READ THE MAILCHIMP VERSION HERE:
PLEASE ATTEND THE District of Peachland COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE MEETING, SUPPORT YOUR MAYOR, COUNCIL, WATER USERS & PWPA IN OPPOSING MORE COMMERCIAL CLEARCUTTING OF OUR SOURCE WATER PROTECTED AREAS.
THIS TUESDAY, MAY 12TH, 2:00 PM
Tell BC NDP & BC TimberSales that Peachland’s Community Watershed, Old Growth & Primary Forests are no place for commercial logging  This is a partial clear cut at Glen Lake… May 09–26 Greetings Peachland water users, forest lovers and wildlife protectors, This is an update on the progress PWPA has made the past 2 months in regards to protecting ancient forests within the watershed that are up for commercial logging. File: 18046-30/BCTS FSP 771 is the referral for proposed government initiated, BC Timber Sales partial harvest cut blocks and roads within the Okanagan-Columbia Business Area, or more specifically, at steep slopes of Glen Lake valley, our second largest reservoir in our back-country, the Peachland Community Watershed. BCTS plans to prepare and develop 3 new partial harvest cut blocks totalling 80.2 hectares and associated 7+ of roads that may affect your interests, specifically, water, climate change, biodiversity, community safety, drought ,floods, slides, fires, wildlife, recreation, tourism, livability, hunting, fishing guiding, trapping, foraging… When British Columbians, even Peachlanders, visualize old growth, places like Walbran, Carmanah, Clayoquot and Fairy Creek come to mind; towering trees, mossy floors, thick canopies, various species throughout a shady understory, on the rugged west coast. Did you know , the Peachland watershed holds some of the very same, rarest, at-risk old growth and primary forests left in the BC interior, and perhaps the last six+ stands of certified old growth in the entire Okanagan? Did you know our own government wants to permanently remove it? PWPA came out loud and strong, THIS IS OUR FAIRY CREEK, WE ARE MAKING A STAND…we told our BC government that the Peachland watershed old growth and primary forests in our COMMUNITY Watershed need to be protected, not logged. Save Glen Lake in Peachland’s Watershed  Black Outline= BCTS proposed clear cuts, current ones are GL 007, 008, 009 Red Outline = Technical Advisory Panel Priority Deferred Old Growth and ancient trees *Note The huge dry, brown area to the bottom right of the image is the Glen Lake fire, 2023, which BC Wildfire Service found challenging to extinguish due to the massive amounts of abandoned slash piles from previous BCTS & Tolko forestry operations back in the 90s and more recently -4 years ago, these were never chipped and hauled nor burned and supplied the2023 massive wildfire with easy access, extra fuel. The natural forest was resilient but these dry wasteful piles were dry, sappy kindling, will this be the case in the proposed Glen Lake clearcuts?  Tolko’s abandoned & wasteful slash 2022, now burned by the Glen Lake Fire 2023. *Note: Black blocks, K7J3,4,5, were logged last year, here is what BCTS says Old Growth deferred partial clear cuts for wildfire mitigation looks like…?  WHAT HAS PWPA ADVOCATED TO DATE? 1. We have asked our syilx elders and governments for support, see letters here: https://peachlandwpa.org/save-peachlands-watershed/first-nations/ We asked syilx elders for advice, they suggested we go out on the land, we walked, talked and connected with the water, wildlife and forests, we invite everyone to do this before BCTS changes the landscape …forever, please join us, go out into the land and see for yourself, see what is worth protecting, not selling as 2x4s, pellets and toilet paper. Please contact your local indigenous elders and government to see what more we can do. If we do not stand up for forests, they will be logged, here is a FOI memo from our own BCTS government saying if the indigenous peoples do not step up in a timely manner, ignore them and fast track the road building and Lazer focused removal of priority old growth. https://www.biv.com/news/resources-agriculture/old-growth-logging-road-building-can-proceed-bc-without-first-nation-consent-says-8273326 ‘’In a BC Timber Sales (BCTS) memorandum dated May 15, 2023, BCTS told industry that in cases where First Nations said they needed more time or hadn’t responded to proposed old-growth deferrals, “Ancient” and “Priority Big-treed” forests should be deemed “available for harvest.” The guidance memo also tells logging companies they can build roads through old-growth areas identified for deferral if there is no alternative route available that is “practical and reasonably economically feasible.”   