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  • Forest Conservation Organizations

    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    Mission:
    AWARE is committed to protecting Whistler’s natural environment by speaking up and taking action on environmental issues, while empowering others to do the same.
     
    Priorities: 
    SAFEGUARDING HABITAT, BIODIVERSITY & WILDERNESS VALUES
    We work to safeguard habitats and species to maintain connectivity of ecosystems, supporting wildlife and human health.
     
    BUILDING SUSTAINABLE, RESILIENT COMMUNITY
    We engage and empower our community to make smart choices, consume mindfully and consider impacts on the environment and the climate.
     
    Values:
    COLLABORATION AND PARTNERSHIP
    We collaborate with other groups because environmental protection is more effective when supported by consensus and when aligned with broader strategies. We approach all our partnerships with integrity, honesty and accountability and seek to partner with local organizations where there are shared values and/or opportunities for efficiency.
    COMMUNICATION AND EDUCATION
    We develop communications and outreach opportunities as public understanding, engagement and activation, lead to responsible stewardship of our shared natural assets. We create and deliver educational programs because change starts with knowledge.

    RESEARCH AND PARTICIPATION
    We take part in and coordinate research projects, in order to ensure what we do is based in fact and science. We participate in government and community processes because our natural resources and environment deserve a voice.
     
    Website 
     
    Map of Whistler's Old and Ancient Trees (click to enlarge)

     

     
    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    The Boundary Forest Watershed Stewardship Society is taking actions to address massive clearcutting in the Kettle Valley and Granby River watersheds.
     
    WE ARE A NON-PROFIT, grassroots, citizens’ society advocating for culturally, economically, and ecologically sustainable forestry practices in the forest and watershed of the Boundary Region. Our members have diverse backgrounds, interests and areas of expertise that include logging, government services, silviculture, fisheries, farming, advocacy, and environmentalism. Many have experienced the ravages of floods, fires, and drought first hand. All are deeply concerned about the looming threats of floods, wildfires and extended droughts with their evident increased intensity and frequency.

    We have in common the recognition that our forests are in crisis and as a result there are, already, dire consequences to the humans, eco-systems, biodiversity, and wildlife of our region. In May 2018, as a result of climate change factors and deforestation in our watershed, the Kettle and Granby Rivers flooded suddenly causing extensive and severe damage to rural homes, farms and rangeland. In Grand Forks and surrounding area, the flood damage was catastrophic. Less than 3 months later, the region was in extreme drought, a situation which lasted into late Autumn. Fourteen months later, the devastating impact of the flood continues to be felt economically, culturally, emotionally, and socially.

    While abundant evidence in our watershed demonstrates the need for forest and ecosystem restoration we believe there is a moral and fiscal imperative to shift forestry practices to a paradigm that treats forests as ecosystems rather than being driven by a paradigm that emphasizes growing timber – or to use industry speak, fibre – for mills. When getting logs to the mill as cheaply as possible is the name of the game, we, that is individuals, communities and all levels of government, are burdened with the costs that road building and clear-cut logging (and their aftermaths) generate.

    Clear-cuts can have an adverse effect on the environment, ecosystems, and biodiversity. Importantly, the rationale for prioritizing respectful management of ecosystems and biodiversity is environmentally, economically and socially prudent.

    Therefore, we applaud the government’s decision to provide the public with an opportunity to help re-shape forest policy. Changes to FRPA must reflect the urgent need to manage our water and, as much as possible, our climate.
    We know that when left intact our older-aged forests manage our water and help protect us from climate extremes especially because of their carbon storage capacity. Clear-cutting and associated logging practices destroy the composition, structure, and natural function of forests including managing water and climate. New tree plantations struggle to establish themselves; whether or not they attain the status of a forest with all of the complex ecosystems they are comprised of is a question we won’t know the answer to for a long, long time. Certainly, the current practise of 80-year rotations in our interior forest is foolhardy to say the least.

    With these issues in mind, surely we are obligated to agree that forestry practices must focus on the resilience, renewal, and complexity of ecosystems rather than Allowable Annual Cut considerations.

