As it looks for ways to shore up the province's timber industry, the B.C. government is in danger of not seeing the forest for the trees. Is it possible to have a healthy forest and still harvest timber? Of course - not only is it possible, it's essential. Using up the timber supply faster than it can be replenished means the end of the forest, the killing of the goose that lays the golden egg. No forests, no lumber industry, no jobs.
East Side Games CEO Jason Bailey announced Wednesday that the company has given a “significant” cash donation and will provide online social media support for the Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA).
East Side Games announced its support for the Ancient Forest Alliance initiative during a news conference Wednesday. Jason Bailey, the video-game company’s chief executive officer, said he is writing a “significant” cheque to the environmental group. But he said the company’s contribution won’t stop there.
East Side Games and its over one million Facebook fans weigh-in to support the Ancient Forest Alliance’s campaign to protect Echo Lake, a rare, lowland old-growth forest near Mission and the world’s largest eagle night roosting site, and to protect ancient forests across BC – challenges other BC tech companies to do the same The campaign to protect British Columbia’s endangered old-growth forests has gained a unique and powerful new supporter: East Side Games is an independent, Vancouver-based tech company that specializes in developing online games for social media and mobile platforms and that has over one million Facebook fans around the world. It is the largest social and mobile game developer in Vancouver.
But now an environmental group, the Ancient Forest Alliance, and a landowner who has property adjacent to the roosting trees are working together to publicize the area, in the hopes of saving it from logging.
“This is really an extremely rare gem of lowland ancient rainforest in a sea of second-growth forests, clearcuts and high altitude old-growth patches,” said Ken Wu, executive director of the Ancient Forest Alliance. “To still have an unprotected lowland ancient forest like this left near Vancouver is like finding a Sasquatch."
David Hancock says he has personally counted more than 7,000 bald eagles in one day on the Harrison and Chehalis rivers - a world record and almost twice the best tally of Brack-endale Eagles Provincial Park near Squamish.Today, as the eagles arrive again to feast on the area's annual salmon runs, Hancock is counting on the B.C. government to do the right thing and increase protection for one of the planet's great avian spectacles.
The government is now constructing ground rules so that by early 2013 it can begin revisiting the designation of some sensitive areas, mainly in the north-central triangle between Burns Lake, Prince George and Quesnel.
The B.C. government announced plans on Tuesday to meet timber supply shortages in the B.C. Interior by reviewing current prohibitions on logging in environmentally sensitive areas and giving forest companies more power to manage the land base.
The B.C. government will examine the contentious possibility of opening old-growth forests to logging in parts of the province hardest hit by plummeting timber supplies. It's an idea that both proponents and opponents say would require chopping protective measures that took years to create.
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