she said.

“There’s a lot that would be classified as ancient, and in some of these regions there’s very little,” Price said, referring mostly to coastal areas.

In response to a request for comment, the Forests Ministry said the panel worked with higher-level mapping and “acknowledged that the modelling would need to be verified and that some areas may turn out not to be what they had thought.”

Eddie Petryshen, a conservation specialist with Wildsight, an environmental charity based in southeastern B.C., said he has also seen firsthand the discrepancy between the province’s data and the true ages and types of forests he has visited.

In one example from last July, he said the data for two approved cut blocks north of Revelstoke, B.C., showed the area had trees that were about 245 years old, missing the threshold for the ancient classification in the Interior by five years.

“I went in there and, you know, it was beautiful old-growth inland temperate rainforest with trees that are in the one- to two-metre diameter range, the largest cedars. I would expect those trees to be 300 to 500 years old,” Petryshen said.

It takes longer for cedars to grow to that width in the globally unique inland temperate rainforest than it does on B.C.’s coast, he noted.

“These are ancient trees.”

Petryshen said the forests in those cut blocks should have been captured by B.C.’s deferral process, especially as provincial mapping shows they overlap with a deferral area where the cedar-leading forest was classified as being 265 years old.

A man in a blue jacket walks along a logging road that forks between scattered patches of old growth redcedars and Sitka spruce and adjacent cutblocks.

AFA’s Ian Thomas walks along a logging road between scattered patches of old growth and adjacent cutblocks.

He said the B.C. government is allowing old-growth ecosystems to be logged without fully understanding what it is that’s being lost forever.

“We’ve been making really heavy-handed decisions that are based on prioritizing timber for a long time without really good data,” he said.

In looking at the forests B.C. defined as ancient, Price said the panel also found some areas aligned with management boundaries rather than ecological ones, suggesting the criteria hadn’t been equally applied by those doing the analysis.

“There’d be a district line and on one side there would be this forest that was all marked as ancient, and on the other side it wasn’t,” she said.

“The data actually demonstrated that some people were more interested or capable of defining ancient forest than others.”

The cut blocks north of Revelstoke represent the kind of situation that Petryshen said should be addressed through B.C.’s field verification process.

The advisory panel had recommended “precautionary interpretation” of provincial data and local validation before any potential logging of high-priority forests.

But Price said they were concerned from the start that field verification would result in more forests being removed from the deferrals than old growth.

“There’s nobody who’s trying to add to the deferrals, but there’s a whole bunch of people who have an economic incentive to take the deferrals out,” she said.

A provincial guidance document says field verification can be used to both add and remove areas from the deferral mapping in forests where logging is planned.

When an area is removed from the deferrals through field verification, the guidance says another area with the same type of old forest must replace it.

“In most, but not all cases, they seek replacements of equivalent forest,” the ministry statement said of the forest operators carrying out the assessments.

It said field verification has resulted in the identification of 262 hectares as “eligible to be removed” while 103 hectares have been deemed suitable replacements.

“The majority of the 159 hectares … that were removed but not replaced were areas that were burnt to such a significant degree that they no longer qualified as priority at-risk old-growth so (they) did not need replacing,” the statement said.

Ancient Forests Under Threat After Being Missed for Logging Deferral Due to Government Data Errors

Oct 23 2023/in Media Release

For Immediate Release
October 23, 2023

“You can only subtract; you can’t add”: BC government currently only allows for incorrectly identified at-risk old-growth forests to be subtracted from rather than added to logging deferral areas. This constitutes a significant conservation loophole that must be closed while the BC government progresses with major policy progress.

Conservationists with the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) are highlighting the urgent need for the BC government to proactively identify what are likely thousands of hectares of at-risk old-growth forests that were missed during the deferral process due to forest inventory errors. These areas were thus left open for logging, and the AFA is calling on the BC government to ensure the addition of these forests for deferral where identified by scientists, citizens, and industry. New photos and drone footage taken by the AFA photographer and campaigner TJ Watt have once again revealed the ongoing destruction of rare, “big-tree” old-growth forests on northern Vancouver Island in Quatsino territory.

