“Single use items are quite literally destroying oceans and forests,” said Jeh Custerra, Friends of Clayoquot Sound Campaigner. “It’s time that all levels of government stepped in to end the age of single use for the good of the climate, the planet, and the people, plants, and animals who live on it.”

Single use products – from packaging to food containers, to disposable cups and cutlery – have caused widespread damage to marine and ocean ecosystems and are responsible for mass deforestation and degradation of the world’s forests. Single use items are also a key contributor to the 2 billion tonnes of waste that humans produce every year. That number is projected to increase 70% by 2050.

“We’re depleting the very life support systems that we all need to survive, simply for the supposed convenience of single-use products,” said Tamara Stark, Campaigns Director of Canopy, one of the authoring organizations of the joint position paper. “We need to see radical change in how products are delivered to people, without the use of harmful and polluting packaging.”

Friends of Clayoquot Sound joined Canopy Planet and 188 environmental movement allies from around the world in calling for an end to single use packaging as the United Nations Environmental Assembly discusses global sustainability. The joint call “From Single Use to Systems Change”, highlights the massive impact that disposable products are having on the natural environment, wildlife, human health, and vulnerable communities and calls on leaders to bring about a much needed systemic change.

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FOCS joins members of Surfrider Pacific Rim and Ocean Legacy at our annual collaborative Hands Across the Sand action to call on the Canadian and B.C. governments to #ENDFOSSILFUELSUBSIDIES to stop the proliferation of single use plastic at the source. Photo by FOCS

Humanity produces 2 billion tonnes of waste each year and this figure is projected to increase by 70% by 2050. Single use products are a key contributor to this: when not effectively recycled, they are burned, sent to dumpsites or landfills, or simply left to degrade Earth’s ecosystems and poison Earth’s oceans.

Of the 300 million tonnes of plastic produced each year, half of that goes into single use products and applications. Plastic is derived from fossil fuel extraction and manufacturing; its very production contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. The life cycle of paper-based single use products derived from trees is similarly devastating, and yet often under-estimated. Carbon released in the logging process contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, and the removal of ancient forests eliminates the ability of those forests to continue to mitigate against the worst impacts of climate change. Each year, three billion trees are cut down to make paper packaging, and that’s projected to increase by 20% over the next five years.

Less than 10% of all the plastics ever produced has been recycled, and a mere 4% of that has been recycled back into products of the same quality as the original. When it ends up in oceans or scattered on land, plastic waste breaks down into microplastics, infinitely tiny toxic pieces that are ingested by species of all kinds, including humans, with untold health consequences. Both paper and plastics manufacturing are chemically intensive, energy-intensive, and require large amounts of water – and the reality is, eliminating the majority of single use products immediately will help conserve irreplaceable resources. To achieve the goals set out in the Paris Agreement and the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, and in recognition of universal human rights, there needs to be a collective shift in the way we design and manufacture products to avoid waste.

We, therefore, call for an end to single use, throwaway commodities, and call for transformational change to our production, consumption and end-of-use systems to enable a truly circular economy. This will require commitments and effective collaboration from government, business, financial institutions and investors, the nonprofit-sector, and civil society. Collectively we can protect and promote sustainable care of forest and marine ecosystems to enable a circular economy supported by closed-loop regenerative economics.

We call on all relevant bodies to:

• Re-direct: public and private funds to support the start-up and scale-up of systems that support reusable products and circularity, and disincentivize continuation of single use commodities by increasing levies and taxes on those products and the systems that prop them up.
• Re-design to support:
  • Responsible material lifecycles
  • Responsible and clean production
  • Responsible consumption
• Reward innovation: to help scale-up lasting solutions.
• Reparation for damage, in particular, to Indigenous peoples and people of colour, who are often disproportionately affected by modern extractive and pollutive industries.
• Restore: degraded natural habitats that have been impacted as a result of the production and disposal of products and packaging, whilst recognizing the important role that local and Indigenous communities play in conservation and restoration.

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The loss of local salmon stocks on Vancouver Island spurred the formation of the Clayoquot Salmon Roundtable in 2013. The purpose of the Roundtable is to build partnerships in co-management processes aimed at the recovery and protection of Clayoquot Sound’s wild salmon stocks. The Clayoquot Salmon Roundtable consists of representatives from the Tla-o-qui-aht, Ahousaht, and Hesquiaht First Nations, Federal and Provincial government agencies, NGOs, aquaculture, sport, recreational and commercial fishers and other stakeholders.

In 2020, the Clayoquot Salmon Roundtable began the first ever marine risk assessment for wild salmon. The objective is to identify and rank the scale and intensity of limiting factors in the marine environment and causes for the rapid decline in wild salmon stocks. The risk assessment will employ the best available data, science, traditional ecological knowledge and experts to identify high risk factors, key data gaps, and to develop prescriptions and recommendations for rebuilding, restoration, mitigation and management.

