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How to meet with your MLA about Old Growth

How to meet with your MLA about Old Growth

Webinar | September 17 at 6:00 PM (PT)

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 silence creates political space for the status quo to continue. We want to change that. 

We’re working with local organizations and community members on a strategy to build sustained, visible pressure for stronger forest protection. A really important part of that strategy is helping people connect with their elected representatives. Join Stand.earth and Sierra Club BC for a hands-on workshop to prepare to meet with your MLA. You’ll participate in fun exercises to:  

  • Build a personal story that will move your MLA  
  • Draft a strong agenda with clear asks
  • Prepare background information to back your points – including how to respond to vague answers or deflection 
  • Get guided support to book the meeting  

Register today!

Why this matters

We know meeting with your MLA can feel scary or futile. The meetings are short, the answers can feel vague, and sometimes it seems like you’re hearing what they think you want to hear—not what they actually plan to do. 

But we cannot let that frustration silence us. We need to be loud. We need to be persistent. And we need to be impossible to ignore. 

Because when enough of us speak up, the B.C. government has no choice but to listen—and take action to protect more old-growth forests and the ecosystems, communities, and wildlife that depend on them. 

Come learn how to have a more strategic conversation with you MLA, connect with others who are organizing for forest protection and leave with a plan to take action.  

Let’s do the darn thing!  

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.

Photo Credits: Mya Van Woudenberg/Sierra Club BC