In the Summer of 2023, Ancient Forest Alliance members TJ Watt and Ian Thomas documented road construction, giant stumps from recently felled trees, and ancient forests flagged for imminent logging in a remote area of Quatsino Sound where Western Forest Products (WFP) has approval to cut 36.5 hectares (roughly 68 football fields) worth of endangered old-growth forest. This threatened area, located on Crown/public lands within Tree Farm Licence 6, is just a few kilometers away from where the pair captured shocking images and videos of old-growth logging in 2022, sparking outrage and garnering international media coverage.

A fresh cedar stump measuring over 10 feet wide.

The inability to add misidentified at-risk old-growth stands to priority logging deferral areas constitutes one of the major gaps in the BC government’s old-growth policy as it moves forward to overhaul the conservation and management of these iconic forests.

Under relentless pressure from the Ancient Forest Alliance and Endangered Ecosystems Alliance, the BC government has made a number of commitments toward expanding the protection of old growth in BC, including protecting 30% of land area by 2030, developing a conservation financing mechanism to support Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas, and creating a BC Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework that potentially could include the office of a Chief Ecologist who develops science-based protection targets for all ecosystems with Traditional Ecological Knowledge committees — major commitments that we commend.

However, critical policy and funding gaps still remain, including the government only allowing the subtraction and not the addition of incorrectly identified at-risk old-growth stands (like the recently cut stands in Quatsino territory highlighted here) to deferral areas, and other key issues.

“It was a shock but sadly not a surprise to see more logging underway just across from where we’d documented the destruction of hundreds of giant trees only a year before,” stated AFA photographer and campaigner, TJ Watt. “We arrived to find roads being blasted into a highly productive ancient forest filled with massive cedar trees, the stump of one measuring more than 10 feet (3 meters) across. A simple on-the-ground assessment would have likely determined that this is an old-growth forest that meets the criteria for priority logging deferral, however, there is currently no government policy in place to ensure this happens despite repeated requests to the ministry from our organization. If the BC government cares about truly protecting these forests wherever they occur on the landscape, they must address this gap immediately.”

Home to scores of giant trees, many of which are likely 500+ years old, this particular grove — and surely hundreds of others — was not recommended for logging deferral by the government’s independent old-growth science panel, the Technical Advisory Panel (TAP) due to the forest being incorrectly labelled as 212 years old in the province’s forest inventory database (38 years younger than the province’s 250-year-old threshold for being considered old growth on the coast and to be included in deferral mapping).

A giant redcedar tree under threat of logging by Western Forest Products.

“When it comes to verifying forests for logging deferral, the BC government is currently playing a game of old-growth subtraction in favour of the timber industry, facilitating more old-growth logging rather than less,” stated Watt. “Instead, it should be working hard to identify at-risk old-growth forests that have been missed for deferral, such as this one, so they have a chance at being left standing and protected. To help identify these at-risk stands, forest engineers should be legally bound to field-verify planned logging cutblocks against the TAP deferral criteria and report any discrepancies to the BC government so adjustments can be made. Citizens and scientists should also be able to submit the locations of key old-growth stands they’ve identified. Government data gaps, such as simple age misclassifications, are leading to the loss of irreplaceable ancient forests vital to support endangered species, First Nations cultures, the climate, clean water, wild salmon, and tourism.”

To date, about 1.2 million hectares, or 46%, of the 2.6 million hectares of recommended priority deferral areas have been agreed upon by First Nations (whose consent and support are necessary for any new deferrals or protected areas). This leaves more than half of the forests identified as most at-risk forests open to logging, not including areas such as this one that were missed entirely. To close this gap, conservationists argue that the BC government must become advocates for protecting the most endangered old-growth forests and ensure that conservation funding for First Nations links the deferral and protection of these stands to sustainable economic alternatives to old-growth logging.

