Vernon, Revelstoke and Penticton will be included in a province-wide protest demanding a halt to old-growth logging on Tuesday.
In Vernon, it’s being dubbed a “showdown at BC Timber Sales,” and the local organizers, which include the Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance and the Interior Watershed Task Force, are driving that adversarial image home by encouraging protesters to don western garb when they rally outside the Ministry of Forests office on 14th Avenue from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Nov. 18.
Protests take place at Penticton City Hall, 171 Main St., Tuesday at 11 a.m.
“Communities are joining forces to call for transparency, ecological integrity, and a real shift toward sustainable forest stewardship,” reads a joint press release from the two groups issued Thursday, Nov. 13.
Similar rallies are being held in Victoria, Nelson, Revelstoke, Smithers, Courtenay, Parksville, Prince George, Grand Forks, Penticton, Port Coquitlam, and Powell River, according to the release.
Vernon’s protest will host individuals, taxpayers, farmers, tourism businesses, unemployed mill workers, community groups, environment organizations and non-profit environmentalists who are “discouraged by lacklustre and degrading forestry practices.”
The protests come at a time when the province’s forestry industry is showing signs of vulnerability. Last week, West Fraser Timber Company announced it is permanently closing its 100 Mile House lumber mill, saying it is isn’t able to access enough economically viable timber. Conservative forest critic and Kamloops-North Thompsoan MLA Ward Stamer said days before that announcement that significant changes are needed to get timber harvesting volumes on track. He previously said the industry is in “crisis.”
Protest organizers took aim at Forestry Minister Ravi Parmar, saying seven B.C. mills have closed during his eight-month tenure. “Meanwhile he is off in Asia promising wood we do (not) have and opening trade offices in United Kingdom, Europe and Asia promising trees we do not grow,” the press release states. “What about the promises he made to B.C. taxpayers and saving primary forests and old growth?
“Time to call out his flailing ministry and this sunset industry for what it is,” the release continues.
The protests come at a time when B.C. is struggling to harvest enough timber and is feeling the effects of U.S. tariffs and duties on softwood lumber.
The protest organizers assert that the industry needs to adapt so as to keep mills open without touching old-growth trees and reducing forests’ biodiversity.
Valerie Elliott, provincial spokesperson for the protests, told The Morning Star Thursday there is nothing contradictory about criticizing Minister Parmar for mill closures while at the same time decrying old-growth logging.
She said the industry needs to find a “new way forward” to keep mill jobs from being lost by creating value-added wood products here in B.C.
“We need to move towards a regenerative forestry model in order to ensure health for our province, and for jobs,” Elliott said. “Especially when we have this tariff war going on, it’s really showing us that we can’t depend on the U.S. to buy our timber as they’ve been doing for many, many years, without a huge penalty to ourselves.”
A website, savewhatsleft.ca, contains information supporting the protests, as well as information on where and when these protests will be held in more than 20 B.C. locations. Penticton’s protest will take place at City Hall at 11 a.m. Revelstoke’s protest has been confirmed but details on where and what time it will happen haven’t yet been shared.