Environmentalists reject forest reserve

By Judith Lavoie, Times Colonist
A plan by the province to create a commercial forest reserve is being attacked by environmentalists who fear it will put huge tracts of land off limits to future forest conservation.
Ken Wu, campaign director for the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, called the commercial forest reserve announced this week by Premier Gordon [...]

B.C. forestry minister wants ’single face’ for China-bound exports

By Nathan VanderKlippe, Financial Post
BEIJING – The CEOs may not like it, but British Columbia’s Forestry Minister is setting out plans to radically remake his province’s approach to selling lumber in China.
Out, in Pat Bell’s plan, are competition and two-by-fours. In are joint marketing and metric sizes, which most B.C. mills are not currently configured [...]

SFU report ‘impetus’ for province to meet Great Bear commitments

-thetyee.ca
British Columbia is a biological ark: the last refuge for most of the biodiversity in North America, according to a report on climate change released yesterday.
But the government decision-making process about how we use the land and water — and ultimately impact that biodiversity — is a “recipe for disaster” said Jon O’Riordan, a former [...]

Judge: Province failed in duty to consult First Nations on removal of lands from TFL

Shayne Morrow, Canwest News Service
A B.C. Supreme Court judge has ruled the province fell critically short in its obligation to consult and accommodate Hupacasath First Nation in the removal of 70,000 hectares of privately owned timberland from Tree Farm Licence 44.
In a December 2005 court decision, Justice Lynn Smith gave the Ministry of Forests two [...]

Ancient mindsets can destroy ancient forests

What’s left of the province’s magnificent old-growth forests must be protected
Ken Wu, Special to Times Colonist
This Saturday, British Columbians may see one of the largest — if not the largest — environmental protests in our history at the legislature. Several thousand environmentalists and forestry workers, children and seniors, workers and business owners in Victoria are [...]

WCWC hopes for big turnout at protest

Judith Lavoie, Times Colonist
Western Canada Wilderness Committee is hoping to beat records set by 1993 protests against logging in Clayoquot Sound by holding the largest environmental rally ever seen in B.C.
WCWC is using Facebook and e-mail as organizing tools and is hoping 3,000 protesters show up at the legislature at noon Saturday for the Rally [...]

Revisit of tree farm licence issue requested

Judith Lavoie, Times Colonist
When Arnie Campbell thinks of what the Juan de Fuca electoral area has lost due to removal of private land from tree farm licences, he gets hopping mad.
Looking at how residents of the Kootenays were treated when the provincial government allowed private lands held by bankrupt Pope and Talbot be taken out [...]

Interior’s trees get a better deal

Times Colonist
Vancouver Islanders were reminded this week of how terribly the provincial government betrayed them in allowing vast tracts of land to be removed from tree farm licences.
In the Interior, the government has just approved the removal of 4,341 hectares from a tree farm licence. That is about 15 per cent of the area that [...]

Company Logging Cathedral Grove 25% owned by BC Government

-Richard Boyce, Island Lens
Cathedral Grove is under attack again, this time by a company that the BC government owns 25% of through a numbered company in Manitoba. Does the public know that the same government responsible for protecting this unique old growth forest is logging adjacent to this world famous provincial park?
Scott Fraser, MLA for [...]

Piece of Vancouver Island has pricetag of $25 million

Timber company selling Capes Lake
Chuck Chiang, Calgary Herald
Those looking for their ultimate wilderness playground — complete with lakes, lush B.C. rainforests, hiking access to the Comox Glacier and views of a 300-foot waterfall — will now have their chance to own a piece of Vancouver Island.
The catch? The parcel, all 5,110 hectares of it, is [...]