More than 100 celebrities, prominent Canadians ask B.C. premier to preserve remaining old-growth forest

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Yvette Brend · CBC News · Posted: Jun 18, 2021 4:05 PM PT | Last Updated: June 18

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Australian-born Vancouverite Nicole Rycroft is the founder and executive director of Canopy. The non-profit aims to change the forestry industry worldwide. (Climate Breakthrough Project/Canopy)

More than 100 prominent Canadians — and a few international celebrities — have signed an open letter to British Columbia Premier John Horgan demanding he preserve the province's remaining old-growth forests.

Campaign organizers are demanding an immediate stop to logging of the remaining old growth, saying B.C. used to be a place where trees swayed at 76 metres tall and now only 2.7 per cent of the large-tree old-growth forests remain.

The signatories span a range of professions, from politicians to musicians to athletes and activists, including former prime minister Brian Mulroney, musicians Bryan Adams and Neil Young, poet and author Michael Ondaatje, former Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson, and global climate change activist Greta Thunberg.

Campaign organizer Nicole Rycroft is the founder and CEO of Canopy, an environmental non-profit that describes itself as a Canadian-based organization dedicated to advancing ecologically based forest solutions worldwide. Canopy has launched several previous campaigns in the fashion, packaging and publishing industries to protect... ancient forests.

Rycroft said the response to the call for signatures was "overwhelming" and came together in a week.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/old-growth-forest-letter-to-premier-john-horgan-canopy-1.6071822