The Ancient Forest Alliance is taking provincial political parties to task this election in terms of committing to preserve B.C.’s remaining old growth forests.
The Environment Platform states the party will “Protect significant ecological areas like wetlands, estuaries and valuable old-growth forests.” The recognition of the importance of protecting old-growth forests is a step forward for the party, which made no mention of old-growth or the environment in their previously released Forestry Platform, to the chagrin of conservationists. However, the critical details of “how much”, “where”, and “when” are not mentioned in today's platform.
The Climate Action Secretariat would take over from the trust, with carbon-tax revenues used to fund transit and other green projects, he said. Levies paid by hospitals, Crown corporations and post-secondary schools would fund energy-efficiency upgrades for those institutions.
Avatar Grove on Vancouver Island is a protected forest of towering trees that have survived on the planet for centuries, and in some cases millennia. TJ Watt of the Ancient Forest Alliance has been integral in promoting sustainable practices that will ensure Avatar Grove’s existence. An activist and photographer, Watt has so far managed to help preserve 59 hectares of forest near Port Renfrew from logging.
Today on Earth Day BC NDP leader Adrian Dix announced the party’s environment platform, stating that an NDP government would “reinvest in BC’s parks” and “protect endangered species and habitats”. A version of the media release (not posted online) also stated the party would work to “acquire” “wetlands” and “old-growth forests”.
“We need the NDP to commit to a science-based plan to fully protect BC’s endangered old-growth forests on Crown lands, to ensure sustainable second-growth forestry, and to commit to a B.C. park acquisition fund to purchase and protect endangered ecosystems on private lands.”
“We’re watching the demise of something comparable to the decline of the buffalo on the prairies.”
VICTORIA:
Creatively United for the Planet
FRI-SUN APRIL 19-21, 2013
St. Ann’s Academy, 835 Humboldt St., Victoria
VANCOUVER:
Earth Day Parade & Celebration
SAT APRIL 20, 2013
11:00am: Parade starting at Commercial and 8th Ave, Vancouver
12:00-3:00pm: Celebration at Grandview Park (Commercial Drive and Charles St., Vancouver)
Clearcuts adjacent to Mountain Caribou habitat support increased moose and deer, and so bolster predator populations that also prey on caribou. Mountain Caribou are the world’s most southerly reindeer and Canada’s largest old-growth dependent animal. Resident almost exclusively in British Columbia, their population has declined precipitously in recent decades.
New Democrat Leader Adrian Dix has released a multimillion dollar election plan that he believes will help grow and improve B.C.'s forest industry, but critics say the proposal makes promises that will be hard to keep.
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