A downpour of rain did not stop members of the Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance (PWPA) from rallying against the logging of old-growth forests in B.C.
They gathered just off Highway 97 in front of the Peachland Mall on Thursday afteroon (Sep. 28).
“It’s been three years since the provincial government launched the old growth strategy and nothing has been done,” said Alex Morrison, communications director of PWPA. “The deferral areas that they have are still being logged, so we’re just trying to keep this front and centre.”
In September 2020, the government released A New Future for Old Forests report, and announced it was embarking on a new, holistic approach to protecting old-growth forests.
The report was completed by panel members including Garry Merkel, a professional forester, natural resource expert and member of the Tahltan Nation and Al Gorley, also a professional forester and former chair of the Forest Practices Board.
“There are six areas of protected old-growth that the panel said you must protect and they’re right in the heart of the Glen Lake wildfire,” said Taryn Skalbania, PWPA co-founder.
The Glen Lake fire, about six kilometres west of Peachland, is currently being held according to the BC Wildfire Service. It has burned through approximately 1,116 hectares of forest.
“The old growth panel hired by the government to choose areas to protect are now being overridden, again, by different parts of the government and industry,” added Skalbania.
Morrisson said the PWPA believes that there hasn’t been any action by the province for the last three years because the ministry is heavily influenced by the forestry industry.
Skalbania believes that the Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA), which governs activities on public lands during forest planning, road building, timber harvesting, and reforestation, is very one-sided.
The PWPA’s message to the government is to stop clear-cut logging of old-growth forests immediately.
“Especially in communities’ drinking watersheds,” said Skalbania.
Morrison went on to add that old-growth forests are extremely important in B.C.
“It’s an ecosystem that will never come back. We don’t have another 500 years for that ecosystem to regenerate.”
She wanted to draw awareness to the wildfires that raged in the Okanagan Valley, from Osoyoos to the Shuswap, this year.
“The amount of logging and clear-cutting is feeding into that climate change cycle, the droughts, the floods, the way that water behaves in the hills has all been changed by the clear-cuts.”
The rally in Peachland was just one in a series of similar ones happening across the province.
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