Sierra Club BC’s greatest strength has always been the ability to mobilise concerned people in constructive action. Some of our achievements in protecting wild spaces and promoting responsible use of forest resources include:  

• In 2007, Sierra Club BC was part of a joint initiative calling for an inquiry into the provincial government’s decision to remove about 28,000 hectares of private land held on Vancouver Island by Western Forest Products from Tree Farm Licenses. The company was going to sell the land to developers. 
• Sierra Club BC was the primary negotiator in determining regional Forest Stewardship Council standards for BC, an important mechanism that encourages sustainable forest management. The standard was finalised and approved in 2005. Sierra Club BC was a founding member of FSC in British Columbia and we remain involved to this day. 
• Against the backdrop of the softwood lumber dispute in 2000-2002, we highlighted the ecological and economic consequences of high subsidies to the forest industry and an inflated Allowable Annual Cut. (link to this publication). Our study, and the campaign that followed, was instrumental in securing much-needed forest policy reforms. The reforms – including changes to the stumpage system and taking back about 20 percent of the tenure from the major companies - were steps in the right direction, but did not go far enough. We remain active in our advocacy of sustainable forest practices by major companies and small licensees alike. 
• Our highly successful Markets Initiative was established in alliance with Greenpeace and Friends of Clayoquot Sound to work with the publishing industry to shift paper consumption to ancient forest-friendly paper stock. In 1999, Markets Initiative was launched as a separate organization. To date, 77 Canadian magazines, 102 Canadian book publishers, one newspaper and 7 printers have begun implementing Ancient Forest Friendly policies. More than 192,000 trees have been saved as a result of this work. 
• In 1991, we were successful in raising the alarm when the provincial government was on the brink of transferring public land to MacMillan Bloedel in exchange for creating parks (also on public land). Sierra Club BC had received leaked information that this was being negotiated and raised the alarm, which ultimately resulted in a public hearing process across the province. Commissioner David Perry produced a Final Report which showed that the vast majority of British Columbians did not want public lands to be given to forest companies and opposed removal of private land from Tree Farm Licenses. Unfortunately, the current government has chosen to ignore the public demand and has since allowed Weyerhouser, Timber West and Western Forest Products to remove private land from TFLs.