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Tag Archive for: Sierra Club BC

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Enviro groups and Indigenous leaders condemn logging of rare old-growth rainforest by BC government

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Clear-cut logging underway in Schmidt Creek, near globally-renowned orca rubbing beaches

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 15, 2018

The Wilderness Committee and Sierra Club BC have visited Schmidt Creek and confirmed logging has begun in BC Timber Sales (BCTS) cut blocks in the valley. The blocks, all located on steep slopes, were auctioned off this spring, sparking concern over the potential for landslides so close to important orca rubbing beaches at nearby Robson Bight.

Schmidt Creek is located in Tlowitsis-Ma’amtagila territories, draining into Johnstone Strait between Sayward and Telegraph Cove on northeastern Vancouver Island.

“This type of logging does not have the blessing of the title holders and rightful stewards of these valleys,” said Rande Cook, Head Chief Makwala, Hamatam (Seagull) House, Ma’amtagila. “Non-Indigenous governments and institutions like BCTS need to understand that this type of reckless logging is not sustainable or respectful.”

BCTS is a stand-alone agency of the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development that manages around 20 per cent of the annual cut on provincial land.

“The clear-cutting underway right now is happening on steep slopes where there was evidence of heavy erosion and landslides even before any logging and road building,” said Vancouver Island Campaigner Torrance Coste, for the Wilderness Committee. “The B.C. government is putting water quality, orcas and sensitive ecosystems at risk with its logging operation and that’s something everyone in B.C. needs to be aware of.”

Past logging elsewhere in Schmidt Creek by Lemare Lake Logging has had significant impacts in the watershed and the risk of more serious landslides so close to orca-rubbing beaches has local whale experts worried. Lemare is the prime contractor for the current round of BCTS cut blocks.

“Lemare Lake Logging is doing this logging for BCTS and they have one of the worst environmental and safety reputations on the coast,” said Mark Worthing, Conservation and Climate Campaigner for Sierra Club BC. “Premier Horgan and Minister Donaldson have a duty to ensure the environment and the public interest are protected and we’re not seeing that in Schmidt Creek and neighbouring valleys with remaining old growth.”

Less than 10 per cent of productive, low-elevation old-growth rainforests remain on Vancouver Island and the species, Indigenous cultural practices and sustainable tourism activities that depend on them are at risk.

In its 2017 election platform, the BC NDP promised to, “apply an evidence-based scientific approach to land-use planning, using the ecosystem-based management of the Great Bear Rainforest as a model for managing old-growth forests.” The B.C. government has not yet made any progress toward implementing this election commitment.

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, 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.

Wilderness Committee and Sierra Club BC activists weren’t able to document most of the recent cutblocks in Schmidt Creek as logging is still underway, but the groups plan to return to the valley in coming weeks.

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Click here for more photos of Schmidt Creek.

For more information, please contact:

Torrance Coste | Vancouver Island Campaigner, Wilderness Committee
250-516-9900, torrance@wildernesscommittee.org

Mark Worthing | Conservation and Climate Campaigner, Sierra Club BC
250-889-3575, mark@sierrclub.bc.ca

 

Recent aerial video footage of the Schmidt Creek valley on Vancouver Island by Daniel Pierce:

Event: Is LNG ‘clean’? The fracked up truth

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Thursday November 22, 2018

18:30-20:30

HiVE Vancouver
210 – 128 West Hastings Street

Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Territory (Vancouver)

Hosted by Sierra Club BC and the Wilderness Committee

The federal and provincial governments say that “Clean LNG” will baseline BC’s new economy while acting on climate change, but what does LNG—liquefied fracked gas—really mean for our future?

Join us for an evening of conversation with experts from across the province as they uncover the truth behind LNG as an immediate threat to Indigenous rights, public health, and the climate we rely on. Speakers include Freda Huson, Unist’ot’en Hereditary Spokesperson, Marc Lee, Senior Economist from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, and Élyse Caron Beaudoin, health researcher at the Université de Montréal.

Come learn about why this is a critical moment in the LNG and fracking industry’s trajectory. Let’s talk about using this unprecedented opportunity to change course towards an economy that truly respects the environment and the lives it supports.

RSVP on Facebook

This event takes place on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

Accessibility info:

HiVE is up a flight of stairs and there is no elevator, unfortunately. The building is located on bus routes #20, #14, #16 with #22 and #19 one block away on Pender Street. There are pay parking lots on Abbott and Pender streets.

Five big reasons the Site C megadam can – and should – still be stopped

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Paddle for the Peace. Photo by Louis Bockner.

