Dear Elders,At this time of the year, some of us may identify with the Latin American tradition of Día de los Muertos or with the Celtic tradition of Samhain. Día de los Muertos honours and remembers the Dead. Samhain marks the end of the harvest season and beginning of winter or the ‘darker half’ of the year. It was seen as a liminal time, when the boundary between this world and the Otherworld thinned. For many, this time touches into our generational connections to ancestors and to future beings. We know these times are increasingly hard for so many. Systems are unravelling. This is a time to deepen our appreciation for earth protectors that have come before us. A time to hold fast and close to what we love. A time for arousing our fierce capacity to protect future generations of all species.
Our grief and anger continue to mount. Old-growth forests continue to be felled. Deferrals are not happening. Trees are being cut to supply the pellet industry. Corporate control of the industry is accelerating. (See our Ancient Forest Reports below.)
And this month is COP 27 (Conference of the Parties/Climate Emergency) in Egypt. We don’t need to remind you of what is at stake. Greta Thunberg has a few words to say. (See Climate Emergency below.)
With a need for balance, we reach into our deep wells of gratitude: for the rains falling on parched lands, for the mosses in autumn bloom, for the turning of the seasons reminding us of our place in the larger universe, for the laughter of young children. We have gratitude for so many of the gifts of this precious Earth, for the caring of so many human communities.
In this movement, we embrace the good news when it comes: Nature-Based Solutions Foundation, a private foundation linked to the Ancient Forest Alliance, was able to purchase a tract of land to add to the T’eqt’aqtn Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area in the Fraser Canyon, a protected area that the Kanaka Band is trying to get federal and provincial backing for. See more here. The BC government has moved the bill protecting bear dens forward to a second reading. David Eby, the premier-elect, has expressed a desire to speed up the deferrals of old-growth to be logged. And, most of all, a host of ordinary citizens like you are working for change: struggling on the front lines, signing petitions, writing and phoning their MLAs to demand action.
And right now we have big action plans for the New Year and we’re excited! Lots of that just below!
Wishing you well,
Susan, Jackie, Bill and Jan
Big Action on February 25 – Declaration, March and Rally at BC Legislature
Standing up for old growth! Over and over and over…
As we reported in our last callout, over the last few months some of us have been feverishly meeting, planning, writing, phoning, cajoling, emailing and more. We have been drawing together a broad group of organizations to sign the United We Stand for Old Growth Forests! Declaration and to follow up with the largest rally Victoria has seen for years—a rally designed to shake the NDP government out of its complacency as it continously fails to stop logging of the last old-growth forests throughout BC.
The Declaration
We have been promoting the United Declaration and Rally for a few weeks now and are excited to tell you that the United We Stand for Old-Growth Forests! movement has strong momentum: over 90 groups from around BC have signed the Declaration, and we have reached out to another 150 organizations from diverse sectors and communities, many of whom have indicated they will be signing and supporting our communications and lobbying efforts. Here’s the link to the Declaration. Please have a read if you haven’t already. It is our mobilising vision and what we stand for. Share with others!
New March & Rally date: Saturday, February 25, 2023
Our original target date (November 26) conflicted, we found out, with the Santa Claus Parade route. Our organizing committee decided to move to early 2023 to give us more time to broaden our support base, do mass promotion and amplify our impact. A later date will also enable us to see how the new Eby team is performing and to better target our pressure on the BC government to deliver on their promises. Between now and February 25, we’re planning various events to help build momentum towards the Super Rally. We will have more details to share soon so stay tuned. We’re aiming for thousands!
How can you help?
So over to you, dear Elders. Your help is critical. The ancient forests continue to need your energy, your voice, your commitment. Most of all we want your involvement. Here’s a start:
- Save the date – Saturday, Feb 25
- Talk to friends and spread the word. If you belong to an organization you think might be willing to sign the Declaration, get them to contact us at oldfolksforoldgrowth@gmail.com. We’re taking sign-ons from organizations, not individuals, at present.
