Brian Fuller, Cheryl Chapman and Craig Kennedy

The sky is the limit for Indigenous students, north of Williams Lake, where Brian Fuller is helping lead them through a 16-week program learning how to cut wood using a portable swing mill. “I’ve been a part of something like this already with Toosey (Tl’esqox), so you kind of get an idea what you’re getting into, but it’s fun,” Fuller said …Forestry and safety consultant Craig Kennedy started working with Xat’sull economic development and employment co-ordinator Cheryl Chapman last August and had assisted her in putting forward a successful application for the program which is funded by the B.C. Government and Cariboo Chilcotin Aboriginal Training Employment Centre. He had helped oversee a similar program with Tl’esqox First Nation (Toosey) at Toosey Old School and Training Centre west of Williams Lake where four participants cut wood to build a dovetail home in 2017.

Protesters staged logging skits using chain-less chainsaws in Centennial Square on Friday, then marched with placards to the legislature demanding that the provincial government stop ­cutting old-growth forests. About 250 people took part in the Victoria march. Thousands more hit the streets in 28 communities across the province. Others bombarded social media channels with “virtual blitzes,” calling on leaders for more sustainable forest management in British Columbia. Regine Klein, who has been part of the blockade at the Fairy Creek logging site near Port Renfrew for months, said the co-ordinated event across the province sent a strong message. “We have been waiting decades for a government that values and prioritizes old-growth forest protection on Vancouver Island,” said Klein. She said the NDP government should see the march as “the last shot across its bow,” before protests escalate “that will make the 1990’s Clayoquot Sound war in the woods look like a quaint disagreement.”

Leah Morgan

A rally was held in Nanaimo to demand an end to logging of remaining old-growth forests on the Island. The Worth More Standing forest march drew about 50 people to Maffeo Sutton Park in downtown Nanaimo on Friday, March 19. The march was part of provincewide action to show solidarity among communities demanding a reformation of B.C.’s forestry legislation… Nanaimo’s rally and march, which included speeches and music followed by short march to stage a demonstration on the Pearson Bridge on Terminal Avenue, was promoted by Extinction Rebellion Nanaimo and Vancouver Island Water Watch Coalition. …Leah Morgan, representing Extinction Rebellion Nanaimo said protesters manning logging road blockades leading to old-growth forest at the Fairy Creek watershed near Port Renfrew also need support to “hold the line so we can preserve that forest.”

Jamie Hibberson, Dave Parsons and Roy Schiesser

Concerned citizens met with forestry executives at an environmental demonstration at Grand Forks March 19. The demonstration was part of  ForestMarch BC… Picketers from the Boundary Forest Watershed Stewarship Society (BFWSS) held signs calling for sustainable logging practices in the region. …BFWSS president Roy Schiesser said the group was concerned about “changes to the landscape” he said will be documented in the society’s upcoming report on…provincial logging guidelines. Standing next to Interfor’s Dave Parsons and Jamie Hibberson, who manage the company’s lumber mill in Grand Forks and its area re-forestation programs, Schiesser said that Premier John Horgan had recently made “a lot of talk” about sustainable forestry. …Hibberson said he and Parsons had come to hear the demonstrators’ concerns. …Hibberson said, “forest management is a very complicated process,” noting that Interfor’s harvesting practices meet the province’s legislative framework. “Nothing we do is outside of that framework,” he stressed.

Communities are staging protests across B.C. on Friday, urging the province to protect at-risk old-growth ecosystems from logging and to establish a new forestry framework. Almost 30 communities are planning demonstrations, actions or activities as part of this year’s Forest March BC, and more will likely come on board as the hours go by, said organizer Taryn Skalbania on Thursday. “This upswell is because now we’re all seeing the effects of industrial clear-cut logging right in our backyards,” Skalbania said, adding she is helping co-ordinate protests in Peachland. “There’s so little amount of cheap, accessible forests left, and they’re (operating) near our parks, protected areas, and they’re logging community watersheds.” The third annual Forest March is a grassroots initiative supported by a growing coalition of community groups alarmed by provincial inaction around the recommendations outlined in a provincial report on old-growth forests, Skalbania said.

Rob Douglas

Rob Douglas wants to see forestry managed at a regional level on Vancouver Island as a part of a pilot project to test the concept. Douglas, a councillor in North Cowichan, said he would like the province to… shift decision-making power from big corporations and senior bureaucrats to the community level. He made the motion, which passed, at a council meeting on Feb. 16, and it will be submitted for discussion at the next meeting of the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities in April. …Douglas said that after discussions with members of other municipalities in B.C., as well as the Ministry of Forests, it was decided that best approach was to advocate for a pilot project in a region of the province to test the new management system, instead of the whole province all at once.

Too often, politics is focused on the short term. We see it everywhere: Support for clear-cutting the last stands of old-growth forest, fishing to the last fish, maintaining and even expanding the fossil-fuel industry. Only when it is almost too late do we act — and not always even then.The reason is not hard to find: The future doesn’t vote, nor does it fund campaigns or provide jobs for today’s voters. …But in a world where our ecological ­systems are under threat by a combination of population and economic growth, rising expectations and the widespread ­deployment of our powerful technologies, such an approach is a threat to our entire society and especially to our descendants. …So we need to change the way democracy and governance works. At the very least, we need to value future generations as much as we do the current generations.

B.C.’s New Democrat government, once an ally of environmentalists in protecting the province’s ancient forests, is now facing increasingly heavy criticism for its failure to stop the logging of the province’s remaining old growth trees. …Forests minister Katrine Conroy insists government has taken “a first step” by in September deferring logging in 353,000 hectares at nine locations, including Clayoquot Sound and McKelvie Creek on western Vancouver Island, as well as H’Kusam near Campbell River. …However, only a small fraction of the old growth Conroy deferred from logging is actually high-productivity and at risk of logging — and in some cases the province is double-counting forests it has already preserved. …The flashpoint of the entire dispute is Fairy Creek, an ancient temperate rainforest and valley near Port Renfrew. A group of protesters have blockaded access to the area for almost eight months in a bid to prevent forest company Teal Jones from logging in the area.

A northern spotted owl found injured near San Francisco has arrived at a British Columbia breeding facility where the adult male is expected to find a mate and potentially contribute to a strengthened gene pool for the threatened species.  It took months of logistical work to bring the owl nicknamed Cali to the Northern Spotted Owl Breeding Program in Langley after rehab stints in California and Oregon, says Jasmine McCulligh, a spotted owl specialist and breeding program co-ordinator.  …Four-year-old Cali brings the potential to help produce stronger offspring if he finds a mate among the female spotted owls at the Langley facility, McCulligh said.   …Protection of spotted owls has fuelled decades-long disputes between environmental groups and the forest industry as their future is often tied to saving old-growth forests where they live.