Petition to Protect Vancouver Island's Ancient Forests and Jobs
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Whereas:
- Vancouver Island's ancient forests and natural areas are of great importance for conservation.
- Vancouver Island's forests are endangered by excessive logging, road building, mining, suburban sprawl, and Crown land privatization.
- 73% of Vancouver Island's productive ancient forests have already been logged. Of its original, productive ancient forests, 99% of the Coastal Douglas fir zone, 90% of the low elevation, valley bottoms, and 87% south of Barkley Sound have been logged.
- 13% of Vancouver Island's total land base is protected, but this includes only 6% of its productive forests.
- Conservation biology studies show that small, isolated protected areas, like most of Vancouver Island's parks, eventually become "islands of extinction" where species die off due to inbreeding, disease, and disturbances as industrial developments surround and isolate protected areas from other natural habitats.
- Parks and protected areas greatly enhance Vancouver Island's tourism industry, recreational opportunities, and the quality of life of its residents.
- Forestry jobs can be sustained while logging rates are reduced by increasing the number of jobs in the value-added wood manufacturing sector, thereby creating more forestry jobs per volume of wood cut.
- It has been over a decade since the Vancouver Island CORE (Commission On Resources and Environment) Land Use Plan was implemented in 1994. A renewed land use plan is long overdue.
Therefore, we the undersigned, call on the BC Liberal government to:
- Immediately enact old-growth logging closures in the most endangered old-growth forest types, in low elevation valley bottom forests, and south of Barkley Sound/ Horne Lake where little old-growth remains.
- Phase-out all old-growth logging from the rest of the Island by 2015, allowing the logging industry to make a transition into second-growth forests.
- Expand Vancouver Island's protected areas system through a renewed land use plan.
- Establish a sustainable rate of cut that is based on a 250 year rotation age instead of an 80 year rotation age.
- Ban raw log exports. All trees cut down in BC should be used for manufacturing jobs in BC.
- Establish regional log markets to make wood available to value-added manufacturers.
- Halt the rapid privatization of public (Crown) lands.
- Expand Community Forests and Woodlot Licenses to provide greater local employment in rural areas.
- Restore public service employment levels in the Ministry of Forests, Environment, and Agriculture and Lands which have been severely cut over the past several years.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
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