The Tyee
May 14, 2021
Two summers ago, Brenda Sayers knelt atop what was left of British Columbia’s likely ninth widest Douglas fir tree. Sayers, a member of the Hupačasath First Nation, has long fought to protect old growth in her territory on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
“The old growth holds a lot of our history,” she said. “That tree must have been 800 years old.”
It had been felled in the Nahmint Valley by companies given the go-ahead by BC Timber Sales, the province’s own logging agency, and the largest tenure holder in the province.
On Wednesday, B.C.’s forestry watchdog found that BC Timber Sales erred when it allowed that tree and the forests surrounding it to be clearcut.
Three years after it was launched, the investigation found that the province wrongly greenlit a plan from BC Timber Sales that failed to protect land-use objectives for biodiversity and old growth protection in the Nahmint River Watershed as set out by the Vancouver Island Land Use Plan.
According to the BC Forest Practices Board report, “gaps” in BC Timber Sales’ planning “occurred over a long period of time and are creating real risks to ecosystems.” It also found that although BC Timber Sales knew about those gaps, it didn’t adequately address them.
The investigation was triggered by a complaint filed by the Ancient Forest Alliance in 2018 after its campaigners and members visited BC Timber Sales cutblocks in the Nahmint along with the Port Alberni Watershed Alliance.
“We witnessed just horrendous logging of some of the finest remaining old growth on Vancouver Island,” said Andrea Inness, forest campaigner for the alliance.
Behind the scenes, the province responded by commissioning two internal investigations on what happened in the Nahmint.
Their conclusions — made visible through a freedom of information request filed by the Ancient Forest Alliance — found that logging in the Nahmint should be halted until the issues were addressed.
Now the board is calling on the province to create a new plan for the Nahmint region with clear targets to protect rare, old growth ecosystems. That includes halting any current or future auctions until that happens.
“We would say you probably shouldn’t be investing in developing those kind of timber sales until this plan is figured out,” says BC Forest Practices Board chair Kevin Kriese.
BC Timber Sales and the province have until Sept. 15 to respond to the recommendations.
Meanwhile, BC Timber Sales continues to auction off cutblocks across the province. On the Island, over 50 per cent of that is considered old growth.
This year, BC Timber Sales plans to auction off over 1,100 hectares of old growth on Vancouver Island. That’s more than half of the land mass of the City of Victoria.
Since 2018, BC Timber Sales’ old growth cutblocks on the Island have been four times as large — over 4,000 hectares.
Last September, the province promised a “paradigm shift” in its approach to managing old growth, agreeing to implement all 14 recommendations from the province’s Old Growth Strategic Review Panel report released last year. It committed to doing that through government-to-government consultation with First Nations.
In an emailed statement to The Tyee, the province acknowledged issues around old growth. “We know, and we’ve said clearly, that the status quo on old growth isn’t acceptable.”
When questioned about BC Timber Sales’ own old growth logging activity on the Island, the province said that the Old Growth Strategic Review Panel “did not say there needs to be a complete halt to old growth logging,” adding that, “it’s important to understand that B.C. forests are among the most well-regulated and sustainably managed in the world.”
Who is BC Timber Sales?
BC Timber Sales was founded by the province in 2003 in an attempt to address a longstanding softwood lumber dispute with the U.S.
Before BC Timber Sales, major companies did most of the logging in the province. They also enjoy financial benefits flowing from their long-term tenures. “They’re essentially rent-controlled,” says Torrance Coste, national campaign director with the Wilderness Committee.
As a result, the U.S. claimed those companies had an unfair advantage. The province responded by taking back one-fifth of their allowable cut and giving it to the newly founded BC Timber Sales, which would operate as a “semi-autonomous” Crown corporation.
Because of its open-bid system, the lumber sold through BC Timber Sales-owned cutblocks are said to reflect the fair market price, which in turn helps the province set the rates for other forest licenses in the province.
BC Timber Sales suggests that the open market system distributes employment to rural communities. In a promotional video, the agency says that “by providing a reliable supply of timber through open and competitive auctions to loggers, wood processors and other forestry businesses, BCTS supports workers in rural communities across B.C.”
As of 2018, its operations supported 8,000 jobs in B.C, providing over $50 million in net revenue per year to the province, and it awarded $140 million in contracts per year to the private sector.
Calls by The Tyee to the Truck Loggers Association and the BC Council of Forest Industries were not answered by press time.
BC Timber Sales blocks come almost ready-made: they do the timber cruising, build the main roads, and make sure their blocks comply with forest policies and regulations. According to the province, “a number of biodiversity, wildlife, cultural and social values correlate to old growth stands and are specifically considered during the planning and development phases.”
But in the Nahmint, the BC Forest Practice Board’s report put that process in question.
