Yesterday, new mapping revealed that the BC provincial government has approved 43% more old-growth logging during the period since it received the Old-Growth Panel Recommendations that it promised to implement last fall:
https://www.wildernesscommittee.org/news/new-mapping-shows-huge-increase-old-growth-logging-year-after-old-growth-strategic-review

We really need to keep up the pressure, and make sure the government understands that the world is watching what is happening to the last old-growth in this province.

Rainforest Rescue, based in Germany, has launched a global call for action, calling on the BC government to follow through on their promise. They have a petition to protect the last intact forests on the planet. Please ask your friends and family to sign it, and to share it on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. It has 239,000 signatures so far – it need it to reach 250,000, and then many, many more.

Can you sign the petition, and ask your friends to sign it too?
https://www.rainforest-rescue.org/petitions/1120/canadas-giants-grown-over-5-centuries-felled-in-5-minutes#letter

Watch this powerful 1 minute video clip:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1okMRa1BlkpMko-JZvQNhHPCnlODYpDLo/view?usp=sharing

Canada is synonymous with endless forests, clear lakes and snow-capped mountains. It’s hard to imagine that these magnificent landscapes could be threatened. Yet Canada’s most ancient forests, including some of the last intact temperate rainforests of Vancouver Island, are being destroyed at a rate of hundreds of soccer fields per day.

Nothing is safe in the path of the chainsaws – ancient Sitka spruce, Douglas fir, yellow and western red cedar trees, some older than 1,000 years. 90 percent of BC’s giant trees have already been felled. The clear-cutting is destroying the habitat of bears, wolves and salmon. The population of marbled murrelets, a seabird that nests in old-growth forests, has already collapsed. For thousands of years, these forests have been in the territories of Indigenous Peoples who used their plants and animals sustainably.

“When these ancient forests are cleared, they are gone forever,” says Jens Wieting of Sierra Club BC. Second-growth trees are felled after only a few short decades, which does not give the biodiversity of the original forests a chance to recover. Climate change is putting the forests under additional pressure.

The full extent of the destruction was brought home in 2014 when pictures of “Big Lonely Doug” were published – a towering, solitary Douglas fir left standing in the middle of a clear-cut area.

In 2020, the BC government promised to implement the recommendations of an independent old-growth panel. But the world is still waiting for an implementation plan and the funding to realize it, and with few exceptions, business-as-usual logging of old-growth forest continues.

Please tell the provincial government of British Columbia to put an end to the clear-cutting of the last old-growth forests and the felling of their giant trees NOW. These majestic trees must not be sacrificed to short-sighted business interests.

For Twitter:
Premier @jjhorgan, keep your promise & save the last ancient #forests in #BritishColumbia #Canada. People from around the world call for protection of the last #oldgrowth #forest, join, share & sign the @RainforestResq petition #saveoldgrowth #bcpoli
www.rainforest-rescue.org/canada
https://twitter.com/RainforestResq
https://twitter.com/RainforestResq/status/1388160118378860544

For Facebook and Instagram:
Help us to save the last ancient forests on our planet. In 2020, John Horgan, the Premier of British Columbia, Canada, promised to take action for old-growth forests in this province, but clearcutting continues, there is still no plan to end it and no funding for conservation lead by Indigenous Peoples. Join people from around the world calling for protection of the last #oldgrowth #forest, share & sign the Rainforest Rescue petition #saveoldgrowth #bcpoli
www.rainforest-rescue.org/canada
https://www.facebook.com/rettetdenregenwald/
https://www.instagram.com/rettet_den_regenwald_de/?hl=en
https://www.instagram.com/p/COSdkpnnirb/

Thanks and there will be more soon, including a new international NGO sign-on letter in June

Jens

Jens Wieting (he/him)
Senior Forest and Climate Campaigner/Science Advisor
C (604) 354-5312
Sierra Club BC
Lekwungen Territory
sierraclub.bc.ca