Boundary Forest

10/13/2026

BC Green Party
PO Box 8088 STN Central
Victoria BC V8W 3R7

October 9, 2026

Dear Emily Lowan, Leader of the BC Green Party:

We are writing in response to the BC Green Party’s policy position on forests and forestry in BC.

The most important strategy for maintaining resilient ecosystems and protecting biodiversity in BC is to protect, without exception or loophole, all remaining primary forests (also called “natural”, “original” or “ancestral” forests). Focusing solely on ‘big-treed old growth’ excludes a significant portion of BC’s remaining primary forests, particularly outside the Lower Mainland/Vancouver Island, to the detriment of biodiversity province-wide.

Primary forests have never been industrially logged. They may contain trees of any size or age. They may have lots of dead trees if they have recently experienced natural disturbances such as a fire or an insect outbreak. What they all have in common is that because they have never been logged, they provide continuous, complex, and critical habitat for a multitude of organisms.

Extracting wood from primary forests degrades habitat. Logging systems like ecosystem-based management, partial harvesting, and selective logging won’t maintain biodiversity over the long term if they are taking place in primary forests. Better logging practices belong in previously logged (second growth) forests, including the vast plantations that exist across much of BC’s interior.

The zonation system proposed in Recommendation 3 of the Old Growth Strategic Review (page 50) will fail to protect biodiversity because it allows logging in the ‘Protection’ zone. Using the pretext of beetles and fire to log primary forests is an old and predictable forestry Trojan horse that has led to widespread wildlife habitat degradation across BC.

To support communities through the forestry downturn caused by a catastrophically ineffective regulatory regime combined with decades of overharvesting, we advocate for a switch to harvesting in second growth forests only. Mapping can determine how much second growth forest needs to be set aside to connect the remaining primary forest fragments in such a way as to allow natural processes to occur. The remaining secondary forests can be set aside for harvest using systems including thinning, partial harvesting, etc.

It’s imperative that we make decisions regarding biodiversity based on rigorous ecological science and not on the limited view that forests are solely a ‘fibre supply’.

Protecting all primary forests, including what is currently old growth, is the only way to protect biodiversity and ecological integrity for future generations.

Sincerely,

Jenn Matthews, Asta Glembotzki, Cam Beck, Jocelyn Kickbush and Michelle Connolly
Conservation North steering committee

10/05/2026

BFWSS is Dissolving - What Happens Next for the New Forest Act

Hello Everyone,

I have an important update to share about the Boundary Forest Watershed Stewardship Society and the New Forest Act project.

The BFWSS Board has made the decision to dissolve the Society. BFWSS will cease operations on November 13, and the official New Forest Act campaign under BFWSS will end with it.

But the New Forest Act framework does not end on November 13.

The campaign may be ending, but the framework is there for everyone who wants to carry it forward.

OUR DEVELOPMENT
BFWSS has spent years investigating what was happening in the forests in the Kettle River watershed, bringing that information to the public, challenging forestry practices and government decisions, and pushing for something better. That work eventually led to a much bigger undertaking: developing an alternative to BC's existing forestry system.

Development of the New Forest Act began in January 2024. The detailed proposal was first published in September 2024.

Since then, much of my work has been about getting that proposal out into the world: presenting it in BC communities, bringing it to local governments, organizations, and provincial officials; developing the supporting materials people need to understand it, and, most recently, presenting it directly to BC's Ministers of Forests and Water, Land and Resource Stewardship.

BFWSS has carried the New Forest Act this far.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT IS A HANDOVER
When the official campaign ends, the New Forest Act continues to be a body of work available publicly: the proposal, backgrounder, executive summary, supporting documents, presentations, videos, graphics, and other resources will remain freely available for people to use.

It can be studied, taught, taken to an MLA, and presented to a community group or local government. Organizations and individuals can advocate for it directly with elected reps.
Advancing the New Forest Act no longer belongs to BFWSS. It belongs to the people who decide it is worth advancing.

My role will change too.

After November 13, I will become the independent custodian of the New Forest Act documents and materials. I will preserve the work, maintain its permanent public home, and make sure the NFA remains accessible. But it will no longer be a full-time job for me.

I am not creating another organization or continuing the BFWSS campaign under another name. There will be no new Board, membership, fundraising campaign, or advocacy organization replacing BFWSS.

The point is now this: the New Forest Act does not depend upon either an organization or a single individual doing the work in order for the ideas to continue.

