Entries by TJ Watt

Port Alberni, Vancouver Island’s Forestry Capital – Sustainability Champion?

/in

Here's a new article by the Ancient Forest Alliance's Ken Wu about how Port Alberni, the forestry capital of Vancouver Island and once considered unfriendly to the environmental movement, has today become a major hub of environmental awareness over logging in their drinking watershed, the loss of their last old-growth stands at McLaughlin Ridge and other sites, and over the massive export of raw logs to the USA and China from their region. Thanks to Jane Morden and her team with the Port Alberni Watershed-Forest Alliance for moving these issues into the forefront over years of hard work!

Metchosin supports stopping old-growth logging

/in

Great News!! Metchosin council passes resolution calling on the BC government to protect the remaining old-growth forests of Vancouver Island! Thanks to councillor and renowned forest ecologist Dr. Andy Mackinnon and the Metchosin councillors Moralea Milne, Kyara Kahakauwila, Bob Gramigma, and Mayor John Ranns for passing the resolution!
Goldstream Gazette:
While it's not quite a New Years resolution, Metchosin resolved to prevent any more logging of old-growth forest on provincial Crown Land on Vancouver Island.
The resolution will see a letter go to the Association of Vancouver Island Coastal Communities, seeking its support for a request to amend the Vancouver Island Land Use Plan to protect all remaining old-growth forest.
"The amount of old growth remaining on southern Vancouver Island is a small fraction of what it used to be, and old growth has all sorts of value – economic, social and environmental value," said Metchosin Coun. Andy MacKinnon. "We thought it was timely to create a resolution to save the remaining old growth for ourselves and future generations."
The longtime forester and biologist said such trees at Avatar Grove, and Big Lonely Doug – left standing in the middle of a clearcut, it's considered the second-largest Douglas fir tree in Canada – attract visitors to the area. He pointed to an estimate showing that only 13 per cent of old-growth forest on southern Vancouver Island remain.
"These are some of the largest trees on the planet, some of the largest living organisms that have ever existed on earth," MacKinnon said. "And some people visit to view these stands, so there is an important economic resource even if you don't log
them"
 

THANK YOU to our 2015 Business, Artist & Organization Supporters!

/in ,

THANK YOU to all local and sustainable businesses, artists and organizations that have supported the AFA through fundraisers or direct donations in 2015! For an overview of these supporters and the many creative and generous ways that they have bolstered the AFA's work this past year, see here.

Find out more about supporting the AFA as a business or organization at our Business & Organization Support page.

See our FULL LIST of businesses, artists and organizations that have supported the AFA since 2010!

Avatar Grove Ecotourism

/in

Here's a new piece by Shaw TV about the importance of old-growth forests of Port Renfrew for the tourism economy, focused on the Avatar Grove and the Walbran Valley, and featuring Dan Hager, president of the local Chamber of Commerce, and the AFA's Ken Wu and TJ Watt.

Hope on Vancouver Island following historic Great Bear Rainforest agreement

/in

After years of protests, boycotts, and negotiations, the Sierra Club of BC, ForestEthics, and Greenpeace, working to protect the northern rainforest of BC (the Great Bear Rainforest) have now succeeded in getting 85% of the forests there off-limits to logging through legislation (conservancies and parks) and regulatory protections (forest reserves, ecosystem-based management).
Now it's time to get the southern rainforest (ie. Vancouver Island and the SW Mainland coast), where only 8% of the productive forests are protected in parks and Old-Growth Management Areas/ Wildlife Habitat Areas/ Ungulate Winter Ranges (forest reserves), protected with modern, science-based, expanded protections.
Here's a CHEK TV piece where the AFA's Ken Wu talks about the endangered Central Walbran Valley and Vancouver Island.