    The overarching objective must be the fostering of ecological resilience and renewal.

    BC forestry legislation must contain a hierarchy of objectives that puts ecosystem restoration, structure, function, and composition as a top priority. Doing so recognizes that healthy ecosystems best ensure other objectives (social, economic, cultural, protection) can be met.

    Reworking BC forestry legislation as quickly as possible is of paramount importance. British Columbians, who are entrusted with the care of our forests, will then have some assurance that the hard but necessary work can begin toward improving the ecological state of BC’s forests and, significantly, toward expanding and diversifying the overall BC economy. Ecology and prosperity are of great importance. However, we emphasize that without a healthy ecology there will be neither long-term nor well-distributed economic prosperity. ~ BFWSS
    Learn more about BFWSS at our website.
    Below, Boundary Forest Watershed Stewardship Society presents its report on what is wrong in the Boundary forests, outlines the costs of the forestry system to ecosystems and people, and proposes a solution to bring about a brighter future for both.
    PDF of the written report: Brighter-Future-for-Boundary-Forests-BFWSS-report-March-2021 (r).pdf
     

     
    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    Conservation North is 100% volunteer-run, donation-supported and science-based. We are in Lheidli T’enneh territory and advocate on behalf of nature in central and northern BC.
     
    What do we want?
    1. Full legal protection for remaining primary forests in the Inland and Boreal Rainforests, particularly the accessible areas currently targeted by industrial logging.
    2. Recognition of the values of primary forest beyond timber, including carbon storage, climate change resilience, cultural values, biodiversity, food, medicine and clean water.
    3. A just transition away from the industrial harvest of primary forest and towards second-growth forestry.
     
    What is primary forest?
    Natural forest of any age is called "primary forest’". Primary forest includes forest disturbed naturally, for example, by wildfire, wind or insects, but excludes forest that has been disturbed by logging, roads, or other industrial human activities. Not all primary forest is old, but all old growth is primary forest.
    Only 18% of Earth’s primary forests remain intact. In 2021 we mapped how much primary forest is left in BC. Click here for Seeing Red.
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    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    Clearcut logging is degrading the ecological integrity of the Discovery Islands, contributing to the climate and biodiversity crises and substantially raising overall forest fire hazard. Yet the economic value of the few jobs this form of industrial forestry provides on the Discovery Islands is more than offset by the cost of public subsidization of the industry. What can be done to restore ecological integrity and create a more prosperous forest-based economy?
    The Discovery Islands Forest Conservation Project has undertaken to quantify the physical impacts of logging on these ecologically sensitive islands, as well as the economic costs and benefits. We’re gathering leading-edge thinking about the creation of a new relationship with forests in which conservation and restoration of the ecological services provided by forests is the primary lens through which they are viewed. We are examining how these ideas could be applied here.
    This is the first community-based forest conservation project of the Evergreen Alliance. We hope to create more.
     
    Website
    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    The Ecoforestry Institute Society (EIS) is a registered non-profit, charitable society comprised of a volunteer Board and a strong core of community volunteers.  Together, we are dedicated to the principles and practices of ecoforestry – that is, demonstrating that we can harvest trees and plants from the forest while maintaining healthy and integrated ecological systems.  
    We place value on the services provided by nature such as the provision of the air that we breathe, hydrological systems that filter and distribute water, carbon sequestration, the nutrients that feed the forest through natural decaying processes, and wildlife habitat. 
    We believe it is essential to work within the capacity of nature, and that we can develop a viable economic framework built on the stewardship of an ecologically sound forest.  Economic value can be gained through the production of value-added wood goods and services, educational programming, ecotourism and related activities.  
    EIS is the Trustee of Wildwood Ecoforest and holds the property on behalf of the people of British Columbia.
     
