Forest industry unions and leading environmental groups have united behind a plan that calls on the BC government to conserve more forest, halt rampant wood waste and promote wise use of forest products — all as part of a concerted effort
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Managing BC’s Forests for a Cooler Planet: Carbon Storage, Sustainable Jobs and Conservation, was released jointly by the CCPA with a coalition of unions and environmental groups, including Sierra Club BC.

Read our press release or watch the Cooler Planet video.

The action plan is threefold:

• Conservation: Conserve more forest and allow trees to
  live longer before they are logged;
• Halt waste: Limit wood waste and proceed with caution when using waste wood for energy.
  
• Durable products, long-term livelihoods:Count the carbon stored in wood products. Promote solid wood manufacturing for carbon storage and jobs.
  

“We have joined forces, post Copenhagen, to say that BC must lead by example with innovations that fully promote carbon storage in our forests and forest products,” says
Ben Parfitt, the plan’s author and resource policy analyst with the BC Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

The Cooler Planet report comes within weeks of the release of a Sierra Club BC report on the state of BC's coastal forests which found that decades of old growth logging have left an alarming 50 percent of all forest ecosystems on Vancouver Island and the South Coast at a high risk for species extinction and loss of carbon storage.

“We must quickly change the way we manage B.C.’s coastal forests to ensure on-going employment in a stable industry--based on sustainable forest management, increased manufacturing here at home and an end to raw log exports,” said Sierra Club BC Executive Director George Heyman.