Today (March 21st) is International Day of Forests!
On this day it is worth taking an overview of some progress in forest conservation, driven by millions of concerned citizens who have spoken up - including tens of thousands of Endangered Ecosystems Alliance (EEA) supporters! And by recognizing progress when it happens, it fuels everyone to keep going, to ensure more progress - because what we all do makes a difference!
In British Columbia where we've focused on protecting old-growth forests, there is a major positive shift underway by the provincial government - all driven by massive citizens and First Nations pressure.
For the first time in decades, the BC government opened the door to a major policy overhaul on old-growth management policies - after decades of policy stagnation - by announcing a public input panel, the Old-Growth Strategic Review Panel, in the fall of 2019, and adopted its full recommendations in October of 2020 (in principle).
The BC government officially recognized the priority of protecting old-growth forests with the big trees (the "high productivity" old-growth) that are most heavily logged, and not the small trees (the "low productivity" old-growth of small "bonsai" trees in bogs, subalpine landscapes etc.) - for the first time in history after 50 years of PR-spin of saving the small trees and logging the big trees. They did this by accepting the mapping analysis and the recommendations (in theory) in the fall of 2021 of their appointed science panel, the Technical Advisory Panel, who said to defer old-growth logging on 2.6 million hectares of the grandest, oldest and rarest old-growth forests across BC.
The BC government in conjunction with many First Nations has now implemented old-growth logging deferrals on over 800,000 hectares across the province, in BC Timber Sales operating areas (570,000 hectares largely of the finest medium to high-productivity old-growth forests) and in some of the most iconic and hard-fought old-growth forests in BC (Clayoquot Sound, much of the Central Walbran, McKelvie Valley, Incomappleux Valley, etc.) between September of 2020 and November of 2021, with a lot more coming (which will be the big struggle yet...).
The BC government finally has put forward significant funding - $185 million in the last budget a month ago, to help protect old-growth forests, with funding for workers support and transition, contractors support, and First Nations economic support and old-growth protection (perhaps half of this total...and still only about one-third of what the province must contribute...but still this is a big step forward from $zilch).
That is, step by step, the pieces are being laid down for a major scale move to protect old-growth forests - as long as the PRESSURE keeps up (a broad-based, large scale movement that moves the mainstream - the average British Columbian, rather than already dedicated environmental activists - is vital) and FUNDING expands to support First Nations old-growth protection initiatives from governments and conservation organizations (at least $800 million is needed for First Nations sustainable economic development linked to old-growth protection...sounds daunting, but already about half of that is available between the federal and provincial governments, and there are other potential sources which we will write about soon.)
Nationally, the federal government has adopted a significant conservation target to protect 30% by 2030 of the country's land and marine areas, in line with much of the international community, and 25% by 2025 as an interim target. Quebec even has a 22% by 2022 target.
The federal government has also put forward an unprecedented $2.3 billion to expand protected areas across Canada over 5 years for Indigenous Protected Areas, private land acquisition, endangered species habitat protection, and more. They have committed $50 million specifically to protect old-growth forests in BC (and say they can do more) and a much larger pot of about $300 million is available to expand protected areas in BC.The federal government has taken some historically unprecedented leaps forward to promote protected areas in Canada, but need to go further.
The resulting effect has been that First Nations and conservation groups have been able to increasingly bear-down pressure on the conservation laggard provincial governments to do their parts too - with increasing momentum to expand protected areas in the forested regions in southern Canada (so far, most protected areas progress in the productive southern forest lands in Canada has been in Nova Scotia). But they are still laggards, for now.
Thus, the big push of 2022 is to get the conservation laggard provinces to adopt the national/ international protected areas targets of 25% by 2025 and 30% by 2030 and to provide their own funding to drive forward the actualization of those targets - and for both the federal and provincial governments to develop protection targets for all ecosystem types (so that protected areas are not overwhelmingly placed in treeless Arctic and alpine tundra, glacial ice caps, and in bogs, muskeg, subalpine landscapes, etc. with relatively low industrial threats), that is, "ecosystem-based targets".
But make no mistake, there is huge progress forward on protected areas in Canada - the most in history - and that progress will continue as thousands of you continue to speak up! Thank you most gratefully!!
- Ken Wu, Celina Starnes, and Nick Davis
The Endangered Ecosystems Alliance (EEA) team