Nicholas Simons

…As a result of the shift that is occurring in forestry policy, premier John Horgan announced on June 9, that our government is honouring the request by the Pacheedaht, Huu-ay-aht and Ditidaht First Nations to defer logging in the Fairy Creek Watershed and the Central Walbran Valley for two years. …all decisions around deferrals require consultations with the respective Indigenous nations. This is a key part of our work implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. There is an overhaul of forestry policy taking place right now in our province. This is not a fast or easy process, but it is well underway. …While this announcement was one important step, we know there is a lot more work to do. That’s why our government will announce more old-growth protections this summer, following ongoing consultations with Indigenous rights and title holders.

Doug White

A conversation with distinguished Indigenous lawyer Doug White (Kwulasultun). …What does the Hišuk ma c̕awak Declaration mean? “The Pacheedaht are in a similar position that the Tŝilhqot’in Nation were 25 years ago… Provincial tenures and logging permits are inconsistent with our title. We need to figure out our own plans for these lands. So B.C., you need to take a pause … so that we can work out our approach to these forests and to this Aboriginal title landscape,’”. …Do Fairy Creek forestry agreements respect Aboriginal rights and title? The Pacheedaht First Nation’s most recent Forest Consultation and Revenue Sharing Agreement with the province, completed in February, gives them $242,338 for the first year of the three-year term. …How can forestry respect free, prior and informed consent? When nations take back control of their traditional territories there is also the standard of “free, prior and informed consent” to consider, which is recognised in UNDRIP.

Let’s call Premier John Horgan’s forest policies what they are — a colonial defence of talk and log and a moral failure to protect the province’s remaining old growth forests. Horgan has sparked a brutal new war in the woods by denying two realities: our forests have been massively overcut for little added value, and we are now nearing the long-predicted end of our old-growth forests. In this regard Horgan and his government share with Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro a disregard for the value, work and beauty of primary ancient forests.  …But there is a bigger problem with these colonial agreements. The government offered the Pacheedaht no other economic alternatives or ecological choices. …All of my life I have supported Indigenous rights and title. But using First Nations’ rights as a weak excuse for logging the last vestiges of biological diversity in this province and… is morally wrong.

VicPD are looking for witnesses after the Queen Victoria statue located on the grounds of the BC legislature was vandalized Friday afternoon. It is believed protesters are responsible for splashing cans of red paint on the statue’s podium and also vandalized the statue with the words “Land Back”. Police believe the incident occurred during a protest against old-growth logging at around 2:30 p.m. this afternoon. “During a protest gathering at the B.C. Legislative Assembly, a group of people moved to the Queen Victoria statue on the north side of the Legislature grounds and vandalized it with red paint,” VicPD said in a media release. It’s unclear whether these two events are linked. …“Safe, peaceful and lawful protest is permitted under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Vandalism is not,” said VicPD.

…The B.C. government has agreed to plans by the Huu-ay-aht, Ditidaht and Pacheedaht First Nations to defer logging in Fairy Creek and Central Walbran for two years while they develop stewardship plans, but logging continues in old-growth forests elsewhere in B.C. and around the world. “Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history … and the rate of species extinctions is accelerating,” according to a May 2019 global assessment report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). …The IPBES message is urgent: Our survival depends on nature and we must stop destroying it. …Humans have taken over most terrestrial portions of the planet for roads, towns and cities, agriculture and resource extraction. We are one species of perhaps nine million, yet we claim most of the planet for ourselves.

About 60 protesters from the climate activist group Extinction Rebellion marched from Vancouver’s City Hall on Saturday to the intersection of Broadway and Cambie where they called for an end to all old-growth logging in the province. It’s the latest show of support for activists on southern Vancouver Island who continue to defy a court injunction that makes it illegal to block logging activities at forested sites between Port Renfrew and Cowichan Lake. Extinction Rebellion, which is known for large-scale demonstrations around the world against what it calls government inaction on climate change, says it also wants a commitment to net zero carbon emissions in the province by 2025. “The government has broken the social contract by failing to protect the country, because we’re in a climate and ecological emergency, ” said Zain Haq, an organizer with Extinction Rebellion.