Beach seine sampling has confirmed that sea lice loading on juvenile wild Pacific salmon was higher in recent years than in any previous sampling year on record, 20 times higher in some cases. The success of sea lice populations are influenced by several factors including temperature, salinity and host abundance. Changing ocean conditions, as predicted by climate change, such as increasing sea temperatures and higher salinity, are likely to increase louse abundance on wild salmon. In a rapidly changing climate, protecting the genetic diversity in the remaining wild salmon is critical for long-term viability.

The recent and sharp decline in our local wild Pacific salmon stocks in Clayoquot Sound should be considered a state of emergency. The Clayoquot Salmon Roundtable is requesting your financial and political support and immediate action.

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Participants in the 1993 Protests organized by Friends of Clayoquot Sound to stop old growth logging in region. – Photo FOCS Archives

Friends of Clayoquot Sound was established in Tofino in 1979 in response to the logging activity on nearby Meares Island. The small group of activists set their sights on protecting Clayoquot Sound’s ancient temperate rainforest as a globally rare ecosystem.

In 1984, FOCS joined the Tla-o-qui-aht and Ahousaht First Nations in one of the first logging blockades in Canada to prevent the logging of Meares Island. MacMillan Bloedel held the rights to clear cut 90% of Meares Island at the time. As a result of the peaceful blockade direct action and the court injunction that followed, Meares Island was protected and declared a Tribal Park by Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation. Today Meares Island remains unlogged, providing the drinking water for Tofino, and the centrepiece for Tofino’s tourism economy.

FOCS led blockades in 1988 and 1992, stopping an illegal logging road in Sulphur Pass, and protesting against MacMillan Bloedel’s logging on the edge of intact Clayoquot River valley. Responding to the B.C. Government’s decision to allow logging in 74% of Clayoquot Sound’s ancient rainforests, FOCS organized the largest peaceful civil disobedience protest in Canadian history, in collaboration with other environmental groups. In 1993, the Peace Camp in the “Black Hole” clear-cut was established. Daily blockades and arrests on a logging road near Kennedy River Bridge took place during the “war in the woods”. Over 12,000 people attended the “Clayoquot Summer” blockade, where 856 were arrested and charged for protecting the ancient rainforest.

The blockades brought Clayoquot Sound and the issue of temperate rainforest destruction to world attention. FOCS held MacMillan Bloedel publicly accountable which helped position the regional Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations of Clayoquot and Barkley Sound to eventually buy out the logging company and attain control of the tree farm licences in Clayoquot Sound. However, the B.C. Government’s outdated forestry system required the First Nations’ owned company, MaMook, to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual fees to hold the “rights to log”. To ensure the logging licences were retained by MaMook, the company was coerced into logging their First Nations’ territories to finance “the rights to log” to service the annual payment required by the B.C. Government.

Friends of Clayoquot Sound joined Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations’ members to document logging taking place in their territory near Virgin Falls in 2017. The current systems requires First Nations to log to pay the B.C. Government for the “rights to log”. Photo by Tsimka Martin

In 2006, FOCS, Greenpeace, Wilderness Committee, Sierra Club, and Stand (formerly Forest Ethics) formed the Clayoquot Sound Conservation Alliance (CSCA) to support discussions with regional First Nations about protecting the intact valleys through conservation investment. Since then, FOCS has worked continuously towards permanent protection by supporting local First Nations in securing conservation investments privately and through governments.

For 2019, we were honoured to congratulate the Ahousaht and Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations for securing a key federal commitment to advance their land-use visions in Clayoquot Sound. FOCS look forward to hearing more details from both the federal and provincial governments of their support for this reconciliation-based conservation investments initiative to safeguard the ancient communities and rainforests of this iconic region.

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On Vancouver Island alone, the equivalent of 34 soccer fields of the last remaining ancient rainforests are logged every day. #PROTECTWHATYOULOVE #CLIAMTEACTIONNOW – Photo by TJ Watt

Post by Forests For Climate Coalition (40 groups including Friends of Clayoquot Sound)

On September 24th, as part of the global week of Climate Strike actions, over a hundred citizens picketed the B.C. Ministry of Environment and Climate Change. This action received support from major unions, BCGEU and PEA, who instructed members to respect the citizens’ picket lines in solidarity with the global week of Climate Strike.

The goal of this action was to expose the undeniable link between bad forest management and the climate crisis, the elephant in the room in both forestry and climate policy in B.C. The message targeted George Heyman: It is time to step in to address the crisis in the woods in this province as a basic duty of your mandate as Environment and Climate Change Strategy Minister.