- Please donate towards rally expenses. All the costs of building and staging a big rally—outreach materials, banner- and placard-making, stage, sound system, porta-potties, honoraria and transportation for speakers, etc.—they add up big time! The Elders aim to raise $10,000. Our organisational partners are committing major funds to this and we want to match them. We’re still a long way from our goal. We truly hope that more of you can step up. There are three ways to donate:
- Send an e-transfer to oldfolksforoldgrowth@gmail.com
- Write a cheque to Elders for Ancient Trees, and send it to 2-730 Sea Terrace, Victoria, BC V9A 3R6
- Online at this link
- Join us in smaller actions building uo to the event, starting now. Stay tuned for an Elders’ action in later November. And join other groups’ actions, which we’ll let you know about.
- Volunteer to help collect signatures, do outreach, work with artists to make the march a truly a creative event, and rally organising committees. Check out Bobby Arbess’s piece below, Ancient Forest Biodiversity Banners.
- If you live outside the Victoria area, spread the word. Begin to gather organizing capacity in your community: reach out to others, perhaps with small actions, to begin to gather your contingent to join the march and rally. We’re already getting positive responses from Gabriola, Salt Spring Island, Courtenay/Comox/Powell River, Metchosin, Cowichan Valley and more.
Early in the New Year we’ll need lots more help. We hope to energise your powers and abilities, dear Elders for Ancient Trees.
This Super Rally, along with the events building up to it, may make a real difference in forestry policy, as we deal with a new premier who may be willing to listen to the voices of BC citizens clamouring for the preservation of our last ancient forests.
Please help however you can. We’ll be filling you in on more ideas and information as we get closer to February 25.
Creative vision for the March
Initial planning for the March leading to the Rally at the BC Legislature requires the inspiration of artists of all stripes. We hope that the March will express the range of our feelings and concerns about what is happening to old-growth forest communities—from celebration of the many gifts of ancient forests, to grieving and honouring what has been lost; from families walking with home-made signs to many organisations proudly carrying their identifying banners.
With visual artists, movement artists and musicians, we’ll make it an event that the forests deserve! We’ll make it an event that David Eby and the NDP government cannot ignore. If you’re drawn to this, contact David Quigg at DavidQ@Sierraclub.bc.ca. For example, you may be excited to join Bobby Arbess in his beautiful Community Arts Project. Read on for inspiration.
>Ancient Forest Biodiversity Banners
~ Bobby ArbessIn October a small collective of artists, activists and helpers had a strong start on our project to visually represent many of the diverse and beautiful life forms of the endangered ancient temperate rainforest ecosystem on 5’X6′ vinyl banners held on 12′ poles and decorated with streams of coloured fabric, in preparation for the epic United We Stand for the Old-Growth Forest! rally and procession in early 2023.
Our council of finished and partly done paintings so far includes: Red-legged frog, Spotted owl, Marbled murrelet, Northern Goshawk, Woodland Caribou, Northern pygmy owl, Pacific chorus frog, Black bear, Hairy woodpecker, Little Myotis bat and Chinook salmon.
Our goal is to create at least two dozen banners of the birds, mammals, fish, amphibians, insects, spiders, plant and fungal life of these carbon-rich forests and critical reservoirs of biological diversity—to create a spectacle of life-centred pageantry in the streets and to convey a message that these forests on the unceded ancestral territories of coastal Indigenous peoples, 10,000 years in their evolutionary journey, are w-a-a-ay more than just a crass timber and wood-pellet supply for the insatiable global market.
The ancient forests are worth far more standing, in their irreplaceable role as sources of clean air and water, globally important carbon storage, habitat and as spiritual sanctuaries and ancestral places of prayer and purification. It’s far past time for government to stop stalling and get on with fulfilling its policy promises to support a fair and immediate transition away from the dirty and destructive days of old-growth logging for First Nations and local industry-dependent communities.
We have been working in our own studio spaces and at paint-ins at the Community Arts Hub in the Quadra Village, and we are:
- recruiting more painters (no previous experience necessary) to either take a sheet of vinyl to work on at home or to join our upcoming art builds at the Community Arts Hub
- looking for people who can commit to holding banners at the event in February
- looking for people connected to school and children’s groups that could colour in and decorate banners that we outline for them
- asking for further donations to help cover on-going costs of supplies and studio rental space, which can be sent by e-transfer to garbanzobob@yahoo.ca
Actions
1. You can help save BC’s endangered spotted owls using this handy on-line link to write to the federal Environment Minister. Wilderness Committee is leading the campaign with Ecojustice waiting in the wings to launch a court case if required. More background is available in Sarah Cox’s excellent article B.C. is opening up old-growth spotted owl habitat to logging—again.