LEFT: Cori Derrickson, Barb Hayley and Grouse Barnes RIGHT: Planning our route, Cori Derrickson, Pamela Barnes, Barb Hayley, Grouse Barnes, Taryn Skalbania, photographer: Alex Morrison, and Indigenews journalist, Aaron Heme. 2. We have reached out to our municipal government and they have met with Minsters of Water & Forests   LEFT: Minister of Water & Lands, Randene Niell, & Peachland Mayor Van Minsel & Councillor Collins, April 2026. RIGHT: Minister of Forests, Ravi Parmar and Peachland Council, April, 2026   LEFT: PWPA reached out too, to Minister of Water, Randene Niell, she is supportive of saving forests for water, biodiversity and drought preventions…RIGHT: PWPA also met with Minister Ravi Parmar, but he was very focused on removing forests, NOT protecting them! SO loud and successful was our opposition to this commercial venture in our source water protection area that BCTS has retreated to its favourite game, Whack-A-Mole, and changed the goal-posts mid ‘’game’’. Here are a few of the game-changers BCTS threw in: What was originally sold to us as partial harvest blocks has now been rebranded as ‘’wildfire mitigation’’, BCTS thinks it is an easier sell to scare taxpayers into believing cutting live, green, healthy, ancient, long-lasting forests 22 kms from our town is somehow GOOD for fire preventions? BCTS also has now informed us that the longstanding benchmark, the one and only benchmark of ‘’old growth ‘’ in the Okanagan ecosystems, 140 years, is no longer old enough to save, NOW a tree must be 200 years old to be save from the fellar bunchers, D8s, chain saws and mills. NO documents regulations, guidelines were provided, just an email saying trees now have to be Interior Douglas fir and older than 200 years to be considered OG, this was obviously in response to our own mapping we did showing many stands over 140 years, SINCE THE BCTS GOVT IS INCAPABLE OF SUPPLYING THE COMMUNITY WITH MAPS.   3. We were also told/warned that we are too ‘’ahead’’ of the process, BCTS told us it has STILL not even confirmed it is old growth in these deferral areas. REALLY? In 2018 NDP announced it was old growth , mapped it for deferrals, in 2023 the technical advisory panel confirmed it was old growth, this year our own mapping confirmed it was old growth and NOW THEY ARE HEDGING, IF AFTER 6 YEARS OUR OWN GOVT CANNOT CONFIRM IF THESE FORESTS ARE OLD AND TO BE PROTECTED, WHY NOT ERR ON THE SIDE OF CAUTION AND PROTECT THEM? After 6 years, are they incompetent or lying, both scenarios are disturbing. Why lie to the taxpayer and tell them they are too incompetent, after 6 years to know if these forests are old growth or not? This is but one watershed are all the hundreds of thousands of cutblocks across BC so unorganized and unclear? 4. Change of referral proposal: Once PWPA voiced opposition to these cutblocks, less than 2 months ago, the game changed, what was just commercial partial clear cutting is now being labelled as wildfire mitigation, community protection and fuel mitigation. To be clear , last month, BCTS told us thy did not have any confirmation that this is even old growth, they had not done any testing, reports or studies, they had not down a hydrology report, watershed assessments, cumulative effects impacts, soil studies and testing, fish sensitivity analysis, slope stability studies, archaeology reviews, Species at Risk assessments, etc., never mind even confirming it is old growth, but NOW , all of a sudden , once PWPA opposed the logging, the marketing team at BCTS decided to brand the area as a wild fire risk to reduce any opposition into believing removing green, live, healthy forests 22 kms for the townsite can somehow save homes. Of course, no one in government would put their name to these changes, here is the anonymous statement they gave to the media to challenge PWPA: https://kelownacapnews.com/2026/04/13/peachlanders-opposing-cutblocks-near-old-growth-forest-in-community-watershed/ “In response to questions from Black Press, the B.C. Ministry of Forests the proposed Glen Lake cut-blocks “are at a very early, conceptual stage and have been identified for partial harvesting.” The Ministry said partial harvesting covers a variety of practices, including high‑retention harvesting, selection systems (where certain trees are strategically chosen for harvesting to improve overall forest health), commercial thinning, or fuel mitigation treatments. In response to concerns of ecological disasters such as wildfires, the Ministry acknowledged that the cutblocks are in an area containing “moderate to high wildfire threat” and that partial thinning can reduce a fire’s intensity. “Leaving forests unmanaged in high‑risk areas like this one can increase the likelihood of severe wildfire, potentially resulting in the catastrophic loss of forests, hydrological function and timber values,” the Ministry wrote. This