Entries by TJ Watt

*ACTION ALERT* Save Echo Lake’s Ancient Forest! Globally significant bald eagle habitat

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Echo Lake is a magnificent, unprotected, lowland ancient rainforest in British Columbia between Mission and Agassiz in the Fraser Valley, about a hundred kilometers east of Vancouver.  The region is home to perhaps the largest concentration of bald eagles on Earth, where thousands of eagles come each fall to eat spawning salmon in the Harrison and Chehalis Rivers and hundreds roost in the old-growth trees at night around Echo Lake.

Saturday: Cortes Youth Champion Bill M211; The Species At Risk Protection Act

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Youth from Cortes Island, BC are hosting an educational rally on the legislative grounds in Victoria this coming  Saturday, October 13 from 11 am – 4 pm. Forest lands on Cortes Island threatened by industrial logging prompted the youth to research out what protection, if any, was afforded the numerous species at risk making these forest lands their home.

Group aims to protect eagles’ night roost

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But now an environmental group, the Ancient Forest Alliance, and a landowner who has property adjacent to the roosting trees are working together to publicize the area, in the hopes of saving it from logging.

Campaign Launched to Protect Rare Lowland Old-Growth Rainforest and Internationally Significant Eagle Roosting Area east of Vancouver

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Conservationists with the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) have launched a new campaign to fully protect one the last endangered lowland old-growth forests left in the Lower Mainland at Echo Lake east of Mission, as part of the organization’s larger campaign to lobby the BC government for a new Provincial Old-Growth Strategy to save endangered old-growth forests across the province.

Province urged to protect Harrison Eagles

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David Hancock says he has personally counted more than 7,000 bald eagles in one day on the Harrison and Chehalis rivers – a world record and almost twice the best tally of Brack-endale Eagles Provincial Park near Squamish.Today, as the eagles arrive again to feast on the area's annual salmon runs, Hancock is counting on the B.C. government to do the right thing and increase protection for one of the planet's great avian spectacles.

Campaign sprouts up to save Echo Lake old-growth forest

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“This is really an extremely rare gem of lowland ancient rainforest in a sea of second-growth forests, clearcuts and high altitude old-growth patches,” said Ken Wu, executive director of the Ancient Forest Alliance. “To still have an unprotected lowland ancient forest like this left near Vancouver is like finding a Sasquatch."

Media Release: BC Liberals open the back door to log protected forests under the guise of "science" and "local communities"

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The BC Liberal Government announced yesterday a new forestry action plan for BC’s Central Interior that would open the “back door” for logging in currently protected forests. By the spring of 2013 the BC government plans to create frameworks for a “science-based review” and “community-engagement” process to potentially open up forest reserves that currently protect old-growth forests, scenery for tourism, species at risk, and wildlife in the Central Interior.

NDP Sets Fire to Libs’ Forest Industry Fix

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The British Columbia government says it is acting on a series of recommendations to help the province's forest industry in the wake of the mountain pine beetle epidemic. Critics say it's a weak response to the issue that shows the government hasn't learned from the collapse of other natural resource industries.

Logging of old-growth forest mulled by B.C. government

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The B.C. government will examine the contentious possibility of opening old-growth forests to logging in parts of the province hardest hit by plummeting timber supplies. It's an idea that both proponents and opponents say would require chopping protective measures that took years to create.

Plan to maintain timber supply widens land base.

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The B.C. government announced plans on Tuesday to meet timber supply shortages in the B.C. Interior by reviewing current prohibitions on logging in environmentally sensitive areas and giving forest companies more power to manage the land base.