British Columbia, Canada is home to some of the Earth's most spectacular, ancient temperate forests, including the world's largest Douglas fir tree (the Red Creek Fir) and second-largest western red cedar tree (the Cheewhat Cedar).
These old-growth forests are diverse: from wet rainforests with towering, mossy Sitka spruce trees and gnarly red cedars with trunks wider than a car's length; to dry forests with contorted Garry oak and arbutus trees and massive Douglas firs; to high elevation, slow-growing yellow cedars and mountain hemlocks covered in beard lichens.
These ancient forests provide essential habitat for endangered wildlife such as the spotted owl and marbled murrelet.
The Wilderness Committee is calling on the BC government to ban the logging of the remaining ancient forests of BC. Second-growth forests should be the sole supplier of the province's lumber mills and should be logged at a slower, more sustainable rate than they are now. To protect the wood supply for BC's lumber mills, log exports to off-shore mills must be halted.
Other jurisdictions, including New Zealand, Thailand, Sir Lanka, Philippines and Finland have banned old-growth logging in recent years. BC must now do the same.
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More about protecting the forests spotted owls need to survive
