RALLY: Island Timberlands – Hands Off our Old-Growth Forests! Tuesday, Oct. 22

• When: Tuesday, October 22, 2013
• Time: 12:30 – 1:30 pm
• Where: Cathedral Grove parking lot

Join a diverse collaboration of community groups standing together to stop Island Timberlands' ongoing and planned logging of high conservation value forests on Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast. Hold a sign, help leaflet tourists to raise awareness, or just come out to show your solidarity!

Island Timberlands is engaged in multiple assaults on highly endangered old-growth forests. This includes recent logging and/or road-building at McLaughlin Ridge, Juniper Ridge, Labour Day Lake, and the Cameron Valley Firebreak in the Port Alberni area; flagging Mount Horne, the mountainside above Cathedral Grove, for potential logging; plans to log the Stillwater Bluffs near Powell River and the Day Road Forest near Roberts Creek on the Sunshine Coast; and plans to log old-growth forests at Basil Creek and the Green Valley on Cortes Island. See spectacular photos of many of these forests at: https://ancientforestalliance.org/photos-media/

Most of these endangered stands consist of extremely rare groves of old-growth Coastal Douglas-fir trees, of which only 1% remain. Many stands in the Port Alberni area were previously intended for protection as Ungulate Winter Range for Roosevelt elk and deer, or as Wildlife Habitat Areas for endangered species like the Queen Charlotte Goshawk – until the BC Liberal government exempted the areas from these protections in 2004 when they removed these lands from their Tree Farm Licence.

Island Timberlands needs to immediately back-off from its logging plans in old-growth and high conservation value forests, while the BC Liberal government needs to protect these private forest lands through strong regulations or re-establishing a BC park acquisition fund to purchase them.

Old-growth forests are vital to support endangered species, tourism, clean water, wild salmon, the climate, and many First Nations cultures whose unceded lands these are.

Sponsored by the Port Alberni Watershed-Forest Alliance (https://www.watershedforestalliance.ca/); Elphinstone Logging Focus (https://www.loggingfocus.org/); WildStands (https://wildstands.wordpress.com/); Friends of Stillwater Bluffs (https://fosb.blogspot.ca/); Save the Day; and Ancient Forest Alliance (https://ancientforestalliance.org/).

For more info email: [email protected]