By Galen Armstrong

November 1, 2018

Last week, the Supreme Court of BC handed down a big disappointment. The court did not grant a requested injunction to West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations, which would have stopped the destructive and expensive work on the Site C dam in northeastern BC until the Nations’ treaty rights case could be heard.

The judge hearing the injunction case did offer one slight silver lining, saying the full Treaty 8 infringement case must be completed before the Peace Valley is flooded. Still, all other destructive activities – land clearing, material relocation, excavation, road-building, and other work digging us all further into a $10.7+ billion dollar hole – can continue. Valley flooding is scheduled to begin in 2023, and the judge believes the full treaty trial can be completed by then.

BC and Canada have made a lot of big mistakes. And this is one it’s not too late to correct. Here are five reasons the Site C dam should still be stopped:

  1. Treaty rights cannot and should not be ignored. It’s shameful that BC’s government, despite having promised to uphold the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), is determined to forge ahead with this project. The Site C dam would flood more than one hundred kilometres of the Peace River and its tributaries, in a place where 85% of the territory is within 500 metres of industrial disturbance. Land and water available for First Nations to practice their traditional way of life is ever diminishing, and this is in direct conflict with treaty rights.
  1. It still makes more financial sense to stop the dam, than to continue it. We’re in year four of a ten-year project, and there are billions on the table that could still be saved. Once upon a time, this dam was expected to cost $6.6 billion. The official price tag is now $10.7 billion. Expect it to soar higher. And this does not include, of course, losses of farmland, ecosystem services, edible fish, or sacred cultural and historical areas. Some families have already been forced to leave.  Others, including the Beam family and farmers Ken and Arlene Boon await their eviction notices. Our hearts are with them. And then there’s the next legal challenge. If West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations win their civil treaty rights case, BC Hydro will have nothing to show for the billions of ratepayer dollars they’ve spent.
  1. Dam safety concerns have not been addressed – and are not going away. A major landslide – the Old Fort Slide – started a month ago, forcing the evacuation of an entire community – and it’s still moving. It’s only a kilometre from Site C but BC Hydro says there is no evidence that the slide is related to the megaproject. There have been calls for an independent safety review, and they have been ignored. This landslide should make us all think twice about the wisdom of building a dam on shale – and BC should conduct an independent safety review.
  1. While climate chaos stares us down, our governments are pushing LNG. The BC government is still denying a Site C-LNG connection. But the implication that Site C power will be used for LNG has been there all along, and has resurfaced with the approval of LNG Canada. Site C is being paid for by BC Hydro ratepayers, and oil and gas corporations like LNG Canada have been offered big electricity discounts to support fracking in northeastern BC for LNG export. Fracking and producing LNG will make our provincial climate targets impossible to meet. On top of this, a new study shows that dams and their reservoirs produce 25% more methane – a potent greenhouse gas – than previously thought.
  1. Concerns about downstream impacts have not been addressed. The Peace River flows into northeastern Alberta, into the Peace-Athabasca Delta in Wood Buffalo National Park. People living in and around the delta saw big impacts when the Bennett Dam was built, and we expect to see further impacts with Site C. This area is one of of the world’s largest inland freshwater deltas and a global treasure. UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee called on the Government of Canada to address impacts to the delta, and their response is still forthcoming – all while dam building continues. Read more about Treaty 8 Nations of the area and threats to the Peace-Athabasca Delta.

Galen paddles on the Peace River. Photo by Louis Bockner.

We haven’t given up the fight

We are continuing to stand with Treaty 8 First Nations against the Site C dam. I attended and tweeted from two days of the injunction hearing and spoke at a rally outside the courts. Earlier this year, we participated in a 7-stop tour organized with Ken and Arlene Boon, organizing events on Salt Spring Island and helping out in Sooke. Over $13,000 was raised across the tour to support West Moberly & Prophet River First Nations legal challenges, as well as the Peace Valley Landowner Association. Sierra Club BC’s Quadra Island Local Group raised $3,500 in two hours at their coffee house with musician Luke Wallace as part of the tour.

We’re keeping Site C’s impacts in the national and international spotlight. After we worked with the Mikisew Cree First Nation to initiate a UNESCO mission to Wood Buffalo National Park and the Peace-Athabasca Delta within it, Canada refused to assess Site C’s impacts on the delta. So I took a trip to Wood Buffalo with photographer Louis Bockner to draw attention to this huge, internationally significant delta. Reporter Judith Lavoie joined us to report on the story. Several short videos and a collection of stunning photographs highlighting threats to the delta were released in a series by The Narwhal in June. Canada was given until December 1, 2018 to come up with an action plan to properly protect Wood Buffalo National Park, but now the deadline has been pushed to February 1, 2019. We’ll be holding the federal government’s feet to the fire on its responsibility to protect this treasured landscape.

