Today on the three-year anniversary of the BC government’s September 2020 acceptance of the Old-Growth Strategic Review Panel’s 14 recommendations to ensure a “paradigm shift” in the conservation and management of old-growth forests in the province, the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance (EEA) and Ancient Forest Alliance (AFA) are urging the BC government to hurry up and close the gaps in old-growth protection in BC.
“The BC government under Premier Eby has taken some great steps forward in policy commitments: pledging to double protected areas from 15% to 30% of BC’s land area over the next seven years (it took over a century to protect the first 15%), bring major conservation financing support for Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas, and to target protection for biodiverse areas, which would naturally include the productive old-growth forests with big trees. Premier Eby started off strong nine months ago with these commitments, and now he needs to pick it up and close the remaining gaps to secure old-growth logging deferrals in all of the most at-risk old-growth forests and to ensure that funding and protection go to the right areas,” stated Ken Wu, Endangered Ecosystems Alliance executive director.
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