On Vancouver Island alone, the equivalent of 34 soccer fields of the last remaining old-growth rainforests are logged every day. Meanwhile, in the last decade, 10,000 jobs were lost in the forest sector to raw log exports and a lack of leadership to ensure the maximum number of jobs per tree cut. First Nations and forest-dependent communities – those most immediately impacted by these disturbing trends – still struggle to gain control over land-use decision-making that has for too long been in the hands of large, unaccountable logging corporations that prioritize short-term profit over Indigenous land rights, job stability, biodiversity and a safe climate future.

Coastal old-growth temperate rainforests are a rare, globally significant carbon sink which play a critical role in buffering against catastrophic climate change. Less than 5% of the remaining low-elevation old-growth forests remain on Vancouver Island and they too are being systematically liquidated and replaced with with biologically barren tree plantations.

The B.C. Government has accelerated logging of some of the last stands of coastal old-growth forests through its own BC Timber Sales program, started by the BC Liberals in 2003 and recently found chronically non-compliant of the government’s own inadequate regulations around old-growth forest management. The widespread practice of slash pile burning contributes to placing BC forestry at the top of all sectors in the province for carbon emissions. This is a backwards situation that dramatically needs to be fixed.

In a climate emergency, protection of old-growth forests is a key natural climate solution we cannot afford to waste. The world has now entered a wave of human-caused mass extinction, the result of endless capitalist growth and resource extraction. The world’s leading climate scientists have given humanity eleven years to avoid runaway climate change, now considered the greatest existential threat facing humanity and currently displacing millions of people world-wide

This is our call to action for Environment and Climate Change Minister George Heyman:

1 Insist the B.C. Government protects the last low and medium elevation coastal and interior old-growth rainforests;

2 Recognize Indigenous authority, governance and stewardship in forest management; and

3 Implement sustainable forestry practices that protect the environment and local community jobs, once and for all, as a central and unavoidable feature of the B.C. Government’s Climate Change Policy.

We are running out of time.

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Victoria / Tofino – Justin Trudeau and his family have vacationed on Vancouver Island in Tofino for the past three summers since he became the Prime Minister of Canada. Days after the Trudeau family’s current vacation started, on July 24th marine biologists observed a member of the endangered Salish Sea orcas, known as J35 or Tahlequah, swimming around carrying her dead newborn calf on her back. Nine days later and the pod of endangered orcas started taking turns floating the body of the calf who died more than week ago. Friday, August 3 marks the orcas the 11th day of mourning.

“Tahlequah is one of just 75 endangered southern resident whales and this calf was the first to be born in three years into the Salish Sea orca population, which is the same amount of time the Trudeaus have vacationed here,” said Jeh Custerra, Friends of Clayoquot Sound campaigner. “With Trudeau on the West Coast enjoying the environment that people have fought hard to protect he needs to understand that as Prime Minister of Canada his decisions, including buying the Trans Mountain pipeline, will exasperate serious issues here.”

In an effort to hold Trudeau accountable as a decision maker, Friends of Clayoquot Sound reached out to the South Island ecotourism operator, Ocean Ecoventures, to invite the Trudeaus on a reality tour to bear witness to the orcas’ mournful wake.

“We have been following the story of J-35’s grief with broken hearts. It is an overwhelming tragedy on our coast that should be a watershed moment where the plight of the orcas solidifies in the public consciousness as at a crisis point,” said Simon Pidcock, Head Captain of Ocean Ecoventures. “For the entirety of the currently ongoing grieving ritual, we have been discussing what we can do as a crew as we continue to learn updates about Talequah’s mourning. The idea of inviting Trudeau to observe comes as a welcome request to transform his understanding as a decision maker.”

The Salish Sea orcas are suffering from a lack of nutrition due to an absence of their dietary staple, Chinook salmon, which are serious decline due to climate change and environmental stress.

“The Trans Mountain expansion would increase oil tanker traffic in the Salish Sea by 700% and undermine Canada’s global climate change commitments,” said Eva Garofalo, Dogwood BC’s South Island Organizer. “Stopping this oil tanker expansion is critical for orcas, salmon, and the livelihoods of people on the West Coast. We can’t escape our interconnectedness.”

“The Salish Sea orcas are fighting for their lives every day. They don’t get to take vacations,” said Mark Worthing, Climate & Conservation Campaigner at Sierra Club BC. “No decision maker can have a fully informed perspective about the consequences of their actions until they witness the hardship of those most impacted. The Trans Mountain pipeline buyout completely undermines the new oceans protections plan and any efforts of the DFO to aid these endangered whales.

Eva Garofalo, Dogwood BC, South Island Organizer: 250-370-9930 ext. 31

Simon Pidcock, Ocean Ecoventures, Head Captain: 250-748-3800

Mark Worthing, Sierra Club BC, Climate & Conservation Campaigner: 250-889-3575

Jeh Custerra, Friends of Clayoquot Sound, Campaigner: 250-725-4218

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