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    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    The Fraser Headwaters Alliance: a brief history

    The origin of the Fraser Headwaters Alliance dates back to 1988, when a group of Robson Valley residents came together to form one of the area’s first conservation organization. Under the name Canoe-Robson Environmental Coalition (CREC), this group took on a variety of conservation issues including pesticide use and the conservation of old growth forests. CREC had neither staff nor office space, but provided a strong voice in opposition to an expansion in the Annual Allowable Cut (AAC), and in support of the community-based recycling initiative that later became Valley Recycling. When the BC Government began its Land and Resource Management Planning Process (LRMP) in 1993, Debbie Ladouceur represented CREC’s interests at the planning table and participated through three trying years of meetings.

    CREC became incorporated as a non-profit society under the BC Society Act in June 1997. The organization’s original mission statement was "to maintain and restore the ecosystem health and natural scenic beauty of the Canoe and Robson Valleys and all the watersheds associated with them." Keith Berg, Jane Houlden, Roy Howard, Seth Macdonald, Debbie Ladouceur, and John Grogan made up CREC’s first official Board of Directors.


    In March 1998, with funding from the Brainerd Foundation, CREC hosted a meeting in Dunster, with representatives from the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Silva Forest Foundation, Cariboo Mountain Wilderness Coalition, Quesnel River Watershed Alliance, BC Wild, Save the Cedar League, and Valhalla Wilderness Society present. At this meeting, a new group, the Fraser Headwaters Alliance, was formed to serve as an umbrella organization for groups concerned about conservation issues in the headwaters of the Fraser. In 1999, CREC officially adopted the name Fraser Headwaters Alliance and later that same year hired Roy Howard as FHA’s first full-time coordinator.
    Today, FHA has an annual budget of around $150,000 (still fairly modest, but something we are proud of nonetheless). Our Board of Directors normally meets on the first Tuesday of every month, and we hold frequent general meetings for our entire membership. Many of the people currently involved in FHA have been with us since 1988, while others have joined our ranks more recently. All of us share a love for our home place and a commitment to preserve in perpetuity the natural and cultural legacy of the Fraser Headwaters bioregion.
     
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    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    Friends of Carmanah Walbran recognize the Walbran Valley/Kaxi:ks as the traditional territory of the Pacheedaht First Nation. We are a grassroots, 100% volunteer run collective of individuals working to gain protection for these ancient forests and to work towards sustainable economic alternatives for local communities.
    Click to enlarge:

     
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    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    Friends of Clayoquot Sound (FOCS) was established as a non-profit society in Tofino, British Columbia, Canada in 1979. Our mission is to be peaceful, courageous advocates in protecting the ancient temperate rainforest, ocean, rivers and biodiversity of Clayoquot Sound.
    We are a grassroots environmental group. The efforts of our tiny paid staff are amplified by the work of volunteers.
    In the early 1980s we focussed on working with Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations to protect Meares Island in their traditional territory. This was the first time Canadians had blockaded loggers to prevent an ancient forest from being cut. The campaign received national attention and culminated in the Meares Island Tribal Park Declaration by the Tla-o-qui-aht. They were successful in getting a court injunction which to this day prevents development on Meares Island until the question of who owns the land (British Columbia has no treaty with Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations) is settled.
    The late 1980s were a time of burgeoning ecological awareness. In that global context, FOCS expanded its goal, from protecting Meares Island to protection of all of Clayoquot Sound. A series of logging blockades ensued, culminating in the mass protests of Clayoquot Summer 1993. In the iconic act of civil disobedience in Canadian history, 12,000 people attended our Peace Camp, and 856 people were arrested for peacefully blocking the road. This succeeded in drawing international attention, making protection of temperate rainforests a global priority.
    Much has transpired since 1993, including a lot of logging of ancient rainforests, but no company has yet begun logging the intact valleys.
     
