The name qat̓ᶿət - qathet, was gifted by the elders of the ɬəʔamɛn Nation to the qathet Regional District. It is located on the traditional territories of the ɬəʔamɛn - Tla’amin, shíshálh, ƛohos - Klahoose, and K’ómoks First Nations. We acknowledge and respect that these forests have been cared for by our First Nations neighbours and been apart of their territories since time immemorial.

qathet Old Growth was formed out of growing concerns within our community about the current management of our public lands. Industrial forestry practices are having a detrimental effect on our watersheds, biodiversity and investment into the local economy.

Old Growth was chosen in recognition of needing to conserve all remaining Old Growth forests, while advocating the need to recruit more mature forests because we have been unsustainably over cut.

Human activity that exceeds the natural range of variation in forested ecosystems reduce key ecological function and scientists have identified the importance of “refugia” in the face of climate change. Supporting ecosystem function and resilience will lower risk to surrounding communities.

The highest risk ecosystems requires recruiting appropriate younger forest to grow old. Ecosystems with little or no remaining old forest face the highest risk in the province. We support the recommendations from A New Future for Old Forests and want to advocate for partnerships with First Nations, the Public and Government transitioning to a more sustainable future.

Forest fragmentation and degradation especially at industrial intensities and large spatial scales, have been shown to alter forest characteristics, including physical structure, species composition, diversity, abundance and functional organization. These pressures also interact with natural disturbance regimes such as fire, flooding and pests to perturb forests beyond their capacity to regenerate. 

Intact forests are indispensable not only for addressing rapid anthropogenic climate change, but also for declines or changes in regional climate and watershed regulation; biodiversity conservation; indigenous cultures; and human health.

Old and intact forests tend to be cooler, moister, and less subject to drought and desiccation than younger forests. They contain high levels of biodiversity, structural complexity, and soil development. There is increasing evidence that forests are a key factor in the regulation of local climate regimes through the exchange of radiation, moisture and wind energy between the land and atmosphere.

Regional weather patterns are therefore a function of not just the amount of forest cover but also its state and condition. Scientists predict that increasing temperatures and changes in weather patterns associated with climate change will drastically affect Canada’s forests in the near future, with the rate of projected change expected to be 10 to 100 times faster than the ability of forests to adapt naturally.

Terms like 'old growth' or 'healthy' are subjective and not stand-alone definitions. A stand of trees is "a contiguous community of trees sufficiently uniform in composition, structure, age, size, class, distribution, spatial arrangement, site quality, condition, or location to distinguish it from adjacent plant communities.” 

 Stand structure is the “horizontal and vertical distribution of components of a stand, including the height, diameter, crown layers and stems of trees, shrubs, herbaceous understory, snags and down woody debris."  All these characteristics or values should be used in determining an “old growth” policy for stewarding older species of a certain seral stage. Dr. John A. Helms - UC Berkeley Professor of Silviculture and Head of the Department of Forestry and Resource Management