2. And you can also help save the Teapot Valley by going to this Wilderness Committee link.
Upcoming events
Nov 5, Saturday, 12 noon, at Centennial Square: Kill the Drill Rally, in support of the Wet’suwet’en as they defend their lands against Coastal GasLink. Gather at Centennial Square at noon and then march to RBC at Douglas & Fort.
Last Wednesday of each month (Nov 30, Dec 28), 3 – 5 pm: Wednesday Vigils for Old Growth. Meet in front of the Victoria Tourist Centre, corner of Government & Wharf. Hold a banner or sign, distribute pamphlets, interact with pedestrians and motorists. For more information: Aaron Padolsky, aaron.padolsky@gmail.com.
Fridays, 10 – 2 pm, Community Arts Hub, Quadra Village Community Centre, 901 King’s Rd., at the back: Rock Painting for the Arrestee Installation. Kids are welcome. We wear masks if there are more than three people. It’s a small space. Check the Community Arts Hub Facebook page for up-to-date information.
Nov 18, Friday, Government House: David Eby sworn in as Premier.
Late November Elders’ Action. Watch for an email from us!
Ancient Forest Reports
~ compiled by Bill Johnston
Another failing-grade old-growth report card
Hopefully, Premier-elect David Eby can do better. See here for more detailed report card. Bottom line? “Two of the three years to implement the B.C. government promises on old growth have passed. Yet, clearcutting of irreplaceable, endangered old-growth continues, even in the most-at-risk stands,” says Jens Wieting, Senior Forest and Climate Campaigner at Sierra Club BC.
“Instead of changing course, we are still marching towards ecosystem and climate breakdown. The window for action is closing. The next premier of B.C. must act swiftly before it’s too late.” See the press release here.
To complicate matters, the BC government is misleading the public about old growth according to this STAND.Earth report. “If the intent of the province was to pause logging so that a meaningful review of old-growth management can proceed, then this analysis shows that they have failed in the most important aspect—getting the industry to stop logging the most at-risk old growth,” explains report author Angeline Robertson. “The provincial government needs to stop patting itself on the back and refocus its energy to do everything possible to keep these old-growth forests standing,” says Tegan Hansen, Forest Campaigner at STAND.Earth.For those readers who like to understand the data, here’s an oldie but goodie from June 2022: Understanding BC’s old-growth logging deferrals by the numbers.
Blockades work, with our help!
Folks are actively protecting endangered caribou and old growth at the Argonaut Creek Blockade. In September, the Wilderness Committee found 72 recently approved cutblocks totaling 2,153 hectares in federally mapped critical habitat for caribou near Avola, located along the Thompson River between Clearwater and Valemount. Fifty-four of the cutblocks have been quietly approved since 2017 and are within the boundaries of the B.C. government’s ungulate winter range (UWR) order meant to protect endangered caribou and 12 overlap with proposed old-growth deferral areas. Watch this powerful and shocking video posted by the Wilderness Committee. And take action via this link.
Short-Sighted?
When updating the logging situation in BC’s forests, quoting leading industry sources can be instructive. From Logging and Sawmilling Journal, July/August 2022:
“Now, in 2022, it seems that the B.C. forest industry is being simultaneously assailed on a diversity of fronts. In the process, prosperity and plenty have been replaced by struggles and shortages. The industry’s operating environment has become ever more complex. Most of the major influencing factors involved are not made in B.C. Global weather changes associated with a warming climate are at the root of many of them.”—emphasis added.
Curious that the Logging and Sawmilling Journal makes no reference to the unsustainable practices which got us into this mess in the first place. It will be a great day when the large forest companies are forced to reform—e.g. no more clear-cuts, no more at-risk old-growth logging—and thereby reduce their role in the climate crisis.
An industry mouthpiece, View from the Stump, has this to say: “It is a certainty that by 2024, the forest industry will be smaller, much smaller….I suppose this mess is what you get when you let the Sierra Club dictate forest policy.” Actually, we Elders believe that this is what you get when the foxes are guarding the henhouse!
