Over 100 people converged on Base Camp Monday, April 27, for a quickly organized meeting to discuss logging plans within the City of Powell River. With interest generated through Facebook and other social media outlets following a press release by Island Timberlands that was uploaded to the Peak’s website, elected officials, environmentalists and community residents gathered to hear clarification about imminent road-building and harvesting involving Lot 450.
Powell River was founded by the timber industry, but the small Sunshine Coast community about 145 kilometres northwest of Vancouver is in an uproar now that loggers are cutting trees right in the heart of the city. Since loggers started clearing roads through the urban forest a few weeks ago, there have been packed public meetings and threats of an injunction by an environmental group. More than 1,000 people have signed an online petition calling for an end to the logging of what is known as Lot 450. Island Timberlands, which holds timber rights to several hundred hectares of forest land owned by the community, has announced plans to cut the area over the next several months.
Protesters took to the streets of Powell River upset by plans by a Nanaimo based logging company to cut trees in the city.
Here’s an article in the Powell River Peak about Island Timberlands’ plans to log in the City of Powell River (including a map of the planned cut area).
Thank you to all who donated towards the AFA’s 5 Year Anniversary Celebration & Dinner as well as our 5th Anniversary Earth Day fundraising goals! We greatly appreciate the guests, volunteers, businesses, organizations, artists and others whose generous contributions made the evening an occasion to remember, as well as the many others who weren’t able to make it but have contributed during this pivotal time. With your dedicated support, we will continue to broaden our movement, complete the Avatar Grove near Port Renfrew, protect specific endangered ancient forests, and work towards ensuring comprehensive, science-based legislation to protect endangered old-growth forests across BC.
Back in 2013, a group of 23 organizations, foresters, scientists and local MLA Scott Fraser signed a letter expressing concern that 60 per cent of old growth – some designated by provincial scientists as critical winter range for deer and elk under the tree farm licence from which they were removed in 2004 — had been logged in the upper watershed. Old growth there also serves as a filtration system for the town’s high quality water.
“Logging on these steep old-growth slopes has a high potential to alter the quality and rate of water flow and the streams’ courses,” Fraser warned in a letter last October to the Managed Forest Council which oversees logging practice on private lands. Watershed cutblocks above China Creek “should never have been logged,” he said.
This is a very special time in our journey: 2015 marks 5 years since the birth of our passionate organization. Thanks to your generous support, we've flourished and grown since our humble beginnings and we hope you can make it to our sustainable dinner event and presentations in Victoria on April 17th! Free drink ticket, door prizes, music, socializing with other supporters! Presentations (Dr. Andy Mackinnon, Vicky Husband, Arnie Bercov, Ken Wu, TJ Watt…) Limited space available so get your tickets soon!
Conservationists call on BC Government to help purchase endangered old-growth forests on Island Timberlands’ deregulated lands, including McLaughlin Ridge in Port Alberni’s drinking watershed, following BC Teachers Federation motion, Port Alberni city council resolution, and now Island Timberlands’ potential interest in selling McLaughlin Ridge.
Every fall, hundreds of eagles descend upon the Fraser Valley to roost in the treetops surrounding Echo Lake. Experts say there is no other place like it in the world. “This is eagle central. It’s the place that if you want to protect the largest concentration of raptors on earth, this is just about it here,” says Ken Wu of Ancient Forest Alliance…. The fight continues to protect old-growth forest from logging. While the B.C. Government announcing 55 hectares were protected as old growth management areas, there are still 40 hectares that fall under a woodlot license.
“These biodiversity surveys show that protecting all of Echo Lake’s surrounding old-growth and mature forests is important not only for saving the largest night-roosting site for bald eagles on Earth, but also for a large diversity of other species, including many species at risk,” stated Ken Wu, Ancient Forest Alliance executive director. “And these new findings are just the tip of the iceberg from just a single weekend of surveys – future surveys will undoubtedly turn up much more. It further re-enforces the fact that it should be a no-brainer for the BC government to protect all of Echo Lake’s surrounding forests.”
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