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    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    Friends of the Lardeau River (in the Kootenay region) is a non-profit society focused on environmental protection of the Lardeau River and the fish and wildlife values supported by this river. Our goals are: •To promote and establish protected area strategy status for the Lardeau River • To coordinate and deliver a comprehensive fish and wildlife conservation strategy and habitat stewardship master plan for Lardeau, Duncan and North Kootenay Lake watersheds • To lobby and facilitate a series of fish and wildlife inventories and initiatives • To provide support ensuring the Lardeau River’s biodiversity is protected • To identify the impacts of the Duncan Dam and assess the biodiversity loss to flooding • To network with conservation groups, community, individuals, First Nations, youth, Governments, agencies, politicians and industry to meet our goals and objectives   facebook
    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    The purpose of the GWPS is to protect the ecosystem of the Glade watershed and separate PODs in Upper Glade, including maintaining current water quality, quantity, and timing of flow, while influencing the watershed processes to restore historical, natural levels of water quality, quantity, and timing of flow, and by consequence, to provide for the health and well being of the Glade community. The value that the forest adds to the health and welfare of all life is paramount and how we care for the elements of nature that provide us with these benefits should be foremost in our actions.
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    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    We are a small group of citizens concerned with a proposed forest harvest above the Duteau Creek Community Watershed reservoir near Lumby.
    In 2016 we were notified by Tolko of two proposed cutblocks, LV1243 on the west and LV1244 on the East side of Duteau Creek, directly above the Harvey Lake reservoir that supplies the Greater Vernon Water Utility’s Whitevale Water Treatment facility with water for distribution to the region. Since 2016, HOW has had many meetings with Tolko, RDNO, OKIB, MLAs, UBCO and, after two years of lobbying and two letters from our legal counsel, we were invited to present our objections to the Duteau Community Watershed Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) in April of 2019. The TAC members include RDNO, Tolko, MFLNRO, local Native American groups, and other ’stakeholders’.
    After that meeting, the RDNO became more opposed to the cutblocks, and Tolko put the LV1243 on temporary hold. LV1244, on the back of Bluenose Mountain, is on temporary hold due to Tolko not being granted access across private property.
    On Friday, April 21, 2021, HOW became aware of Tolko’s plan to commence building roads into LV1243 and proceed to harvest the cutblock in May of 2021. The RDNO has ‘adamantly objected’, as is evident from their recent press releases. HOW continues to engage with all stakeholders of the Duteau Creek Community Watershed and is working diligently to protect this environmentally sensitive area.
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    Taryn Skalbania
    The Interior Watershed Task Force is a coalition of more than twenty NGOs, Community Organizations, and Professionals that was initiated in 2023.  The IWTF advocates for the legal protection and preservation of water, primary and natural forests, wildlife and critical habitats in the BC interior. We are based in the Okanagan region of BC and respectfully live and work on ancestral territories of several First Nations.
     
    Next Event:

     

    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    As Juan de Fuca regional residents living on unceded indigenous territory we share this in common: We are gravely troubled by the staggering rate and volume of deforestation in our region. We believe that our forests are being grossly mismanaged, and that these lands which should represent our commons have been unjustly expropriated in the name of fast profit for industry shareholders, at the expense of ecological sustainability and what is literally the birthright ground for future generations.   Our vision is two-fold: 1. An outright moratorium on old-growth logging. 2. A consistent practice of sustainable forestry that is accountable (in plain language) to elected, regional representatives and that fosters increased related employment.   To achieve these visions we will grow an active community of participation dedicated to reclaiming the intrinsic value of our forests.   In so doing we might also redirect our attitudes and imaginations to a more just and viable economy.   facebook
    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    The Horgan government’s failure to protect at-risk old-growth forests is forcing BC citizens to take real action themselves.
     

    The Old Growth Revylution blockade was recently visited by an RCMP officer (Photo by Sadie Parr)
     
    THE MOVEMENT TO STOP THE DESTRUCTION of BC’s old-growth forests by blockading logging roads—as practiced by Vancouver Island’s Rainforest Flying Squad—is spreading. A group of Revelstoke-area citizens, calling themselves Old Growth Revylution, has established a blockade on a logging road beside Bigmouth Creek north of Revelstoke. The group is blocking access to a newly constructed logging road leading to three planned cutblocks in the pristine Argonaut Valley. The cutblocks would be logged under a licence granted by BC Timber Sales (BCTS), a division of the ministry of forests.
    Not only is the spread of the movement a vote of no confidence in Premier John Horgan’s vague promises of future 2-year logging deferrals on old forest, the engagement with a BCTS-led logging operation opens a new and interesting front in the citizen-led battle against old-growth forest destruction. I will come back to this development later.
     

