Permanent protection for BC's Inland Temperate Rainforest

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To: David Eby, B.C. Premier

CC:
Ravi Parmar, B.C. Minister of Forests
Randene Neill, B.C. Minister of Land, Water and Resource Stewardship
Tamara Davidson, B.C. Minister of Environment and Parks
Christine Boyle, B.C. Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation

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Dear Premier Eby,

CC: Minister Neill, Minister Parmar, Minister Davidson & Minister Boyle

I am calling on your government to take action for British Columbia’s Inland Temperate Rainforest and deep-snow caribou.

B.C.’s Inland Temperate Rainforest is a vast, rugged and globally unique ecosystem that spans multiple mountain ranges and is home to many species of plants and lichen that only exist in this rainforest. This is a place where scientists are still discovering new species.

Historically, the vast majority of the forests in this ecosystem were old growth. Today, most of those old forests have been converted into young forests, primarily through logging. The wet interior cedar-hemlock rainforests of this region are the ecosystem’s crown jewel. But these same cedar hemlock rainforests are being systematically logged at an alarming rate.

At the same time, we’ve lost eight deep-snow caribou herds in the last two decades. These caribou herds are the canary in the coal mine for ecosystem health in the Inland Temperate Rainforest. As industrial disturbance and old-growth logging continue, caribou populations decline and localized extinction risk increases.

If your government does not chart a new course for the Inland Temperate Rainforest, we risk losing some of the most biodiverse, carbon-rich temperate rainforests in the world, as well as deep-snow caribou, rare lichens and plants.

That’s why today, I’m calling on your government to take the following actions:

1. Cease all old growth logging in the rainforest of the interior cedar-hemlock wet and very wet subzones.
2. Cease logging in provincially defined core habitat for deep-snow caribou.
3. Permanently protect old and ancient rainforest and core caribou habitat in B.C.’s Inland Temperate Rainforest.
4. Minimize the total area of roads and cutblocks to a maximum of 12% early seral forest (<40 years old) in matrix range. 
5. Develop atmospheric benefit sharing agreements to enable First Nations to sell carbon credits, offsetting resource revenue sharing agreements. The revenues of these atmospheric benefit agreements for keeping old and primary forests on the landscape likely outweigh or equate to similar revenues generated through current forest revenue agreements. Currently about 8-10% of resource revenues go to Indigenous Nations. In provincial atmospheric benefit sharing agreements, 80% of the annually calculated atmospheric benefits produced go to Indigenous Nations.

Sincerely,