Earth Day Inspires Environmental Actions Around the World

Many Earth Day events throughout the world are focused on trees and forests.

In Western Canada, conservationists are calling on the British Columbia government to expand protection around MacMillan Provincial Park to fully encompass the forests above and adjacent to the world-famous Cathedral Grove.
Cathedral Grove

Cathedral Grove is Canada’s most popular old-growth forest on Vancouver Island, visited by millions of tourists each year, but the company Island Timberlands has built a road through old-growth forests on Mt. Horne, the mountainside above Cathedral Grove, and could potentially begin logging of a new cutblock that could come as close as 300 meters from the park boundary.

“After the redwoods of California, Cathedral Grove is the best known old-growth forest on Earth,” said Ken Wu, Ancient Forest Alliance executive director. “It should be a first rate priority for the BC government to stop any logging plans that threaten the park’s ecological integrity and ancient forest that millions of people visit.”

“The BC government deregulated the environmental protections on this land in 2004 and failed to follow-through on an agreement that was supposed to protect the old-growth forests on those lands. They broke it, now they have a responsibility to fix it,” said Wu. “The expansion of protected areas around Cathedral Grove, the scenic highway, Cameron Lake, and the Cathedral Grove Canyon will make this a world-class protected area, both ecologically and for tourism.”

[Environment News Service article no longer available]