Old-Growth Protection and Sustainable Economic Opportunities

The argument against old-growth forest protection is typically based on the assumption that ‘locking up’ forests was bad for business. Nothing could be further from the truth.

BC’s old-growth forests play an important role in the province’s multi-billion dollar tourism industry, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world every year.

Ancient forests such as those of Clayoquot Sound, Avatar Grove, and Cathedral Grove, and record-sized big trees like Big Lonely Doug and the Red Creek Fir, provide nearby communities like Port Renfrew, Sooke, Tofino, Ucluelet and Port Alberni with increased sustainable business and employment opportunities.

At the same time while protecting old-growth forests, the BC government must foster a sustainable, value-added, second-growth forestry sector by creating incentives and regulations and curbing raw log exports to keep more logs – and more forestry jobs – here in BC.

Video by filmmaker Darryl Augustine, with interviews by AFA campaigner Andrea Inness, Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce president Dan Hager, Tla-o-qui-aht tourism operator Tsimka Martin, AFA campaigner TJ Watt, forest campaigner Vicky Husband, and Public and Private Workers of Canada president Arnie Bercov.