The Peace-Athabasca Delta, one of the world’s largest freshwater inland deltas. Photo by Louis Bockner. See more photos of the delta region here.

We’re continuing to call out the BC government’s support of LNG development. We believe Site C power is integral to planned LNG industry development, and this means taxpayers and ratepayers will be on the hook for enormous public subsidies to fracking and LNG companies. We’ve sent a letter calling on the BC government to cancel public subsidies to the fossil fuel industry and invest in alternative renewable energy projects.

We are working for bigger changes to make sure projects like Site C never get this far again. The BC government’s decision to proceed with Site C underscored the need for electoral reform. It is highly unlikely projects such as Site C would have been approved under proportional representation. Voters who want to see politics done differently, including a reduction of the influence of powerful insiders, need to come together to vote in favour of proportional representation this fall.

I’m leading a team of volunteers making hundreds of phone calls to Sierra Club BC supporters to encourage people to vote for Pro Rep. Find out more about the referendum and how you can get involved with this campaign here.

Thank you for standing with us.

 

Feature image by Louis Bockner.

200,000+ people stand tall for ancient rainforests

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Hitting the streets with our canvass team in Vancouver. Photo by Shannon Elmitt

By Jens Wieting

November 1, 2018

Thanks to wonderful people – including you! – we’ve made incredible progress working to defend Vancouver Island’s last endangered ancient forests. Here are just a few highlights of what you’ve helped accomplish in the past 12 months on our old-growth forests campaign:

  • We’ve surpassed our goal of 10,000 letters sent by BC residents!
  • 223 scientists have called for protection of BC’s old-growth
  • We released a detailed map showing intact rainforest and recent destruction
  • We’ve welcomed more than 100 volunteers into our forest campaign
  • We hosted 12 events to talk forests with communities (and we have one coming up Tuesday November 6 in Port McNeill!)
  • Our forest team had a presence at more than 35 events
  • 171 phone calls have been made to BC’s forests minister
  • 125 days have been spent outdoors canvassing on forests
  • We released shocking images of recent logging destruction on Vancouver Island taken during a flyover by our campaigner Jens Wieting
  • BC-born celebrities Bryan Adams, Alexander Ludwig and Rachel Roberts have endorsed our campaign
  • We published a Forest Action Taker’s Guide for people who want to dive even deeper on forests
  • On the 25th anniversary of the historic Clayoquot Sound mass arrest, we released data showing more than 30% of Vancouver Island’s remaining productive old-growth rainforest in 1993 was destroyed in the past 25 years
  • We held a very successful forest action volunteer training weekend in October to take our campaign to the next level
  • We wrote to 437 candidates running in municipal elections on Vancouver Island asking them to step up to the plate for ancient rainforests
  • On October 25, Sierra Club BC and our German partner group Rainforest Rescue delivered a petition from more than 185,000 names of people around the world calling for the protection of ancient rainforests

Extensive logging in the Sarita River watershed. Note the clearcut extending nearly to the edge of the river.
Aerial photographs of southern Vancouver Island taken by Sierra Club BC Senior Forest and Climate Campaigner Jens Wieting in July 2018. Find more photos of destruction here

The international call for protection is echoed by tens of thousands of British Columbia residents who have already signed petitions launched by Sierra Club BC, the Wilderness Committee the Ancient Forest Alliance and Leadnow.

Rainforest Rescue spokesperson Mathias Rittgerott pointed out that the ongoing destruction of BC’s ancient rainforest undermines the positive image of Canada internationally—particularly the shocking fact that Vancouver Island’s last old-growth rainforest is being destroyed faster than in rainforests in tropical countries.

The international call for action and the ongoing clearcutting this old-growth rainforest worry Island tourism operators and experts. At the petition delivery, Scott Benton of the Wilderness Tourism Association of BC expressed significant concern that opportunities to experience old-growth forests are becoming increasingly rare in BC and particularly on Vancouver Island.

Scott Benton of the Wilderness Tourism Association of BC speaks about importance of ancient forests to tourism operators in BC. To his right, Oriana Smy of Outer Shores Expeditions joins in the call for protection. Watch a livestream of the petition delivery here.

Brian White, Professor at the Royal Roads University School of Tourism and Hospitality, said he is seeing growing disappointment and disbelief among tourists, who see the devastation of old-growth forests on social media. Vancouver Island has a reputation as a world class tourism destination partly due to its magnificent ancient forests, but this reputation is getting damaged and this has an impact on tourism businesses.

