The Wilderness Committee says the province’s latest plan for old-growth forests is underwhelming and lacking in any new interim measures to protect the most endangered old-growth forests.
The environmental group says the new plan, called From Review to Action, continues to focus on previously announced measures and is “classic 1990’s-style ‘talk-and-log.”
It says the government continues talking about how to implement commitments on old growth forests while withholding adequate protections for the most threatened stands.
The BC NDP government received the Old-Growth Strategic Review report in April of 2020, which called for the immediate protection of at-risk old-growth forests.
The Wilderness Committee says over a million hectares of the most at-risk old-growth forest remains open to logging and tens of thousands of hectares have been destroyed as additional reviews and engagement processes were held.
The group also says the document delays the release of the final Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework, a policy recommended in the old growth review and meant to prioritize wildlife and their habitat over resource extraction.
Joe Foy with the Wilderness Committee says too much old growth has already been logged, and “many species, including the spotted owl, have disappeared from much of their former range.”
Foy says in “dire times for biodiversity” permits to harvest in the last remnant old growth forests continue to be handed out, which he calls “a shocking dereliction of duty to future generations.”
The Wilderness Committee is calling for BC NDP government to respond quickly, including measures to prevent more old-growth forests and other biodiverse ecosystems from being lost.