Despite a two-year deferral of old-growth logging on some parts of South Vancouver Island, arrests have continued as protesters dig in around the Fairy Creek, Caycuse and Walbran areas. In Victoria on Friday, demonstrators raised the decibel level with a mass protest at the legislature that was marred by vandalism. The base of the towering statue of Queen Victoria along Belleville Street was covered in red paint as the demonstration wound down Friday afternoon. More than 1,500 people gathered on the legislature’s front lawn, demanding the province halt the cutting of all old growth. …The deferral stops logging on 2,034 hectares in the Fairy Creek area… as First Nation groups determine a stewardship plan. However, Surrey-based Teal Jones Group confirmed operations have shifted to other areas, and crews continue to cut trees, including some larger ones — although the company is abiding by provincial standards for what is considered a protected tree.

Michele Babchuk

People across British Columbia have been raising their voices and expressing their concerns about old growth logging, including right here in the North Island. These forests are important to every single one of us, myself included. It’s where we love to spend our time. We also have a lot of people working in our forests on the North Island, and we know that our communities depend on them. And these forests are on the traditional territories of 27 First Nations here in the North Island. Everyone in the North Island… know that we need to do more to conserve them. Our forestry practices are in desperate need of an update, and Indigenous communities who have been ignored by governments need to have their voices heard. That’s the work our government is doing now.

VANCOUVER, BC – On June 10^th, thirty-four Canadian tree planting companies with over 6000 planters aligned efforts to celebrate the first annual Canadian Tree Planters’ Cross Canada Plant. Every year, approximately 600 million seedlings are planted in Canada. This is accomplished through a well-organized supply chain and significant physical labour, requiring long, exhausting days. …The value of planting trees is growing and a goal for the Cross Canada Plant is to raise the profile of tree planters and tree planting companies. It’s about witnessing the amazing work that is accomplished by the Canadian planters throughout the planting season. “We are ready to participate in growing Canada’s forests and help in Trudeau’s vision of Planting 2 Billion trees in 10 years. …The Cross Canada Plant is co-sponsored by Blue Green Planet Project, Cariboo Carbon Solutions, PRT Growing Services, and Western Forestry Contractors’ Association.

There could be an unexpectedly long hiatus between spring and summer planting in B.C. as Interior crews are finishing up ahead of schedule in many parts of the province. This creates a challenge for employers as it likely means workers may have to spend more time mixing with the herd between the end of spring and the start of summer planting jeopardizing their COVID-19-free crew status. Contractors will meet next week to discuss best practices to restart for the summer planting period beginning early July. British Columbia has almost 60-million hot-lift seedlings to plant between then and the end of August. …For the most part crews have remained safe from the virus. Unfortunately, two companies were jointly involved in a full-blown outbreak including 10 workers, one of whom died. Otherwise out of 4600 workers four other companies did have infected planters on crews.

Forestry companies on the coast are dependent on old-growth logging for at least the next decade because second-growth trees aren’t yet big enough to be harvested, says the co-author of an old-growth strategic review. Registered professional forester Garry Merkel said forest companies told him and co-author Al Gorley, that they all have long-term plans to phase out dependency on old-growth in roughly 10 to 20 years. Until then, they’re dependent on old-growth forestry for survival, he said. Torrance Coste, national campaign director for the Wilderness Committee, said second-growth trees have not grown enough to be harvested because companies have logged too much too quickly, and he rejects the notion that there’s nothing that can be done to eliminate the logging industry’s dependency on old-growth trees. …Old-growth trees make up about a quarter of all harvesting in the province… said Susan Yurkovich, president and CEO of the B.C. Council of Forest Industries.

PORT RENFREW, B.C.—News travels the old-fashioned way in the off-grid, makeshift village that serves as the headquarters of the Fairy Creek blockade — through gossip.  Seniors in camping clothes and brimmed hats, younger activists and a small gathering of Indigenous youth talk over bowls of soup cooked in the community kitchen, or while hanging out the back of camper vans, about what to do now that a substantial part of the cause they’re fighting for has been won.  They’re all here — hundreds of activists using nicknames such as “Elk,” “Firewolf” and “Snarkypants” — on this strip of logging road set up with a kitchen cabin, cellphone charging stations and holes for toilets, to fight old-growth logging in the pristine Fairy Creek watershed on southern Vancouver Island.