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New threat to Brazil’s Amazon rainforest highlights the need to protect rainforests worldwide

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Sierra Club BC’s Mark Worthing surveys old-growth logging near Schmidt Creek. Photo by Torrance Coste

January 14, 2019

When people think about the fate of the rainforest, many have a tendency to worry about tropical rainforests first. Few are aware that many of the world’s temperate rainforests are in similar danger.

For example, did you know that Vancouver Island’s productive ancient rainforests are being destroyed three times faster than Brazil’s Amazon rainforest?

That’s why this month, as Brazil’s new president Jair Bolsonaro acted immediately to remove protections for the country’s rainforest after taking office in January, Sierra Club BC called for increased protection of globally important rainforests—in the Amazon, on Vancouver Island and beyond.

The protection of the world’s rainforests, their spectacular biological diversity and the rights of the Indigenous people living in them is a global concern. So too is their role for clean air, clean water and a stable climate. And now, worldwide concern about the future of the Amazon is growing as President Bolsonaro has declared he wants to open large areas of the rainforest for extraction of natural resources and limit further protection of the lands of Indigenous peoples.

As of 2018, about 80% of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest remains intact (compared to pre-1970). In the last 25 years, close to 10% of the rainforest was destroyed (3.7 million square kilometres remained in 1993 and 3.3 million square kilometres remained in 2018).

On Vancouver Island, only about a fifth of the original productive old-growth rainforest remains unlogged. More than 30% of what remained standing in 1993 has been destroyed in just the last 25 years (684,000 hectares or 31% remained in 1993 and 469,000 hectares or 21% remained in 2018).

Bolsonaro’s rise to power is a huge threat for the future of rainforests, biodiversity, Indigenous rights and our climate. It’s also a reminder that B.C. is not taking its global responsibility seriously. Like Brazil, we need to ensure intact rainforests remain standing before it’s too late.

One step B.C. must take is to set a strong example of rainforest protection that respects Indigenous rights and title while creating new jobs through improved management of second-growth forests. The Great Bear Rainforest Agreements showed solutions for healthy rainforests and healthy communities are possible.

Globally, the loss of primary forests is threatening species, carbon storage, clean air and clean water. In Canada, this is mainly through the replacement of rich ancient forests with even-aged young forest.

Vancouver Island’s old-growth rainforests are being lost at an alarming rate. Read more about this map and download a high resolution version here.

On average, temperate rainforests store more carbon than tropical rainforests, helping to slow down global warming. When left intact, they are relatively resilient and less vulnerable to climate impacts such as fire and insect outbreaks compared to other forests. B.C.’s temperate rainforests represent the largest remaining tracts of a globally rare ecosystem, covering just half a per cent of the planet’s landmass.These big trees provide some of the best carbon sinks on the planet and irreplaceable long term economic value for tourism, recreation and businesses seeking locations with a high quality of life.

Yet the current rate of old-growth logging on Vancouver Island alone is more than three square metres per second, or about 34 soccer fields per day.

The NDP’s 2017 election platform included a commitment to act for old-growth, promising to take “an evidence-based scientific approach and use the ecosystem-based management of the Great Bear Rainforest as a model.” But the B.C. government has not yet taken any meaningful steps to protect endangered coastal and inland old-growth ecosystems outside the Great Bear Rainforest.

Sierra Club BC, Wilderness Committee and the Ancient Forest Alliance, along with thousands of citizens, have called on Premier John Horgan and forests minister Doug Donaldson to protect remaining old-growth rainforests in areas like Schmidt Creek, the Nahmint Valley near Port Alberni and the Manning Park Donut Hole on the mainland. The B.C. government has ignored these calls to date.

Without immediate action it will soon be too late to protect remaining intact rainforests and endangered ecosystems outside of the Great Bear Rainforest to safeguard threatened species, Indigenous values and a livable climate.

Please stand with us and make 2019 a big year for the protection of B.C.’s endangered old-growth rainforest, before time runs out. Donate today

On Eve of Enforcement Trial, Canada’s Civil Society Calls for Chevron’s Assets To Be Frozen So Ecuador Judgment Can Be Paid

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Canadian environmental justice, labor, human rights, and First Nations groups blast Chevron and call for justice for Ecuadorians

September 7, 2016

Some of Canada’s largest environmental, labor and civil society organizations have now joined the growing international community demanding that Chevron clean up its toxic waste in the Ecuadorian Amazon and cease selling its assets in Canada while a debt collection action proceeds to force the company to comply with its US $10 billion liability to the people of Ecuador.

