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Reprint from Volume 28 Number 21 October 20, 2016 UBCM passes resolution to protect old-growth

onservationists with the are The lead-up to the provincial election next May puts big celebrating—the province’s largest lobby for local pressure on the government to change course, says the paper. It governments, the Union of BC Municipalities, has passed states: aC resolution with a substantial majority calling on the government ‘There is a legitimate discussion to be had about the value of to amend the 1994 Land Use Plan to protect the old-growth forests, about whether what remains on the South remaining old-growth forests. The initiative, sponsored by forest Coast and is sufficiently protected, about the ecologist and Metchosin councillor Dr Andy MacKinnon, was extent to which the remaining inventory should be protected, and previously passed last April by the Association of Vancouver about resource jobs and the rights of companies to do legal Island and Coastal Communities (AVICC). business. Surely, however, there is also a clear role for the ‘It’s time that the BC government amend the outdated provincial government, which has duties of both environmental Vancouver Island Land Use Plan to protect the remaining old- stewardship and resource management, to serve as an growth forests on Vancouver Island,’ said MacKinnon. ‘Our old- intermediary in such conflicts by providing clear, science-based, growth forests are a non-renewable resource, given climate change arm’s-length evidence as the foundation for an even-handed and the short rotation age of forestry in this province, and the conversation and to help the two groups whose interests it science indicates that we need to protect and restore old-growth represents to find common ground. More leadership and less forests on much of the coast.’ lethargy from Victoria, please.’ BC’s largest local governmental lobby is joining the BC The catalyst for much of the momentum for protecting old- Chamber of Commerce, the conservation movement, and growth forests on Vancouver Island in recent years has been the thousands of citizens to ask the BC Liberal government to protect small community of , formerly a logging town, old-growth forests. which has been transformed in recent years into a big tree ‘After the California redwoods, Vancouver Island’s old-growth tourism destination (dubbed the ‘Tall Trees Capital of ’). forests are the grandest on Earth. With 75% of the original Hundreds of thousands of tourists come from around the world productive old-growth forests already logged, including well over to visit some of Canada’s largest trees in the nearby Avatar 90% of the largest trees in the valley bottoms, it should be a no- Grove, Big Lonely Doug (Canada’s 2nd largest Douglas-fir tree), brainer for the BC government to protect our last old-growth the (the world’s largest Douglas-fir tree), San Juan forests while ensuring a sustainable second-growth forest Spruce (until recently Canada’s largest Sitka spruce tree—until industry,’ said TJ Watt, Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner and its top broke off in a recent storm), the Harris Creek spruce (one photographer. of the largest Sitka spruce trees in Canada), and the endangered The editorial board of Vancouver Sun, the province’s largest Central Walbran Valley. newspaper, also called on the BC government to show The Ancient Forest Alliance and various conservation groups conservation leadership for Vancouver Island’s old-growth mobilized supporters to ask their mayors and councils to pressure forests. The paper noted that current old-growth logging is the UBCM to allow for a vote on the old-growth resolution; the ramping up conflict and uncertainty in the forest industry and UBCM’s Resolutions Committee had originally refused to requires government leadership. introduce the resolution for a vote at the AGM. 0

© Island Tides Publishing Ltd. This article may be reproduced with the following attribution, in its entirety, and notification to Island Tides Publishing Ltd. ‘This article was published (October 20, 2016) in ‘Island Tides’, an independent, regional newspaper distributing on the Canadian Gulf Islands, on Vancouver Island and, via the internet, worldwide.’ Island Tides Publishing Ltd, Box 55, Pender Island, BC V0N 2M0 • 1-250-216-2267 • [email protected] • www.islandtides.com