The Ancient Forest Alliance is a grassroots environmental organization in British Columbia, Canada. It was founded in January 2010, and is dedicated to protecting British Columbia's old-growth forests in areas where they are scarce, and ensuring sustainable forestry jobs in that province.
Mission
The objectives of the Ancient Forest Alliance, as stated on their website, are to:Main page for the Ancient Forest Alliance
Undertake a Provincial Old-Growth Strategy that will inventory the old-growth forests in BC and protect them where they are scarce (i.e. Vancouver Island, southern Mainland coast, southern Interior, etc.) Ensure the sustainable logging of second-growth forests, which now constitute the majority of forest lands in southern BC. End the export of BC raw logs to foreign mills in order to ensure a guaranteed log supply for BC mills and value-added processing facilities. Assist in the retooling and development of BC coastal sawmills and value-added facilities to handle second-growth logs. Undertake new, democratic land-use planning processes to protect endangered forests based on new First Nations land-use plans, ecosystem-based scientific assessments, and climate mitigation strategies through forest protection.
History The Ancient Forest Alliance was founded in January 2010 by former Western Canada Wilderness Committee activists Ken Wu, TJ Watt, and Tara Sawatsky, along with old-growth activists Katrina Andres and Brendan Harry from Victoria and Michelle Connolly from Vancouver. The founders were prompted to start the new organization when the Western Canada Wilderness Committee announced in late 2009 that it was both closing its Victoria storefront and reorganizing its Victoria office in a way that they felt reduced its focus on old growth forests.Youmans, Jason. 2010. "Old Forests, New Twist." Monday Magazine, January 20.Lavoie, Judith. 2010. "Island forest group strikes out on its own". Times Colonist, January 20. Holman, Sean. 2010. "Wu in the wild." Public Eye, January 19 The objective of the Ancient Forest Alliance was to fill a different niche than the Western Canadian Wilderness Committee by focusing specifically on old growth forests and by not obtaining status as a charitable organization, which allows it to either endorse or condemn politicians based on their forest policies.Hill, Edward. 2010. "Old-growth forest activists launch new group". Goldstream News Gazette, January 20.Wu, Ken. 2010. New eco-group points to resource depletion as the driver behind the collapse of coastal forestry jobs and ecosystems. The Victoria Naturalist, vol. 66.6, May–June. By March 9, 2010, less than two months after its creation, the Ancient Forest Alliance had grown to over 6,000 Facebook members.
Organization
The Ancient Forest Alliance currently has a board of directors consisting of Victoria conservationists and former Wilderness Committee activists Ken Wu, TJ Watt, Tara Sawatsky, and Vancouver activist Michelle Connolly.Clarke, Brennan. 2010. Prospect of logging in Douglas fir ecosystem above Nanoose Bay worries neighbouring municipalities. Globe and Mail, April 30. Most of the work has been volunteered by the board of directors and supporters, but in March, 2010, the Ancient Forest Alliance launched a fundraising drive so they could hire core staff and pay for campaign costs.
Although the Ancient Forest Alliance is registered as a non-profit society in British Columbia, they have declared that they will not register as a charitable organization.Vandergugten, Nic. 2010. Alliance protects ancient forests. Nexus Newspaper, March 18. The lack of charitable status makes fundraising more difficult, because they can not issue tax receipts for donations. However, it also allows them to reject or endorse specific political candidates, based on their stance on old growth forests, while charitable organizations cannot take partisan political positions.Canada Revenue Agency. September 2, 2003. Policy statement: Political activities. CPS-022. The Ancient Forest Alliance has said that they will organize in swing ridings to have maximum effectiveness in influencing government policies.
The Ancient Forest Alliance has also stated that they will "help empower, train, and guide new citizens' groups that are going to fight for ancient forests", which they feel will help them run an effective campaign on a much smaller budget than larger environmental organizations. Since 2007, Ancient Forest Committees have been founded in various universities and regions of Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, including the University of British Columbia,The College Sustainability Report Card 2010. Assessment for the University of British Columbia Simon Fraser University,Jones, Stefanie, and Eric Rinne. 2010. "Big, green, carbon-eating machines." The Peak: The Independent Student Newspaper at Simon Fraser University, March 15. and the University of Victoria.University of Victoria Sustainability Project. 2010. Working list of environmental organisations on campus. These Ancient Forest Committees are autonomous, volunteer-run organizations that are independent from the Ancient Forest Alliance, but endorse its goals and strategies, and collaborate on certain events such as rallies, hiking trips, and activist training gatherings.