Most of B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest protected

/in

Great news – Huge strides in getting the northern rainforest of BC protected! Now to get the southern rainforest on Vancouver Island and the SW Mainland protected, and in the rest of BC, where protection levels are far, far behind! Global TV:
An agreement has been reached to protect 85 per cent British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest from logging, ending a decades-long battle to safeguard the central coast rainforest.
The deal signed between First Nations, environmental groups and the British Columbia government covers 3.1-million hectares in protection, an area that is the size of Nova Scotia.
Jens Weiting of the Sierra Club said logging in the remaining part of the forest will be tightly controlled.
“It’s a globally outstanding region, also, in terms of its size. It is 6.4-million hectares. It is larger than many European nations. It is larger than the Netherlands or Belgium or Switzerland and it is really a global responsibility to find solutions to protect the ecological integrity and support communities in this region.”

Islands in the Sky: Chopping Ancient Walbran Valley Forest Spells Extinction for Treetop Species

/in

Check out the new Desmog Article on the endangered Central Walbran Valley: “By taking these trees down or by causing disruption you are committing species to go extinct… . Who would feel good about species going extinct just because we have mismanaged a resource? That’s the bottom line.”
The province has granted Surrey-based Teal Jones Group a permit for a 3.2-hectare cutblock east of Carmanah Walbran Park.
The cutblock is in the 500-hectare Central Walbran where, unlike the valley further south which is tattered with cutblocks, there is contiguous old-growth.
“It’s where our forests reach their most magnificent proportions,” said Ken Wu of the Ancient Forest Alliance.
"These are the classic giants. The biggest and the best — and some of the largest remaining tracts and finest old growth western red cedars are in areas such as Castle Grove, together with old-growth dependent species such as the Queen Charlotte goshawk and marbled murrelet,” Wu said, emphasizing the importance of these areas for tourism as well as biodiversity.

Ground zero for Walbran

/in

WildCoast Magazine on the endangered Central Walbran Valley:
"What we’re looking at across this wide valley is a messy forest – the indication it is old-growth. In the valley bottom is Castle Grove, one of the finest remaining examples of ancient red cedar stands. It and the surrounding old growth on the lower slopes make up one of the largest intact chunks of endangered, unharvested forest remaining on Vancouver Island.
It’s a rare view. On Vancouver Island south of Barkley Sound, about 90 percent of the original forest has been logged, along with about 95 percent of the lowland old growth.
'What we’re really down to is the last remnants of the classic giants and it’s the best of the classic giants because it’s literally in the Carmanah-Walbran-San Juan-Gordon River, these four southern valleys where you get the very best growing conditions in the entire country. If you go north it gets colder, as you go east it gets drier,' says Ken Wu, a campaigner for the Ancient Forest Alliance."

Conservation groups plan a provincial fund to buy new parks

/in

Island Tides, a great newspaper serving the Gulf Islands, has printed the full article on the 16 conservation and recreation groups in BC calling on the BC government to establish a $40 million/year land acquisition fund to purchase and protected endangered ecosystems on private lands. Places like McLaughlin Ridge in Port Alberni's drinking watershed, Horne Mountain above Cathedral Grove, the Cameron Valley Firebreak (similar to a 2nd Cathedral Grove but unprotected), the Koksilah, Muir Creek, Stillwater Bluffs, the Day Road Forest…and hundreds of other endangered areas on private lands could benefit from such a fund.

Push for provincial land-acquisition fund gathers steam

/in

"A plan to establish an annual $40-million provincial fund to purchase private land now has 16 conservation and recreation groups behind it.
Wu said that the push to preserve more land takes in a variety of needs, including protecting watersheds that supply drinking water and helping tourism by keeping natural areas intact. He said he expects tourism businesses to start getting behind the fund.
The call for a provincial fund has picked up momentum with a report from the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre that included a 'menu' of funding options used by governments across North America.
…one measure that has worked well in other places is using unredeemed deposits from beverage containers.  Dubbed 'pops for parks,' it is estimated that the strategy could generate $10 million to $15 million a year.
“If you don’t return [the containers], then that money, in places like New York state and a lot of jurisdictions in the U.S., is used by the government to expand their protected-area system….'”