In the words of Dr. Rachel Holt: “For those engaged in management of forest and range ecosystems in BC, climate change provides a new context for decision-making. Mitigation of further impacts should be central to all decisions.”— from Climate Change and B.C.’s Forest and Range Ecosystems: A Vulnerability Assessment.
When in doubt, make pellets!
This is a perfectly ghoulish tale for Hallowe’en. First, enter the villain: Drax, owner of the world’s largest wood-burning power plant in the UK, which uses 10 million tons of wood pellets annually—more and more of it from BC—to produce 3.9 gigawatts of power and 16,000 kilotonnes of CO2. (Note: These emissions are not counted in the UK total as the energy source is considered to be sustainable.) In 2020, Drax is estimated to have received £832 million in UK government renewables subsidies for its biomass energy, up from £789.5 million in 2019. The 2019 Annual Report noted: “The vast majority of our business relies on subsidies.”
Secondly, cue villainess Dianne Nicholls, formerly BC’s Chief Forester, who two years ago touted development of BC’s wood pellet industry in a video made for the Wood Pellet Association of Canada. Despite scientific evidence to the contrary, she claimed this could be an important step towards a circular forest economy by using sawmill waste and “harvest residuals” to make a product in demand in overseas markets such as the UK.
Thirdly, with encouragement of the BC government, Drax began buying up BC wood-pellet manufacturers. In 2021, Drax bought BC’s largest wood-pellet firm, Pinnacle Renewable Energy, and this year bought out No. 2, Pacific BioEnergy, which closed its doors in March and laid off 55 employees. Drax now controls an estimated two-thirds of BC’s pellet production, plus 82% of Alberta’s and 44% of Canada’s overall. Nicholls was so impressed with their progress that in April 2022 she left her job to join Drax as VP Sustainability for North America. Read Ben Parfitt’s excellent April 2022 Policynote article on why this raises troubling questions.
Confused? Watch this excellent Fifth Estate video. “Amid the ongoing fight to protect British Columbia’s forests, The Fifth Estate investigates how the province has become a leading exporter of wood pellets that are burned to fuel energy needs in the U.K., Japan and South Korea. The industry is billed as ‘green’ and ‘renewable,’ but many scientists disagree and activists say Canada has made a mistake in supporting the industry.”
Not outraged yet? See this excellent August 2022 Policynote piece from Ben Parfitt: Will Drax’s claim that burning Canadian wood pellets is green go up in smoke?
Finally, in February 2021, a scientists’ letter to world leaders warned that biomass is a “false solution” to climate change. The scientists said: “In recent years there has been a misguided move to cut down whole trees or to divert large portions of stem wood for bioenergy, releasing carbon that would otherwise stay locked up in forests.” They concluded that “government subsidies for burning wood create a double climate problem because this false solution is replacing real carbon reductions.”
Want more? Check out these sources:
Oct 19, The Tyee, How many trees are falling for the wood-pellet industry?
Oct 23, The Narwhal, opinion piece: The absurd practice of cutting down BC forests just to burn them must end. Michelle Connolly is the director of Conservation North. Ben Parfitt is a policy analyst with the B.C. office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
If not now, when? If not us, who?
In 1992, the first old-growth review report to an NDP government noted: “Not only does the forest industry depend heavily on old growth for its current wood supply, but many new demands are being placed on the remaining old growth to satisfy a broad range of forest values. These pressures are leading to increased instances of conflict among supporters of competing land uses.” They added that time was running out: “In parts of the province, meanwhile, opportunities to reserve representative samples of old growth are dwindling rapidly.”
Then 28 years later, in A New Future for Old Forests, the April 2020 old-growth report to the Horgan government, authors Merkel and Gorley wrote that had the 1992 report been fully embraced, we would now likely not be facing “high risk to loss of biodiversity in many ecosystems, risk to potential economic benefits due to uncertainty and conflict, [and] widespread lack of confidence in the system of managing forests.” This time around, they advised, all 14 of the report’s recommendations must be implemented as a whole within three years’ time. How’s that going?
Food for Thought
The following is a summary from The Evergreen Alliance, a community of citizens, foresters, scientists and journalists collaborating to protect the future of BC forests.
