The Comox Valley and Campbell River network of grassroots community organizations and concerned citizens are joining other communities all over B.C. in Forest March BC’s call for sustainable forestry management, permanent conservation of remaining old-growth forests and the well-being of forestry workers.
With safety as the priority, participants will meet at the 17th Street Bridge in Courtenay from noon to 1 p.m., Friday, March 19 (on the unceded and traditional territories of Coast Salish and Kwakwaka’wakw peoples). Please observe mask, social distancing and pedestrian safety rules.
“For the past 10 years, BC taxpayers have subsidized timber companies’ profits (logging publicly-owned forests) by $365 million per year,” reads a press release. “As a result of decades of mechanization, corporate self-regulation and raw log exports, we’ve lost 52 per cent of our forestry jobs – and continue to lose six jobs daily - despite logging millions of hectares of iconic and irreplaceable old growth.
“BC needs equitable, nature-based and resilient community-first forestry management to provide more jobs with value added manufacturing, an end to most log exports and a Just Transition for affected forestry workers. Premier Horgan has been promising forestry reforms since 2017, but continues to authorize logging in the remnant Old Growth ecosystems for the benefit of a few private companies, despite the Old Growth Review Panel’s recommendation for an immediate moratorium on old-growth logging. With only about 35,000 hectares of very big old trees remaining, time is running out. Old-growth tree viewing is becoming a world-famous tourist draw providing constant revenue to communities rather than a one-time stumpage fee. Scientists warn that we need an immediate moratorium on Old Growth logging to protect BC’s biodiversity and slow global warming with its catastrophic economic and environmental costs, including increasingly intense wildfires and floods.”
The local committee invites the public to join in on March 19th and urge John Horgan to immediately stop logging old growth, at premier@gov.bc.ca or leave a message 250-387-1715.