In a public letter released today, more than one dozen Canadian organizations – including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Idle No More Canada, MiningWatch, Sierra Club and Sierra Club British Columbia, United Steelworkers, and Unifor – condemned Chevron not only for its actions in Ecuador, but its efforts to silence critics and abuse the civil justice system to evade paying the Ecuador judgment.

The letter was published less than a week before a trial is scheduled to begin in Toronto to seize Chevron’s assets in Canada to force the company to comply with its liability to remediate what many call the “Amazon Chernobyl” in Ecuador. Chevron confessed to deliberately dumping billions of gallons of toxic oil drilling waters over the course of decades in Ecuador’s Amazon, resulting in massive environmental devastation and a health crisis affecting thousands of people. Every court that has considered the evidence in Ecuador – including the country’s Supreme Court – ruled against Chevron, yet the company still refuses to pay and has dragged out multiple legal battles in different countries over the course of decades to avoid paying for a cleanup. As a result, the communities in Ecuador affected by the pollution have been forced to pursue Chevron to Canada to collect on the company’s debt.

The letter also calls on Canadian authorities to prevent Chevron from selling any of its Canadian assets before a decision can be reached in the trial, stating that it “would set a terrible precedent for other corporations intending to evade responsibility for environmental and human rights crimes.” It has been reported recently that Chevron is already trying to sell several billions of dollars worth of its estimated US $15 billion in Canadian assets. Chevron, after insisting the trial take place in Ecuador and promising to abide by any judgment there, stripped its assets from the country as the evidence mounted against it. The trial in Ecuador lasted from 2001 to 2013, largely because of the company’s deliberate strategy of delay.

“The global community knows Chevron is guilty of deliberate and massive contamination in Ecuador,” said Paul Paz y Miño, Associate Director of Amazon Watch. “Wherever Chevron runs to try to escape justice, the company will find itself already exposed as a global polluter and corporate criminal.”

“The Canadian environmental and human rights community has joined forces with the affected communities in Ecuador because we recognize this to be one of the most important corporate accountability cases in history,” said Melina Laboucan-Massimo, Climate & Energy Campaigner with Greenpeace Canada. “Chevron must not be allowed to evade its legal and moral responsibilities simply because it has the might to fight on indefinitely in the courts,” she continued.

“Canadians want justice for Ecuador’s indigenous people. Prime Minister Trudeau should help them get it,” added Beatrice Olivastri, CEO, Friends of the Earth Canada. “Canadians are working to make our country a place where the victims of transnational corporations can find justice – not to deny justice to people who have already suffered so much harm,” said Jamie Kneen, Communications and Outreach Coordinator of MiningWatch Canada.

“For too long oil companies have operated with impunity, leaving a legacy of environmental destruction and human rights abuses,” said Sierra Club BC Campaigns Director Caitlyn Vernon. “Whether in Canada or around the world, oil companies such as Chevron, Enbridge and Kinder Morgan must be held accountable for oil spills, climate change impacts, and their treatment of local and indigenous populations.”

“The people of Canada are not fooled by Chevron’s tactic of smearing the very people it poisoned in an attempt to escape justice for crimes it admitted to in Ecuador,” said Kevin Koenig, Amazon Watch’s Ecuador Program Director. “The Supreme Court of Canada sided with the Ecuadorians unanimously and we expect Chevron will lose once again.”

“Unlike Chevron’s retaliatory SLAPP suit in the United States (also condemned by many human rights and environmental NGOs), the company will have to respond in Canada based on the merits of the case and its actual conduct in Ecuador,” Koenig added. “Chevron stands no chance of winning on those grounds. It’s time for the company’s management team to stop delaying the inevitable, because every day it drags this case on more Ecuadorians get sick and die from toxic contamination and the more the company’s own reputation suffers.”

“We are grateful that the people of Canada, just like their Supreme Court, have chosen to side with those of us affected by Chevron’s deplorable actions when it polluted our communities and water supply. The indigenous peoples of Ecuador deserve full access to justice and a healthy environment so that we and our Amazonian neighbors can live with dignity,” said Humberto Piaguaje, President of the Union of Affected Communities in Ecuador who will be in attendance.

Image by Phil P. Harris

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