    A view of logging of old-growth forest in Bigmouth Valley. The Revylution wants to protect Argonaut Valley ecosystems from this destruction. (Photo by Sadie Parr)
     
    Several ENGOs, including Wildsight, Echo Conservation, the Wilderness Committee and Valhalla Wilderness Society, have been campaigning to protect the pristine Argonaut Valley. The valley is in the Inland Temperate Rainforest, a globally-unique ecosystem under heavy pressure by the logging industry. Most of the valley has been mapped under Canada’s Species At Risk Act as critical habitat for Mountain Caribou, one of BC’s most endangered species. Last December, the BC ministry of forests initially responded to these concerns with a statement noting “the ministry suspended planned harvesting operations in the Argonaut drainage to allow for further assessments around how harvesting activities might impact caribou in this area. This assessment is ongoing and no further timber harvest activities will occur in the area while the assessment is underway.”
    BCTS then withdrew 11 of 14 cutblocks planned for the valley. But the most current BCTS mapping shows it is now planning five cutblocks in the valley, three of which are scheduled to be auctioned as a single sale between October 1 and December 31 of this year. BCTS estimates about 26,000 cubic metres of merchantable logs would be removed from those three blocks.
    BCTS had a road built into the valley in 2020, and more recent roadbuilding prompted formation of the Old Growth Revylution. The Revylution blockaders want the entire Argonaut Valley protected. Virginia Thompson, a member of Revylution, told FOCUS, “The blockade is also in support of the Fairy Creek action and for the implementation of the recommendations of the Old Growth Review Panel. That includes the panel’s recommendation to immediately defer all at-risk old-growth ecosystems while the recommendations for a paradigm shift in forestry can be implemented to save what little of old-growth ecosystems are left in BC. This does not mean the bogus deferrals which were made in September of 2020. It means real, meaningful deferrals. Otherwise the old growth will be gone by the time government finishes talking about it.”
     

    Old-growth cedar removed to build a logging road in the area (Photo by Eddie Petryshen)
     
    The blockade will also affect access to another block of old-growth forest just outside the valley that has already been sold by BCTS to Revelstoke’s Downie Timber. Wildsight’s Eddie Petryshen told FOCUS that the Downie block “is imminently threatened by logging.” In an email, Petryshen wrote, “This block, in my opinion, actually contains some of the highest value old growth of the remaining blocks as it’s valley bottom and contains very large cedars.” Revylution’s Thompson said the forest defenders had been in contact with a representative of Downie regarding the block.
    The Revylution has strong support of area First Nations, including the Okanagan, Splatsin (Secwepemcúl̓ecw) and Sinixt. Thompson told FOCUS that a ceremony held on July 11 at the blockade included representatives of each of these First Nations.
    In a press release issued before the ceremony, Splatsin Chief Wayne Christian noted: “We will be conducting a ceremony to protect the old-growth forest, but also to protect the public who have decided to block access to critical old-growth habitat for our relatives the Caribou.”
    At the ceremony, Christian called for members of his nation to come to the blockade.
    The Splatsin, Okanagan and Ktunaxa Nation all have forestry consultation and revenue sharing agreements with the ministry of forests. It is unknown which nation, or nations, the BC government is consulting regarding the Argonaut Valley.
     

