Nov 30 2012

Media Release: Conservationists Relieved as Forest Company Backs Away from Logging Canada’s Finest Old-Growth Cedar Grove, Vancouver Island’s "Castle Grove" in the Upper Walbran Valley

Conservationists are breathing a sigh of relief as Canada’s finest stand of old-growth redcedar trees appears to have been spared the axe – for now. The Castle Grove in the Upper Walbran Valley on southern Vancouver Island (west of Lake Cowichan) had been flagged for logging in August by the Teal-Jones Group and subsequently was the focus of an intense environmental campaign by the Ancient Forest Alliance.

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AFA's Hannah Carpendale stands near a giant red cedar and Douglas-fir in the Echo Lake ancient forest.
Oct 12 2012

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

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.

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Oct 10 2012

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

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.

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Aug 29 2012

Media Release: Canada’s Finest Cedar Grove Marked for Logging

The Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) is bracing for a potential, major escalation in BC’s “War in the Woods” as survey tape marking the “falling boundary” for logging has been recently discovered in the finest, unprotected stand of monumental old-growth western redcedar trees in Canada:the "Castle Grove" in the unprotected Upper Walbran Valley west of Lake Cowichan on southern Vancouver Island. The Castle Grove is an extensive stand of densely-packed enormous redcedars, including the “Castle Giant”, a 16 foot (5 meter) diameter cedar that is one of the largest trees in Canada.

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Today the Special Committee on Timber Supply released its report on how to deal with a timber shortfall in BC’s Central Interior in relation to the forest industry’s regional overcapacity. See article for link to PDF.
Aug 15 2012

Media Release: Timber Committee Opens Back Door for Potential Logging of Protected Forests

Today the Special Committee on Timber Supply released its report on how to deal with a timber shortfall in BC’s Central Interior in relation to the forest industry’s regional overcapacity. Of greatest environmental concern was the committee’s recommendation to create local committees to review the possibility of opening up protected forest reserves for logging. The committee also recommends continued overcutting, logging of “marginal” stands (ie. slow growing subalpine forests) and creating more “area-based tenures” ie. increasing private property-like rights on public forest lands.

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Ancient Forest Alliance
Jun 21 2012

Timber Workers and Conservationists Join Forces to Oppose Proposed Logging of Protected Forest Reserves in BC’s Interior

Two seemingly disparate organizations, the Pulp, Paper, and Woodworkers of Canada (PPWC), a union of several thousand BC sawmill and pulp mill workers, and the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA), a non-profit conservation organization, are joining forces to defend forest reserves in BC’s Interior from a BC government proposal to log them.

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Local Port Alberni resident and Watershed-Forest Alliance coordinator Jane Morden (red shirt) hikes amongst some of the giant old-growth Douglas-fir trees found in the endangered Cameron Valley Firebreak.
Apr 27 2012

Island Timberlands Begins Logging Old-Growth in Area Formerly Intended as Protected Elk Winter Range in the Cameron Valley near Port Alberni

The Cameron Valley Firebreak is an extremely rare, 150 hectare section of old-growth forest that spans the distance from the valley bottom to mountain top that is a 30 minute drive from the town of Port Alberni and lies several kilometres upstream from the world-famous Cathedral Grove.

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Ancient Forest Alliance photographer TJ Watt stands beside a giant old-growth Douglas-fir tree he located in the Gordon River Valley near Port Renfrew. The tree measures over 31ft in circumference
Apr 20 2012

Media Release: Christy Clark Grove

In honour of Earth Day this Sunday, the Ancient Forest Alliance is naming a recently found grove of unprotected, near record-size old-growth trees on Vancouver Island the "Christy Clark Grove"; after BC's premier. The group hopes the new name will motivate Premier Clark to protect the grove and develop a plan to protect endangered old-growth forests across BC instead of supporting their continued destruction.

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Cathedral Canyon
Mar 1 2012

Environmentalists Call for a BC Park Acquisition Fund and for Island Timberlands to Back Off until Contentious Lands can be Purchased for Protection

Conservationists are standing in solidarity today calling on coastal logging giant Island Timberlands to back off from their plans to log forests with high recreational and environmental values, including old-growth forests and sensitive ecosystems, while calling on the BC government to help purchase the company’s contentious private lands.

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Canada's Gnarliest Tree in Avatar Grove
Feb 23 2012

Protection of Avatar Grove will boost tourism

On Feb. 16, Steve Thomson, Minister for the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, announced that all of Avatar Grove is now protected from harvesting.

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