The board found that throughout its history, BC Timber Sales sold cutblocks without an adequate forest stewardship plan to tell them how to translate the old growth and biodiversity requirements in the Vancouver Island Land Use Plan to their cutblock planning in the Nahmint. That’s because of a lack of checks and balances within the agency, said Kriese.
“Checking in on land use plans and how they’re being implemented is a weak spot,” he said, adding that oversight is largely “complaint driven.”
“Unless someone raises the issue, there actually isn’t a lot of investigation to see whether that’s being followed or not.”
Even if the agency was following the rules correctly, that would still pose problems for old growth, says Inness. “We can only hold BC Timber Sales and any other logging company accountable to the laws that exist,” she said. “Those laws are extremely outdated, and clearly put timber values well ahead of any other values — like biodiversity.”
That puts the onus on government, says Inness, to legislate rules that put old growth protection front and centre. “That’s why we need those old growth recommendations from the independent panel implemented.”
Ross Muirhead, forest campaigner with Elphinstone Logging Focus, agrees. “They’re part of the hidden levers of government,” says Muirhead, “they’re going to keep going until they’re told — until there’s actual new legislation around how much old growth can be logged or how much old growth should be protected. It’s just business as usual.”
Then there’s the issue of accountability from companies buying BC Timber Sales blocks.
The best way to find out what companies are actually doing on the ground, said Mark Worthing, coastal projects lead for the Sierra Club of BC, is to visit the site itself. That’s also the only way to know which company is actually logging the block.
Companies that buy BC Timber Sales tenures tend to contract logging out to smaller operations. Sometimes those operators re-contract the job out again.
Worthing points to a picture of a BC Timber Sales cutblock with a sign nailed to a tree. The logging company’s name and phone number is written down in black Sharpie.
“They’re wholesale auctioning out stuff off to contractors who have very limited liability,” says Worthing. “They’re basically like a garage sale for the last old growth.”
Rare ecosystems on the cutting block
The Tsitika and Nahmint valleys are home to some of the island’s largest remaining tracts of unprotected, old growth forest on the island — they’re also hotspots for BC Timber Sales cutblocks.
These forests are extremely rare, according to a recent study by Karen Price, Dave Daust and Rachel Holt, who found that only one per cent consists of the big tree ecosystems that often come to mind when we hear about old growth.
“When it comes to BC Timber Sales, they are often located in the last remaining highest productivity, high biodiversity sites,” said Andrea Inness, campaigner with the Ancient Forest Alliance.
The Nahmint is a prime example. After Clayoquot Sound, the Nahmint is one of the largest tracts of old growth remaining on Vancouver Island. It’s home to endangered species like the marbled murrelet, whose habitat depends on old growth.
“It’s very devastating to see the amount of trees being taken down,” said Brenda Sayers. “There is no regard for wildlife.”
BC Timber Sales is planning to auction off 212.6 hectares in the Nahmint region this year — a marked increase from its rolling average of 56 hectares per year in the region since the agency began. In the coming years, the agency has over 600 hectares of old growth in the Nahmint mapped out for logging.
According to the BC Forest Practices Board report, those sales and planning processes should be halted immediately until a new plan is in place.
BC Timber Sales’ operations in the Nahmint throws its operations across the province into question, says TJ Watt, campaigner for the Ancient Forest Alliance.
“If we caught that there, what’s going on in other places as well?”
This year, BC Timber Sales is auctioning off four old growth blocks consisting of over 190 hectares in the Tsitika valley.
The Tsitika, located between Ma’a̱mtagila and Tlowitsis territories, was once the lesser-known site of old growth blockades in the 1990s. The province established the Lower Tsitika River provincial park in response, protecting about 10 per cent of the area adjacent to the coast and Robson Bight.
“The big, gut-wrenching trade-off was that it meant that they weren’t able to protect the upper Tsitika,” said Worthing. “So what we’re seeing now is the consequences of that.”
“They’re taking out the guts and feathers of the valley,” says Muirhead, who has been tracking BC Timber Sales activities on Vancouver Island. “They’re just taking everything. The valley bottom is gone, it looks like 50 per cent of the mid elevation is gone, and now they’re going higher up the slopes.”
The region is home to all five species of Pacific salmon whose spawning beds require consistent water flows and temperatures — both of which are impacted by logging. “We’re seeing less and less return and that’s a direct impact of logging — all the runoff goes into the creek,” said Seneca Ambers, spokesperson for the Ma’a̱mtagila First Nation.
“We’re the salmon people. We live off the salmon year-round — or we used to,” says Ambers, whose family now receives only one or two salmon for the year.
Among the proposed blocks in the region, Tsitika Main, a 35-hectare clearcut to be auctioned off this July, nudges up against a stream that flows into the Tsitika River.