Where will the revolution come from?
Logging companies are not going to change voluntarily. The only way they can survive from year to year, as currently constituted, is to maximise the area of forest they destroy. Government, under current legislation, is not going to change. BC’s Ministry of Forests has been captured by the industry and is not going to reduce the cut unless the political system shifts ownership of the Ministry of Forests back into public hands. And mainstream media, especially those companies still dependent on cheap paper, are not going to suddenly start arguing against their own economic interests.
Stopping BC’s war on nature and conserving what’s left of our primary forests depends on us. We need new ideas on how to connect the public with a complex set of issues. The institutions that the public relies on for understanding such issues are not telling the public the whole truth.
See Oct 18, Toronto Star, Carbon emissions from forestry masked by government accounting, says report
What’s Up in the Courts
Abuse of Process application denied
The Abuse of Process application was originally filed on behalf of a group of six people charged at ‘Ada’itsx/Fairy Creek with contempt of court. The application alleges that the RCMP operation to enforce the injunction exceeded the reasonable and acceptable law enforcement methods, amounting to a systemic and ongoing abuse of the court’s process thereby bringing the reputation of the justice system into disrespect. On this basis, the application asked that contempt of court charges be dropped for all of those arrested at ‘Ada’itsx/Fairy Creek.
A preliminary hearing, called a Vukelitch hearing, was held in front of Justice Thompson to determine if this application could proceed. He ruled that the application could proceed but that it could not apply to all those charged. Only those who specifically joined the application could be considered to have their charges dropped. He also asked that this matter be moved to a different judge. Justice Baird was appointed by the court to hear matters related to the abuse of process application.
On May 19, a joint application to drop charges based on systemic abuse of power was filed for an additional 121 arrestees. This was followed on July 11 by an application to formally join the trials together. In August, Justice Baird heard this joinder application and has finally, on November 1, delivered his judgement. The joining of the applicants’ trials together and the application to drop the charges based on systemic abuse of power has been denied.
This means that instead of one big trial that would highlight the unsavoury role of the RCMP in the enforcement of the Teal-Jones injunction and the 1,200+ arrests, any claims of abuse of process need to be put forward according to the original trial schedule—which grouped arrestees into 73 small groups, organized by date of arrest—and be heard separately. This means a lot more time and expense for those on trial, and also a huge drag on the court system. Lawyers working on the abuse of process application will now spend time analysing the decision and deciding on their next steps.
Many of you Elders reading this wrote affidavits to support this Abuse of Process case. We are assured by the lawyers representing the arrestees that these won’t be wasted. Justice Baird’s decision is a setback, but the trials will continue, and they will include the firsthand accounts pointing to abuses carried out by the RCMP.
Meanwhile, the court system moves slowly for the other forest defenders who didn’t apply to join the Abuse of Process application. To date, around 15 forest defenders have done jail time, with sentences of three to a maximum of ten days. Several dozen have been assessed fines or community service, and five more cases are slowly winding their way through the legal system.
Climate Emergency – Words from Greta Thunberg
“Greta Thunberg, the Cassandra of our times, always insists that we face the truth, hard as it may be.” This and the following excerpts are from Oct 8, 2022, The Guardian, Greta Thunberg on the climate delusion: ‘We’ve been greenwashed out of our senses. It’s time to stand our ground’
Greta on the climate delusion:
‘We’ve been greenwashed out of our senses. It’s time to stand our ground.’ [If we continue to be deluded] … What are we going to do? Well, the answer is the same as always: we will cheat … We will outsource our emissions along with our factories, we will use baseline manipulation and start counting our emission reductions when it suits us best. We will burn trees, forests and biomass, as those have been excluded from the official statistics. We will lock decades of emissions into fossil gas infrastructure and call it green natural gas. And then we will offset the rest with vague afforestation projects—trees that might be lost to disease or fire—while we simultaneously cut down the last of our old-growth forests at a much higher speed.… It gives me no pleasure whatsoever to keep calling out the bullshit of our so-called leaders. I want to believe that people are good.
… It will take many things for us to start facing this emergency—but, above all, it will take honesty, integrity and courage.
… We are approaching a precipice. And I would strongly suggest that those of us who have not yet been greenwashed out of our senses stand our ground. Do not let them drag us another inch closer to the edge. Not one inch. Right here, right now, is where we draw the line.
