Provincial Old-Growth Protection Strategy
The Ancient Forest Alliance is calling for the provincial government to establish a BC Old-Growth Protection Strategy that would ensure comprehensive, legislated protection for BC’s ancient forests on public/Crown lands. The science-based plan would incorporate timelines to immediately end old-growth logging in “critically endangered” forests, and quickly phase out old-growth logging where there is a “high risk” to biological diversity and ecosystem integrity.
The AFA is calling on the provincial government to undertake a Provincial Old-Growth Protection Strategy that will:
- Inventory the old-growth forests in BC and protect them where they are scarce (ie. Vancouver Island, southern Mainland coast, southern Interior, etc.
- Ensure the sustainable logging of second-growth forests, which now constitute the vast majority of forest lands in southern BC.
- End the export of BC raw logs to foreign mills in order to ensure a guaranteed log supply for BC mills and value-added processing facilities.
- Assist in the retooling and development of BC coastal sawmills and value-added facilities to handle second-growth logs.
- Undertake new, democratic land-use planning processes to protect endangered forests based on new First Nations land-use plans, ecosystem-based scientific assessments, and climate mitigation strategies through forest protection.
See the details of the “Old-Growth Protection Act” as recommended by the UVic Environmental Law Clinic (ELC) in their 2013 report: http://www.elc.uvic.ca/press/documents/AnOldGrowthProtectionActforBC-2013Apr10.pdf
Sign the petition to protect BC’s endangered old-growth forests at www.AncientForestPetition.com