I am also preparing a permanent online archive of BFWSS's work so that the Society's reports, articles, videos, photographs, Forest Watchdogs material, and other parts of its history remain publicly accessible after BFWSS is gone. It will be available at the same URL as the current one: https://boundaryforest.org/

TO EVERYONE WHO HELPED MAKE THIS POSSIBLE
There are far too many people to name in one email.

Since 2019 BFWSS's work was made possible by people who donated money, volunteered, served on the Board, contributed technical knowledge, helped with research, took pictures and video, watched the back roads, hosted presentations, shared our work, wrote letters, attended meetings, and supported the organization in countless other ways.

Some people contributed hundreds of hours. Others sent $20, showed up at a presentation, shared a video, or passed a document along to someone who needed to see it.

However you helped, it added up to something much bigger than any one contribution.

The New Forest Act could never have become what it did without the people who contributed their knowledge, reviewed material, organized and attended events, invited us into their communities, donated to the project, and helped get the proposal in front of people across the province.

If you were one of those people, thank you.

A PERSONAL NOTE
This is a strange message for me to write.

Since I began developing the New Forest Act in January 2024, it has occupied an enormous part of my life. I've researched, written, travelled, presented, made videos and graphics, answered emails, talked with people across the province, sat in government meetings, stood in community halls, and spent an astonishing number of hours trying to answer one question:
If the existing forestry system isn't working, what should replace it?

I'm proud that we answered that question.

We didn't produce another report describing the problems and end with a list of recommendations. We built an alternative framework and followed it through into the details: what the law should require, who should make decisions, where logging should and shouldn't occur, how damaged landscapes should be restored, how communities could receive more of the economic benefit from public forests, and how the transition could actually work.

The New Forest Act framework now exists independently of the project that created it.

I don't know what will ultimately happen with it. And increasingly, that isn't mine to determine.

It's up to you now.

If you believe the New Forest Act offers something worth pursuing, take it.

Read it. Learn it. Talk about it. Share it. Bring it to your MLA. Bring it to your local government. Bring it to your organization. Use the documents, presentations, videos, and other materials. Introduce it to people who have never heard of it. Ask elected representatives to read it and respond to it.

You don't need me or BFWSS to do that. You don't need my permission to do that.

And you don't need to wait for someone else to organize it.

LEARN HOW TO ADVANCE THE NEW FOREST ACT
This is why I am holding the online Help Advance the New Forest Act Training Workshop on October 13 at 6:00 p.m. Pacific.

The workshop is not just another presentation about the NFA. It is part of the handover.

I will teach participants the arguments behind the framework, how to explain it clearly, how to answer common questions, and how to use the materials and resources that will remain available after BFWSS closes. Dave Weaver will be there to answer technical questions.

The goal is to equip more people to advance the New Forest Act themselves.

Register here: https://boundaryforest.org/training-workshop/

I also have two remaining NFA presentations before the official project ends: Hornby Island ForestFest on October 24 and the Water Suppliers Association of BC gathering in Kelowna on October 30.

After November 13, I will no longer be running an active NFA campaign or seeking speaking engagements. But if significant opportunities arise where a presentation or briefing could help advance the proposal, I will make myself available when I can.

WHERE THE WORK WILL LIVE
Preserving the New Forest Act is important because it means this work does not disappear when the organization that created it disappears.

The New Forest Act materials are now available at: https://newforestact.ca/

You can also follow me on facebook here on Facebook.

The BFWSS materials are being permanently archived at: boundaryforest.org

This BFWSS email account will continue to be monitored until January 31, 2027.
…………………………………………
And before I finish this chapter, I want to thank the people who made it possible for me to do this work.

Every donation bought time. Every invitation opened another door. Every person who organized a room, shared a post, offered expertise, attended a presentation, or wrote to say, "Keep going," helped move the work farther than I could have moved it alone.

I won't forget that.

Thank you for supporting this work.

Now it's yours to carry forward.

I ask that you remember this for BC's forests: nothing changes until the legislation changes.

Jennifer Houghton
Campaign Director
New Forest Act

https://newforestact.ca/

Forestry policy & structural forestry reform in BC.

10/02/2026

This is what makes some of BC forestry so frustrating. We already know how to do things differently. In the 1990s, forestry workers in the West Boundary used single-tree selection in mule deer winter range, leaving groups of trees for food, shelter, and habitat.

The forest was still used. Timber still came out. Jobs were paid. But the whole place wasn’t scraped back to the beginning every time somebody wanted logs.

The New Forest Act takes that basic idea much further: Nature sets the rules. Forestry operates within them.

That shouldn’t be a radical proposition. It should be the starting point.