In the News
Nov 1, The Tyee, Emails Reveal a Key Forestry Regulation Is ‘Out of Whack’. Zoe Yunker follows an email trail showing a gap between the allowable cut limit and what firms are permitted to harvest
Oct 28, Anjali Appadurai letter to supporters
Oct 25, The Breach, How the NDP establishment stole the B.C. leadership race. A hard-hitting expose of the processes leading to Anjali Appadurai’s disqualification from the NDP leadership race
Oct 10, The Globe & Mail, B.C. Indigenous Conservation Plan Gets Private Backing. Article by Justine Hunter detailing progress towards Kanaka Band’s efforts to get backing for IPCA. Also available at this site
Oct 6, Sierra Club BC, BC closer to protecting critical bear den habitatOct 4, Energeticcity.ca, B.C. breaking its own law on climate-change reporting, Sierra Club tells court
Oct 4, National Observer, B.C. faces off against Sierra Club lawsuit, alleging inadequate climate plans
Oct 3, Times Colonist, B.C. study links policy changes and logging patterns, shows targeting of old growth
Oct 3, Victoria News, Old-growth forest supporters greet MLAs at BC legislature ahead of fall session: https://www.vicnews.com/news/old-growth-forest-supporters-greet-mlas-at-b-c-legislature-ahead-of-fall-session/
In Memoriam — Marion Cumming and Mark Nykanen
Two friends of ancient forests, Indigenous rights, and justice have died during the last few months. Both of them left legacies that will live on.
Marion Cumming was a poet, an artist, and a fierce supporter of the natural world and Indigenous rights. She was involved in the Clayoquot protests, and continued on protesting the logging of ancient forests in Fairy Creek and beyond (in later days with a walker). She and her husband Bruce were among the first settler Canadians in the land back movement. In the 1990s, they gave their New Brunswick farm to the Wolastoqiyik people. Marion followed up by donating her property in the Victoria area to the Victoria Native Friendship Centre.
Marion died August 1 at age 86. Her obituary is here.
Mark Nykanen died suddenly, on September 16, of a heart attack. He was 70 years old. Many of us remember him as the warm, wise and radical film-maker who rode with us several times on the Elders bus to Fairy Creek, and produced hard-hitting, insightful video footage on the destruction of old growth. Little did we know that before he turned his skills over to Extinction Rebellion and began documenting the logging of Fairy Creek, Mark had a prestigious career in investigative video-journalism that took him around the world. And in his spare time, he wrote thrillers! We honour him. Mark’s obituary is here. And here is a sampling of Mark’s truth-telling videos on Fairy Creek.
A Zoom memorial for Mark will be held this Friday, Nov 4, at 4 – 6pm. Meeting ID: 871 0209 1023. Passcode: 703010.
Resources
Watch a recent CBC video on the rare temperate old-growth rainforest near Revelstoke, and its importance for the mountain caribou.See Primeval: Enter the Incomappleux, a 20-minute documentary on this ancient rainforest in the Kootenays, from Damian Gillis and Valhalla Wilderness Society.
Three-part series Island of the Sea Wolves made on Vancouver Island and showing on Netflix. Beautifully shot footage with a rather anthropomorphic script. Ends with a tribute to old-growth forests threatened by logging.The latest instalment of Creeker, an anti-authoritarian zine documenting the ongoing ‘Ada’itsx/Fairy Creek blockade in so-called British Columbia, has been released. The newest offering in the series includes contributions on art, critique, movement history, personal reflection and poetry that were anonymously sourced from participants at the blockade.
Inspiration!
Be inspired by Voices from the Gallery, from the People’s COP, including Elder Bill Jones
Salmon Parks, a 10-minute documentary, follows an Indigenous-led movement to recover wild salmon and restore critical watersheds amidst the looming threat of industrial-scale logging in British Columbia’s Nootka Sound. The film reveals an inseparable interconnectedness between wild salmon and ancient forests while aiming to help secure the establishment of Salmon Parks in Mowachaht, Muchalaht, and Nuchatlaht First Nations’ traditional territory, respecting Nuu-chah-nulth law while securing recognition from federal and provincial governments.