City of Victoria Councillor Laurel Collins pointed out that if the provincial government is serious about protecting species habitat and water, meeting climate targets, and supporting long term jobs in resource based sectors and tourism in rural communities, it must protect endangered ancient rainforest.

Most of the concerned citizens who signed the petition are from Canada, the United States, Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, Australia and Argentina.

In addition to jeopardizing BC’s tourism economy, the destruction of BC’s globally rare, endangered old-growth rainforests also threatens biodiversity and Indigenous cultural values. 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.

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.” Following through on this promise would benefit the well-being of communities, biodiversity, clean air and water, long term forestry jobs and one of the world’s most efficient carbon sinks.

But one year into taking power, the BC 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 asked the BC government to receive the petition two days earlier. The petition was received by Forest Minister Doug Donaldson’s assistant without offering any comment.

We take this as another signal that the provincial government does not take the old-growth forest crisis very seriously and that it will take a lot more pressure from British Columbians to change this.

We are committed to building strong support for protecting old-growth forests with our call for action at www.rainforestisland.ca.

Please join us in the fight.

 

Feature image by TJ Watt

Event: Let’s Talk Forests Port McNeill

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What: A conversation on what’s happening in Vancouver Island’s forests and potential paths forward
When: Tuesday, November 6 from 7:00pm to 9:00pm
Where: Tia’s Cafe – #4-1705 Campbell Way, Port McNeill

Sierra Club BC’s Conservation and Climate Campaigner Mark Worthing will be visiting Port McNeill with representatives from the Wilderness Committee to talk forests.

 

Forests and the industries they support are changing on Vancouver Island. Join Sierra Club BC and Wilderness Committee for presentations and discussion about forests, and share your ideas about how we make forestry in a changing climate work for communities, Indigenous peoples and ecosystems.

Vancouver Island’s iconic rainforest is under threat — much of the original old-growth rainforest has been cut down, and many ecosystems have been pushed to the brink. In an era of climate change, the importance of healthy intact old-growth rainforests couldn’t be greater.

How do we make a just transition to sustainable second-growth forest industry in a way that recognizes the rights, title and authority of the Indigenous Nations who have thrived here since time immemorial? How do we ensure old-growth is protected in a way that works for local communities? How will forests, and forestry be impacted by global climate change?

Over the last year, our organizations have held 10 townhall-style meetings in several communities on Vancouver Island, including Port Hardy and Campbell River. We know forests and forestry are the heart and soul of Port McNeill, and we want to connect talk forests with you.

We’ll present the facts on what’s happening in Vancouver Island’s forest, and highlight potential solutions and paths forward. Most importantly, we want to hear ideas from the residents of McNeill, Alert Bay and Sointula on how to better manage these precious ecosystems.

We hope you can join us!

This event is being held on the territories of the Kwakwaka’wakw people.

Dismissal of Treaty 8 First Nations’ Site C injunction request a disappointing step backward for reconciliation

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Oct 24, 2018

Sierra Club BC released the following statement from Peace Valley campaigner Galen Armstrong in response to the B.C. Supreme Court’s rejection of West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations’ Site C injunction request:

 

“Today’s decision is a major disappointment.

“Treaty 8 First Nations deserve to be heard on the question of whether flooding more than 100 kilometres of the Peace River and its tributaries would be an infringement of their treaty rights. This question needs to be addressed before the Peace Valley is flooded.

“The provincial government’s decision to push forward with the Site C dam against the wishes of First Nations is a big step backward in the process of reconciliation.

“The Site C dam is a costly cultural, environmental and economic mistake. A major landslide still underway near the dam site highlights safety concerns for those living nearby and raises the spectre of BC Hydro ratepayers footing an ever-growing bill for the $10.7 billion dam. We are paying to subsidize the cost of electricity for oil and gas corporations like LNG Canada whose fracked gas operations will make our provincial climate targets impossible to meet.

“It is the responsibility of our provincial and federal governments to hit pause on the project until – at the very least – Treaty 8 First Nations can have their day in court on the question of treaty infringement.

“There is still time to cancel the dam, save billions of dollars of public money, and move forward again with reconciliation and our governments’ commitments to uphold the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”

Site C is the largest of many industrial projects in Northeastern B.C., which is Treaty 8 territory. Nations such as West Moberly and Prophet River have the legal right to hunt, fish and continue their cultural practices, but with roads cutting through the landscape to make way for new fracking wells, undisturbed land and clean water is in short supply. The cumulative impacts from industrial harms has all but been ignored by the provincial and federal governments.

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Contact:Galen Armstrong
Peace Valley Campaigner
Sierra Club BC
(778) 679-3191
galen@sierraclub.bc.ca
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