10/01/2026

Well, this got bigger than we expected. 121 people are now registered for our New Forest Act training workshop. People from across BC are signing up to learn what the New Forest Act actually proposes and - MOSTLY how to take that case to their own communities and the government.

No forestry degree required. No need to know every policy or government program.

We’ll go through the basics:

- What needs to change in law - and why it has to be a new law.
- How Protect–Restore–Harvest works.
- Why it is not the same as the government’s new three-zone model.
- And MOSTLY how to sit down with an MLA, councillor, organization, neighbour, or anyone else and explain the New Forest Act in plain language.

Dave Weaver will join us to talk about what Protect–Restore–Harvest looks like on the ground.

Tuesday, October 13
6:00 pm Pacific
Online
Free

121 people are already coming. There’s still room around the table.

Registration link in the comments👇

10/01/2026

Forestry gets unnecessarily complicated very quickly. So here is the New Forest Act boiled down to three words: PROTECT. RESTORE. HARVEST.

Protect the forests and watersheds that need to remain intact.

Restore damaged forests, roads, streams, and watersheds instead of treating every damaged forest as another opportunity to extract timber.

Harvest where ecological conditions permit it, using forestry methods that maintain forest structure and support local economies.

Not every forest needs the same thing.

Instead of starting with How much timber can we get?, the New Forest Act starts with a different question: What does this place need?

Then we act accordingly.

09/30/2026

For years, people in the Kettle River watershed went out into the forests and looked at what was actually happening. Retired loggers. Forestry workers. Farmers. Biologists. Residents.

They found problems. They photographed them. They reported them. They wrote letters. They attended meetings.

And eventually this question became impossible to avoid:
Why are the people who live with the consequences of forestry decisions given so little power over those decisions?

That question is built into the New Forest Act.

Public forests would remain public, but decision-making would no longer be concentrated far away from the watersheds being affected.

Local Forest Boards would give communities an actual role in governing their forests.

Not another consultation after the important decisions have already been made.

Decision-making power.

09/29/2026

87 people have already registered for our New Forest Act training workshop. And we still have two weeks to go. That tells us that people don't just want to hear that there's a problem with forestry in BC. They want to know what we can actually do about the system that keeps producing the same results.

On October 13, we're going to teach people how to help advance the New Forest Act themselves.

Not how to become forestry experts. Not how to memorize a 100-page proposal.

How to understand the central changes we're asking for, explain them accurately, and take that case to MLAs, local governments, organizations, and other people who can help move it forward.

We'll also tackle something that has become particularly important: the BC government's new three-zone model is not the New Forest Act's Protect–Restore–Harvest system.

We'll show you why.

And we'll talk about the most important demand of all: Put it in law.

Programs can disappear. Governments can change. The laws remain until we change them.

If you've followed the New Forest Act and wondered, “Okay, what can I actually do to help?” - this workshop is for you.

HELP ADVANCE THE NEW FOREST ACT
Free online training workshop
Tuesday, October 13 | 6 p.m. Pacific | Zoom

Register using the link in the comments👇

09/29/2026

This is the Kettle River watershed. For years, BFWSS Forest Watchdogs drove the backroads and documented what industrial forestry actually looked like on the ground: enormous clearcuts, logging on steep slopes, damaged riparian areas, slash piles, roads, and cutblocks getting closer and closer together.

At some point you have to stop asking: "How can we make this cutblock a little better?"

And start asking: "Why does our forestry law keep allowing landscapes to end up like this?"

The New Forest Act is our answer to that question.

Protect what should never be logged.

Restore what we've already damaged.

Harvest where the land can actually sustain it.

Change the rules, not just the next cutblock.

Read the New Forest Act framework - link in comments👇

09/28/2026

Some of the people who helped start this work were loggers. Stan Swinarchuk worked in the forest industry for about 40 years. Wayne Tblus worked in it for 45. Both became part of the Boundary Forest Watershed Stewardship Society because they had watched forestry change - and watched what was happening to the forests and watersheds around their own communities.

Wayne's view was pretty simple: the forest is there to use, not abuse.

Years before there was a New Forest Act, BFWSS members were travelling logging roads, walking cutblocks, photographing damage, reporting problems, and asking why forestry couldn't be done differently. Here are Stan and Wayne walking beside a second growth plantation at a high elevation in the Kettle River watershed. You can see the primary forest next to it in the left of the photo.

Eventually the questions became: What if the problem isn't just bad forestry practices? What if the laws themselves are producing the wrong outcomes?

That's where the New Forest Act began.

To read about the New Forest Act proposal click the link in the comments👇