“Ultimately, the final decision around whether a forest gets deferred or not lies in the hands of First Nations, which is why immediate funding is needed from the province in the short-term to help nations offset any potential lost revenues from forgoing logging in the high-value, big-tree stands they’re being asked to defer,” explained Watt. “After more than a century of colonial exploitation, the province has an opportunity and obligation to ensure the much-anticipated conservation financing streams include long-term economic funding for Indigenous-owned sustainable businesses, such as tourism, sustainable seafood, clean energy, non-timber forest products, value-added second-growth forestry, etc., linked to new protected areas, as alternatives to an economic dependency on old-growth timber revenues and jobs.”

Old-growth fragmentation. The forest in the background of this image is now on the ground.

Conservationists underscore the urgency of securing logging deferrals by pointing to the staggering loss of productive old-growth forests in BC. The San Josef Landscape Unit on Vancouver Island (where this recently documented logging is taking place) has been hit extremely hard by industrial logging in recent decades, with less than 25% of its productive, “big-tree” old-growth forests remaining. Conservation biologists agree that when ecosystems fall below 30% of their original extent, they become at high risk of irreversible biodiversity loss.

“The BC government, under the leadership of Premier David Eby, has set the stage to vastly expand the protection of old-growth forests, for which he should be thanked. After decades of mismanagement, we may finally be on the verge of real transformation,” noted Watt. “However, it’s still possible that the BC government’s promised “paradigm shift” could fall short of its full potential as certain old-school timber bureaucrats and politicians within the Ministry of Forests try to constrain change in favour of the destructive status quo. Eby needs to pick up the pace and close the gaps as the yardstick of success will ultimately be measured by the survival of the endangered forests themselves. As we’ve seen here on northern Vancouver Island, any loopholes left open will allow for further destruction of many of the biggest and best stands that remain, never to be seen again.”

An incredible trio of ancient cedars in an at-risk old-growth forest on northern Vancouver Island, BC.

Background information:

In November 2021, the BC government agreed to, in consultation with First Nations, implement temporary logging deferrals in 2.6 million hectares of the most at-risk old-growth forests (big-tree, ancient, remnant) in BC to prevent irreversible biodiversity loss while long-term land use plans are developed. These priority deferral areas were identified and mapped by the BC government’s independent old-growth science panel, the Technical Advisory Panel (TAP).

The TAP specifically mentioned the issue of inventory errors in its report (see pages 9, 10, & 13), making clear recommendations to the BC government that on-the-ground assessments should be used to identify and defer big-tree old-growth forests that were missed in its preliminary analysis. Thus far, the BC government has only used field verification to remove deferral areas that don’t meet the TAP criteria (which are then supposed to be replaced with those that do, when possible) in order to facilitate logging — a blatant and outrageous bias toward the old-growth logging industry.

Progress is being made toward the protection of old-growth forests, however, major policy and funding gaps still remain, including funding for First Nations sustainable economic development linked to new protected areas, developing protection targets for all ecosystems that include forest productivity distinctions, maintaining strong protected areas standards, and allowing for the addition of unmapped old-growth stands into deferral consideration that meet the Technical Advisory Panel’s criteria for at-risk old-growth.

Major funding for old-growth protection is expected to arrive in the near future as well, including the province’s conservation financing mechanism and the BC Nature Fund (a potential $1.2 billion in federal-provincial funding) and BC Old-Growth Fund ($164 of federal-provincial funding) currently under development and negotiation (between the federal, provincial, and First Nations governments). So far the BC government has indicated they will fund the needs of First Nations regarding community capacity (eg. land-use planning), stewardship jobs, data collection, monitoring, and enforcement regarding old-growth protection, but has not said yet whether the funding will support Indigenous sustainable businesses that are necessary to provide the long-term revenues to permanently supplant income from old-growth logging — the fundamental barrier for many First Nations protecting old-growth forests.

Conservation financing is an approach that was successfully used on BC’s Central and North Coasts, where $120 million was committed by the provincial and federal governments and conservation groups to support First Nations business development and economic alternatives to old-growth logging. The result was a globally significant conservation achievement, with 80% of what is now known as the Great Bear Rainforest being reserved from logging.

Old-growth forests support endangered species, First Nations cultures, the climate, clean water, wild salmon, and tourism. Under BC’s current system of forestry, second-growth tree plantations are typically re-logged every 50–60 years, never to become old-growth again.

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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