Campaigns
Documenting ancient forests and giant trees The Ancient Forest Alliance has stated that they will "explore and document endangered ancient forests, record-sized heritage trees, and areas destroyed by old-growth logging." Photographer TJ Watt has been exploring and documenting old growth forests and giant trees for the Ancient Forest Alliance.Haim, Daniel. 2010. "TJ Watt Exclusive Interview Canadian Landscape Environmental Photographer". Bloginity, February 17. http://www.bloginity.com/arts/photography-gallery/tj-watt-exclusive-interview-canadian-landscape-environmental-photographer/13231/
Protecting the Red Creek Douglas fir trees The approximately 1000-year old Red Creek Fir is tall and wide, is located near Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island and is one of the largest Douglas-firs in the world. (In 2010, it was thought to be the world's largest.)GreenMuze Staff. 2010. "World's Largest Douglas Fir Under Threat." GreenMuze, March 1. In February 2010 the Ancient Forest Alliance announced that they had discovered new logging tape within a few hundred metres of the Red Creek Fir, and that they feared it might soon be surrounded by a clearcut, making it susceptible to blowdown and reducing its tourism value.A News Vancouver Island. 2010. "Giant Fir Threatened." A News Vancouver Island, February 24.Lavoie, Judith. 2010. "Largest Douglas fir in the world at risk say environmentalists". Times Colonist, February 25.Lavoie, Judith. 2010. "World's largest Douglas fir at risk, fearful environmentalists charge". The Vancouver Sun, February 26. The Ministry of Forests has stated that the area immediately surrounding the Red Creek Fir is protected from logging, and that there are no plans to log the surrounding area in the immediate future. TimberWest, which owns the surrounding area, has confirmed this, stating that the logging tape does not necessarily mean that it will be logged, and that they are not planning on logging the area within the next year or two.Lavoie, Judith. 2010. "No logging plans near giant fir: TimberWest". Times Colonist, March 6. The Red Creek Fir is an important tourist attraction for the nearby town of Port Renfrew, according to the local Chamber of Commerce. TimberWest has said that they recognize the value of the tree, and are looking at improving access to it for tourists. The Ancient Forest Alliance installed a new sign at the Red Creek Fir, and were asking the British Columbia government to establish a Provincial Heritage Trees designation that will identify and protect the 100 largest and oldest specimens of each of the province's tree species.
The Alliance helped to publicize the issue of clearcutting of old-growth forests on Vancouver Island with a September 2016 article by Harley Rustad on their web site about that same Red Creek Fir tree, which by then, had been named Big Lonely Doug and declared to be Canada's second largest Douglas-fir tree.https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/04/24/big-lonely-doug-second-largest-fir-canada_n_5206970.html, Big Lonely Doug Officially 2nd-Largest Fir In Canada According to the Rustad article, the tree had been saved in 2011 by surveyor Dennis Cronin in an area that was scheduled for clearcutting. (Cutblock number 7190, twelve hectares on the north bank of the Gordon River.)https://www.ancientforestalliance.org/feature-big-lonely-doug/, Feature: Big Lonely Doug Originally published by The Walrus, where the article won a silver National Magazine Award (2018),https://www.harleyrustad.com/portfolio/big-lonely-doug, Big Lonely Doug the story helped to re-ignite interest in the clearcutting issue and attracted additional coverage by the major news media. Several publications subsequently ran similar articles about clear-cutting, featuring photos of the Big Lonely Doug tree in an area with no other remaining old-growth trees. Most recently, in early September 2019, the Toronto Star published a feature about the issue, titled "He lived in a forest for hundreds of Years, Now he must live in a clear-cut." Doug had become a tourist attraction by then, marked on Google Maps.
The Alliance has remained active in the clearcutting issue on Vancouver Island. In April 2019, it was one of the groups lobbying to prevent additional logging of a 109 hectare old-growth forest adjacent to the Juan de Fuca Provincial Park in the Port Renfrew area, known as the Tall Tree Capital of Canada. In May 2019, the logging plan was postponed by the provincial government.
Protecting Avatar Grove The Ancient Forest Alliance is campaigning to protect a 10-hectare stand of 80-metre tall old growth Douglas-fir and western red cedar that is 15 minutes outside of Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island, Canada.Lavoie, Judith. 2010. "Environmental group: Protect rare forest giants marked for logging near Port Renfrew". Times Colonist, February 19. It was discovered by TJ Watt and has been nicknamed Avatar Grove.Sullivan, Paul. 2010. "Pandora fans feeling blue over the Earth." Metro Canada, March 17.Macleans "Need to Know" column. 2010. "Threatened B.C. forest dubbed the "Avatar Grove"." Macleans, March 11. The Ancient Forest Alliance claims that this is one of the most spectacular and most accessible stands of ancient trees in a wilderness setting that remains on southern Vancouver Island, and that it is one of the only examples in the region of old growth forest on a valley bottom. One of the giant cedars in Avatar Grove has numerous huge burls and has been dubbed "Canada's gnarliest tree".Pynn, Larry. 2010. Deformed cedar puts new face on old-growth protection on Vancouver Island. Vancouver Sun, March 25 and March 26. The Teal-Jones Group has cutting rights for the area, and while the Ministry of Forests reports that logging is prohibited in a portion of Avatar Grove, the Ancient Forest Alliance maintains that the majority is still unprotected.Lavoie, Judith. 2010. "Rare stand of old-growth trees near Port Renfrew only partly protected says eco-group: Port Renfrew wants big trees saved, but many marked for cutting". Times Colonist, February 20. John Cash, president of the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce, has said that he supports the protection of Avatar Grove because of its potential for increasing tourism in the area. On March 28, 2010, the Ancient Forest Alliance organized a trip to take volunteers, community members, and media to see Avatar Grove.Youmans, Jason. 2010. The Week - April 1. Monday Magazine, April 1.
Three-step program for the Post-Avatar Blues