    A view of the upper Argonaut Valley (Photo by Eddie Petryshen)
     
    This all creates an interesting situation for the ministry of forests. If the Revylution blockaders are as determined as the Fairy Creek blockaders, they will likely be able to block access to the Argonaut Valley. Facing that likelihood, what logging company would want the uncertainty, bad publicity and loss of reputation that would accompany a bid to cut the pristine valley’s forests? This is quite unlike the situation at Fairy Creek and the Caycuse Valley on southern Vancouver Island, where Teal Cedar Ltd, dependent on cutting old-growth forest to feed its Surrey mills, can’t easily walk away from its own TFL.
    If the Revylution blockade is successful at deterring a bid on the Argonaut Valley blocks, that strategy could be copied across BC wherever BCTS is planning to cut old-growth forest. BCTS sells the right to cut Crown-owned forest through competitive auction. It must publicize the blocks it plans to auction well before the auction date. It’s now possible for old-growth forest defenders to identify old forests at risk of being logged by BCTS, and then develop a plan to discourage bids on those blocks before they are sold. The ministry faces a new and serious challenge to its industry-friendly taxpayer-funded mismanagement of BC’s forests.
    To complicate matters, on July 13 a forest fire broke out high above Bigmouth Creek, about three kilometres upstream from the mouth of Argonaut Creek. It’s going to be a long, hot, ground-breaking summer.
    In his own response to the climate and biodiversity crises, David Broadland has narrowed his research and writing to the critically-endangered forests of BC.
    https://www.facebook.com/oldgrowthrevylution/
    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance
    We are part of a global movement that understands water is precious and deserves our respect and protection.
     

    Tolko Industries logging in the Peachland community watershed (Photo by Will Koop)
     
    VANCOUVER AND VICTORIA are among a minority of watersheds ( yet a majority of the population of BC) that have long ago banned any activity in their boundaries. Everywhere else in B.C., people are told they must balance the needs of industry and the environment.
    Today, resource extraction and other industrial activities are permitted in community watersheds — the place where you get your drinking water — and this includes commercial logging, the construction of logging roads as well as legacy roads, mining, ATV’s, cattle ranching, unregulated recreation and hunting use.
    We believe that it’s time this double standard ended; it’s time to take action to protect our publicly owned land and all the values of our watershed, especially our water.
    An intact forest protects our water and wildlife, and helps mitigate against climate change.
    We believe that forestry jobs can mean replanting and restoration, not just harvesting. Jobs can be maintained by logging selectively; utilizing trees instead of burning them in slash piles; planting a variety of trees, plants and shrubs; saving trees from disease; and wildfire mitigation work around cities and towns. These are just a few examples of ways in which we can keep the forest healthy while keeping the foresters employed. The status quo has closed 200 mills in B.C. the past 20 years with over 22,000 jobs lost due to mismanagement and automation; this cannot continue.
    Many members of the Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance know this land. They see the industrial impacts – most of them with no mitigation or restoration requirements – are causing soil erosion and heavy run off, resulting in undrinkable water and increasingly, flood conditions.
    See our library of the Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance's information and videos here.
    Visit PWPA's website here.
     
    The trashing of the Peachland Community Watershed Reserve by clearcut logging, analyzed by Herb Hammond
     
     
    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    qathet - a named gifted by the elders of Tla’amin to our Regional District, meaning working together. Located on the traditional territory of the Tla’amin, shíshálh, Klahoose, Homalco, and K’ómoks first nations, the northern sunshine coast on the west coast of British Columbia. qathet Old Growth was formed out of growing concerns within our community about the current management of our public lands.
    Industrial forestry practices are having an affect on our watersheds, suitable habitat, biodiversity health and investment into our local economy. We support the recommendations of a New Future for Old Forests and want to advocate for a partnership with First Nations, Foresters, Politicians, the Public and Government so that we can transition to a more sustainable future.
     
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    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    Raincoast is a team of scientists and conservationists empowered by our research to safeguard the land, waters, and wildlife of coastal British Columbia. We investigate to understand coastal species and processes. We inform by bringing science to decision-makers and communities. We inspire action to protect wildlife and wildlife habitats.
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    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    Who we are
    The Rainforest Flying Squad is a volunteer driven, grassroots, non-violent direct action movement. We are committed to  protecting the last stands of globally significant ancient temperate rainforest on Vancouver Island.
     
    What's at stake
    We are in a climate and biodiversity crisis. Only 2.7% of B.C.’s original productive old growth forests remain standing. B.C.’s Old Growth Strategic Review Panel urged an end to old growth logging yet the government continues to stall.
     