is unacceptable, NOWHERE in government documents does it say partial clear cutting is synonymous to fuel mitigation treatments, this is classic BCTS if so, please provide us the documents, guidelines, legislation and give us examples all across BC where this treatment has worked. What we do know is that the most heavily clear-cut logged areas of BC are also the most heavily burned, just take a look at the Chilcotin Plateau. In 2017, 1,353 fires burned 1.22 million hectares, including some very large fires, all in BC’s Interior: the 191,865-hectare Elephant Hill Fire, the 545,151-hectare Chilcotin Plateau Fire—which was actually the merging of 20 separate fires—and the 241,160-hectare Hanceville Fire, another merging of smaller fires into a mega-fire. All these areas had been previously ‘’partial clear-cut, thinned and salvage clogged for Mountain Pine Beetle’’. It burned worse than the rest of BC. Check out these 47 images of partial harvested areas catching fire, NOT the live , green, old, resilient forests right next door! https://www.focusonvictoria.ca/molotov-clearcuts/ If you are still unclear about the permanent damage and increased fire intensity, duration and frequency any commercial forestry operations cause to natural forests, please read more here: 1. When Active Management of high conservation value forests may erode biodiversity and damage ecosystems- International paper with 4 Canadian wildfire Ecologist experts https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320725001089 2. Logging’s Final Frontier? How “Active Management & Wildfire Mitigations” Imperils Forest Resilience Dr. David Lindenmayer is a renowned Australian Professor of Ecology and Conservation Biology at the Australian National University’s Fenner School of Environment and Society. Dr. Dominick DellaSala is the former Chief Scientist at Wild Heritage, and former President of the Society for Conservation Biology, North America Section. Herb Hammond is a BC-based forest ecologist and retired Registered Professional Forester with more than 45 years of experience in research, industry, teaching and consulting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRn4dS3JVao 3. Paper on dead trees – they don’t increase the risk of fast fire https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2510922122 To all PWPA supporters: You don’t rebuild a watershed once it’s broken, or recreate a forest that took centuries to grow, or get biodiversity back once it’s gone. These things are not replaceable. They are living systems. Once they’re pushed past a certain point, they don’t come back the way they were. People in BC care about this. We’ve walked these forests, lived in these watersheds, and seen what’s happening to them. People in Peachland are passionate about this, protecting those systems before they’re gone. Not after. It’s not just about jobs. It’s about whether the ecosystems we depend on are still functioning at all. WATER is the prime value in our community watershed; the water creation, collection, storage and distribution properties is what makes these intact, primary forests so valuable, and its these forest that makes life in the Okanagan liveable, our plentiful and drinkable water and its synchronized release throughout the seasons for use by all living organisms. It is unacceptable that own government that wants to permanently remove them with clearcut logging? We do not need to value profits to logging cartels, nor jobs for the few if water for the many is at risk. Peachland water has NO Plan B. ACT NOW before your back-country is compromised. FIVE ways to make a stand! Write, call, online submissions and a petition here: https://peachlandwpa.org/save-peachlands-watershed/ Or #5, THE BEST ADVOCACY AND ACTIVISM YOU CAN DO NOW IS ATTEND THE COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE MEETING, SUPPORT YOUR MAYOR, COUNCIL, WATER USERS & PWPA IN OPPOSING MORE COMMERCIAL CLEARCUTTING OF OUR SOURCE WATER PROTECTED AREAS. THIS TUESDAY , MAY 12TH, 2:00 PM council chambers https://pub-peachland.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=2089ac51-404b-4c87-a6f9-4dc3298a681b&Agenda=Agenda&lang=English Yours Truly, The Board of Directors Vice Chair, Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance Peachlandwpa@gmail.com, Peachlandwpa.org 250 767-6456 |
| Join, Volunteer, Donate Now! The Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance in a grass-roots, non profit, 100% volunteer driven community organisation that promotes the science and actions that focus on the preservation of primary forests, water and wildlife in the syilx Okanagan territories where we work, live and play. Please feel free to share and repost these articles “Forests today for water tomorrow” |