Selling lumber, not logs, is the focus of a B.C. sales blitz in China, provincial Forests Minister Pat Bell said Monday.
Bell, speaking from China, lashed out at criticism of his government’s sales efforts and emphasized a just-completed deal for Vernon-based Tolko Industries Ltd. to sell about 364 million board feet of lumber to Chinese companies, including studs made of wood damaged by pine beetles.
The province is making a mistake by trying to increase lumber exports to China, says the founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance.
As Forests Minister Pat Bell heads to China on a trade mission, Ken Wu is calling on the government to ban the export of raw logs and old-growth wood to China before it starts doing so.
The Ancient Forest Alliance is calling on the BC Liberal government to ban old-growth wood and raw log exports to China on the eve of the BC Liberal government’s trade mission to China. Starting tomorrow, from October 28 to November 8, Pat Bell, BC’s new Minister of Forests, Mines, and Lands (formerly the Minister of Forests and Range) will be embarking with industry reps on the BC government’s largest trade mission to China so far.
B.C.’s new Minister of Forests, Mines, and Lands, Pat Bell, leaves tomorrow for a trip to China to talk lumber. Not everyone though sees the potential business as good for our province. Co-founder of the Ancient Forest Alliance, Ken Wu, sees problems ahead.
Seen here is the San Juan Spruce tree. It is Canada’s largest spruce tree and the second largest in the world! It grows on Vancouver Island alongside the San Juan River about 35 minutes from Port Renfrew, BC. The towering tree measures 38.3′ in circumference, reaches 205′ tall, and has an incredible wood volume of 333 telephone poles!
Despite all of this the tree and surrounding forest has not been afforded any legislated protection from the BC Liberal government. We are calling on the province to protect the area of forest, both old-growth and second growth, from the San Juan Spruce to the nearby Red Creek fir.
Clearcut logging and a receding glacier were pinpointed
Tuesday as probable contributors to a devastating flood which swept through
the remote First Nations community of Kingcome Inlet last month.
“They aren’t logging old-growth anymore, are they?” This is one of the most common questions I hear when I talk to people about protecting B.C.’s endangered ancient forests. The sad reality is that here in B.C., we are still cutting down trees that started growing at the time of the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and were already 500 years old when Columbus “discovered” North America. B.C.’s ancient forests — on crown, or public land, and in the most critical ecosystem types and wildlife habitat — are still being devastated by logging.
“Time is running out for our endangered old-growth forests and B.C.’s coastal forestry jobs,” said AFA campaign director Wu in a press release.
On September 16, in a seemingly unlikely event, the Ancient Forest Alliance stood in solidarity with members of the Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Canada and the United Steelworkers union in Nanaimo as part of the ongoing fight to ban raw log exports in BC. AFA forest campaigner TJ Watt spoke alongside union officials Nanaimo MLA Leonard Krog and Nanaimo-North Cowichan MLA Doug Routley to the hundreds of workers in attendance, denouncing the export of raw logs and calling for the protection of BC’s threatened forestry jobs.
Ken Wu and TJ Watt are committed to preserving as much of the natural environment as they can. The two colleagues are key members of an outfit called the Ancient Forest Alliance.
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