    Join the movement
    Direct action makes change. Visit our protection camps. Volunteer with us. Mobilize with your own community in support of ancient forests!
     
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    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    Our Mission
    The Save Our Holmes Society stands firm in opposition to the logging of Mount Holmes and Mount Good above the community of Youbou and Meade Creek.
    We are dedicated to the preservation of an undisturbed watershed, slope stability, a robust forest and a healthy ecosystem.
    We will foster partnerships with those who will work with us to ensure that we have a safe, healthy and beautiful environment in which to live and visit.
    Website
    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    SAFT is an informed group of BC’s top forest ecology scientists and forest practitioners that have joined forces to bring better data, information, debunk myths, and provide ecologically sound alternatives to current forest harvest practices and policy.
    SAFT members include: Jim Pojar, Suzanne Simard, Rachel Holt, Karen Price, Dave Daust, Len Vanderstar, Phil Burton, Frank Doyle, Dave Coates, and Andy McKinnon.
    Website: saftforestry.com
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    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    Along with farming and settlements, forestry has had and continues to have a serious negative impact on the Shuswap environment and the entire province. Logging roads have been built into nearly every valley and clearcuts and young plantations permeate the landscape. SEAS has had an active role in monitoring and critiquing forest management planning and forestry activities since 1990.
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    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    Sierra Club BC works to support people stewarding abundant ecosystems and a stable climate, while building resilient, equitable communities.
    We advocate for a rapid shift away from fossil fuels to a low carbon, equitable economy.
    We work to inspire British Columbians to value nature and to defend it. In particular, we focus on children and youth to foster environmental literacy and to encourage the environmental leaders of tomorrow.
    Sierra Club BC relies on science-based research and peaceful, democratic means to advocate for change.
     
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    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    THE MOTHER TREE PROJECT is investigating forest renewal practices that will protect biodiversity, carbon storage and forest regeneration as climate changes.  
    This field-based research compares various retention levels of Mother Trees (large, old trees) and their neighbours, as well as regenerating seedling mixtures, in Douglas-fir forests located across nine climatic regions in British Columbia.
     
    Research
    The Mother Tree Project explores how connections and communication between trees, particularly below-ground connections between Douglas-fir Mother Trees and seedlings, could influence forest recovery and resilience following various harvesting and regeneration treatments. The project was designed to explore these relationships across different climates, in order to understand how climate change could influence these processes and affect the outcomes of the treatments.
     
    The team
    Led by Dr. Suzanne Simard, forest ecology professor at the University of British Columbia, the Mother Tree Project brings together academia, government, forestry companies, research forests, community forests and First Nations to identify and design successful forest renewal practices.
     
