Webinar

How to meet with your MLA about Old Growth

September 2026

We constantly hear from Provincial decision-makers that they aren’t hearing enough from their constituents about old-growth forests, clearcutting, and the need for meaningful forestry reform.

That’s why we partnered with Stand.earth for a hands-on workshop to prepare you to meet with your MLA. Watch the recording below!

Now that you’ve watched the recording. You can review the steps to booking a meeting:

Call or email your MLA’s office to schedule a meeting: Call or email your MLA’s office, and don’t be shy about following up: try again after a week, then again after two.
Research your MLA: Find out what your MLA cares about and how they’re connected to your community so you can build a real relationship.
Craft your agenda: Start with introductions, bring 2-3 key points (meetings are usually only 30 minutes), and end with a clear ask.
Develop your agenda: Facts matter, but a moment from your own life is what will actually move your MLA and stick with them.
Practice: Run through your story and points with a friend or in the mirror. It’ll help you feel ready.
Meet with your MLA: Remember, your MLA works for you. It is their job to represent their constituents and their concerns, so you have every right to be there advocating for the change you want. You got this!

These helpful steps are based on Stand.earth’s MLA Engagement Toolkit for Constituents: How to Advocate for Old Growth and Book a Meeting with Your MLA. Click here to review this more comprehensive guide.

If you need extra support, don’t hesitate to reach out to Riley at forests@stand.earth or Joelle at joelle@sierraclub.bc.ca. We can support you through every step and work through them together.

Explore more resources from the webinar

How to find your electoral district
‘Closer to the Brink’ Report. Read the report
Stand.Earth’s MLA Engagement Toolkit for Constituents
Find your MLA by Constituency here
Stand.Earth’s key points messaging. Read the document

Meet the Speakers

Joelle Burnie

Joelle is a forests campaigner at Sierra Club BC. She is an experienced organizer and campaigner, with a focus on forestry reform and old growth protection.

Over her 8 years of working for environmental non-profits, Joelle strives to bring community together to unite, feel the impact of collective action, and most of all: feel joy admits the climate crisis. From organizing fun and energizing letter writing events, boogies for biodiversity, to building empowered teams of volunteers and leaders, Joelle inspires and motivates communities to take action. With a unique background in deep canvassing, Joelle brings compassionate curiosity, story-telling, and non-judgmental listening to her work to find common ground on issues that divide us.

Desiree Wallace

Desiree is an organizer at Stand.earth, and formerly a digital campaigner for the organization. She has worked with the Northern Forests campaign team for the past 6 years focused on old-growth forest protection and stopping the international expansion of the forest biomass industry. With a background in documentary storytelling, she also produced the film Fracking the Peace with the Oil and Gas team.

Desiree’s heart will always be with grassroots climate and social justice movements, and frontline Indigenous communities where they began. She is a third-generation settler of European ancestry, and is a queer, neurodivergent person with chronic health struggles, which shapes the way she shows up in movement spaces. Grief work and embodied liberation practices are central to Desiree’s approach, which they continue to deepen as a student and teacher-in-training of Embodied Ancestral Inquiry. They hold collective action, creativity, and joy as antidotes to despair, which strengthen connection and fuel revolution in these harrowing times.

You will catch them dancing and playing music in community, and encouraging everyone to join, as an expression of these values.