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    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    This website has six objectives:
    (1) to bear witness to deliberate extinction in Canada;
    (2) to map the recent decline of a caribou herd long designated for protection;
    (3) to call out the agencies and corporations responsible for this decline;
    (4) to highlight the downstream social costs incurred by their actions;
    (5) to outline a new conservation landscape for Deep-Snow Caribou;
    (6) to encourage young Canadians to build a future for Canada’s icon of mountain wilderness.
    Website
    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    We are a BC-based wilderness conservation organization, specializing in the creation of parks and protected areas for wildlife and ecosystems.
    The Valhalla Wilderness Society was founded in the small village of New Denver, British Columbia, in 1975. It started as a group of local residents who wanted to save the forested slopes of the Valhalla Range from logging. It took eight years of extensive involvement to win the park. Along the way, the Society became involved in efforts to attain better forest practices outside of parks.
    Since then, the Valhalla Wilderness Society has spearheaded three other successful campaigns, for the Khutzeymateen grizzly bear sanctuary, the Goat Range (White Grizzly) Provincial Park, and the Spirit Bear Protection Area. VWS has played a major role, in cooperation with other environmental groups, in the creation of many other new parks in British Columbia (such as the Kitlope), has worked to expose poor forest practices in B.C. and across the nation, and has worked cooperatively with many aboriginal people on issues of environmental and social justice.
    In 1987, physically and financially depleted by almost 13 years of work to create Valhalla Provincial Park and South Moresby National Park Reserve, the directors knew there was no hope for the remaining B.C. wilderness if efforts to protect it continued on a park-by-park basis. They documented, with detailed boundaries, all existing park proposals in the province at that time — most of them sponsored by other groups. The Society’s Endangered Wilderness Map amalgamated all these proposed parks to form the first proposal for comprehensive wilderness protection in Canada. That campaign gave a high public profile to the accelerating loss of wilderness, and the need for increased protection of ecosystems across the province. Coming together with the massive public demand for new parks and/or watershed protection, the Endangered Wilderness campaign played a large role in the creation of the regional (“CORE”) planning processes across the province. These processes resulted in approximately 100 new protected areas.
    Unfortunately, the efforts to achieve better forest management outside of parks through these processes were a failure. The systematic exclusion of low- and mid-elevation forest from the new protected areas left 94% of these forest types subject to B.C.’s unsustainable forest practices, leaving the province in an ongoing crisis. Today, the work of the Valhalla Wilderness Society includes the international campaign to protect the northern boreal forest throughout the world, aid to grassroots groups working on watershed and wilderness issues, and support for First Nations people seeking to protect their traditional territories along with our ongoing efforts for wilderness and wildlife protection in B.C.
    Since its inception, the Society has had on its Board of Directors and staff a mixture of scientific and planning professionals, political strategists, and literary and artistic talent. With this support, the Valhalla Society’s Executive Director and past Chairperson has been given one provincial, two national and three international awards: the 1992 Goldman Environmental Prize for outstanding grassroots environmental initiatives (the environmental equivalent of the Nobel Prize), the 1992 United Nations Global 500 Roll of Honour, the 1988 IUCN Fred M. Packard International Parks Merit Award, the 1993 Governor General of Canada’s Conservation Award, and the Equinox Citation for Environmental Achievement, which was presented by B.C.’s Lieutenant Governor in 1998.
     
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    Evergreen Alliance Staff
    Our grassroots campaigns are dedicated to preserving wilderness, protecting wildlife, defending parks, safeguarding public resources and fighting for a healthy climate.
     
    Defending Parks
    National and provincial parks, park reserves and tribal parks are home to vital wilderness, roaring rivers, sparkling lakes, wild boreal forests, majestic grasslands and amazing wildlife. They are also a public trust where people can walk, hike, swim, camp, birdwatch and connect with nature.
     
    Preserving Wilderness
    Our campaigns to protect coastal rainforests, wild rivers, grasslands and boreal forests aim to preserve wilderness ecosystems. Preserving wild lands and keeping ecosystems intact serves to mitigate the impacts of industrial development and climate change.
     
    Protecting Wildlife
    Imagine your world without killer whales, Blanding's turtles, grizzly bears, spotted owls, caribou or wild salmon. These beloved species and more are integral to the fabric of life, yet so many are at risk of extinction. We campaign for strong laws to protect all threatened, endangered and special concern species.
     
    Fighting Climate Change
    Carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is now higher than it has been in millions of years. If we carry on at current emission rates, the impacts will be devastating. To avoid the worst of these impacts, coal and fuels such as tar sands and fracked gas need to stay in the ground.
     
    Safeguarding Public Resources
    We advocate for sustainably managed ecosystems including waters, forests and wetlands consistent with First Nations rights and title.
     
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  • Lakes, streams and wetlands of the Peachland Creek Watershed

    In the map below, named watersheds are shown as a semi-transparent background colour. Lakes are darker blue, streams are light blue and wetlands are light green. The size of the component parts of the watershed and the name of the larger watershed this are contributes to can be found by clicking on a coloured area.

    Zoom into and out of the map using the + or - buttons. Pan around the map by clicking it and dragging.

    Does your forest conservation organization need a map like this for your area of interest? Let us know and we will make one for you.

  • Forest conservation projects

    The map below shows forest conservation proposals in BC. Click on any green star to learn more. If your project isn't mapped, please send us details.

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