The Tsitika and the surrounding forests are also rich in culturally modified cedars. These trees are landmarks for traditional territory, says artist and hereditary Ma’a̱mtagila Chief Rande Cook (Makwala), but he’s seen BC Timber Sales cutblocks where these trees were felled. “To wipe these trees out, and to cut us down in the process, officially removes the Indigenous people from those territories for good.”
Consultation versus consent
BC Timber Sales consults with Indigenous Nations before logging occurs in their territories. “A primary objective is to work towards reconciliation with Indigenous peoples,” said the province in an emailed statement, adding that BC Timber Sales integrates the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act into its planning decisions.
But Sayers said those commitments are falling short.
In 2018, the Hupačasath band council released an open letter calling for the B.C. government to extinguish all approved old growth cutblocks in the Nahmint Valley. The province committed to entering into talks with the Nation, but BC Timber Sales’ cutblocks continued to be sold in the territory.
The same year, the BC Assembly of First Nations passed a motion calling for BC Timber Sales to be dissolved, and its tenure lands redistributed to First Nations.
“I’ve always said that reconciliation begins on the land,” said Sayers. “Until companies like BC Timber Sales and federal and provincial policy support First Nations and their right to protect the land, they can call it whatever they want on these websites. To me, it’s just talking out of both sides of their mouth.”
The Hupačasath First Nation were not available to respond to The Tyee’s request for comment at press time, and the Tseshaht First Nation did not respond to our request.
BC Timber Sales does not consult with the The Ma’a̱mtagila hereditary chiefs whose territory that includes the Tsitika, Naka Creek and Schmidt Creek regions. That’s because government accepted a resolution proposed by the Tlowitsis band administration that functionally erased the Ma’a̱mtagila claim to their territories in the eyes of the province, said Ambers. “We ended up not having any voice in any of the decisions being made.”
The Ma’a̱mtagila Nation is currently working to reassert their title through the courts.
Instead, the province confirmed that BC Timber Sales consults with the Tlowitsis First Nation through the Nanwakolas Council, which represents five Nations in the region and does not include the hereditary chiefs of the Ma’a̱mtagila.
Ambers says BC Timber Sales is shirking its responsibility to consult with the Nation. “It’s just a blatant disregard for that complexity and a disregard for the Ma’a̱mtagila people” she said.
Cook said BC Timber Sales should put old growth logging in the Tsitika region on hold until title issues are resolved.
“Industry never stops,” he said. “It’s like, okay, let us spend a year figuring this out and taking it into court. But in a year, you could have areas completely wiped out from logging.”
Dallas Smith, board president of the Nanwakolas Council, oversees BC Timber Sales referrals for the Tsitika region.
Smith said he is concerned about old growth in the region, but revenue from old growth logging continues to be an important source of funding for the council’s member Nations.
“We still need to keep harvesting in these areas,” he said. “BC Timber Sales is a vehicle that does that because they’re the biggest tenure holder in the area.
“But there has to be room in there to find that balance,” said Smith, referencing the need to protect some of the region’s old growth forests.
Amidst government’s promises of a new era of growth protection, Smith said he’s noticed industry ramping up its logging activity in the region.
The council has a 30 to 60-day window to provide feedback on referrals from BC Timber Sales, and they’re struggling to keep up. “We can make sure we’re putting as much lipstick on the pig as we can on their bad plans. But now we’re seeing these bad plans come a little quicker and sooner.”
“Our message to the province is going to be you know what, no more of these bad plans. You need to sit down with us. And we need to figure this out. We can’t keep kicking the can down the road on this issue.”
For Smith, that also means slowing down or stopping the rate of cut until a plan can be established. “We can’t let that talk-and-log happen anymore.”
For Ambers, the problem with BC Timber Sales’ approach with Indigenous Nations lies in the difference between consultation and consent.
“Consultation just means that you’ve asked for their opinions,” said Ambers. “Consent implies that you’re asking for permission and that you’re honouring it if somebody says no.”
If BC Timber Sales began to use a consent-based model, Ambers thinks the practices of BC Timber Sales would need to change. “A lot of our Nations don’t consent to the total wipeout of our forests.”
‘This is the low-hanging fruit’
Torrance Coste thinks that as a crown corporation, BC Timber Sales could model the paradigm shift on old growth the province has committed to.
“It’s like — this is the low-hanging fruit, you guys,” said Coste. “You could write a directive that says, hey, however much old growth you laid out this year, lay out half next year, and then half the year after that.”
Inness agrees. “They’ve promised big, big, big things,” she said, pointing to the province’s commitments to halt logging in at-risk areas within six months and to develop a strategy to transition to the second growth sector in a year.
With those deadlines looming, Inness says the province is shirking its opportunity to use BC Timber Sales as a vehicle for change.
“Instead of championing conservation and forestry solutions that support communities, they’re using BC Timber Sales to continue to destroy rare ecosystems,” she said. “It’s more than a missed opportunity. It’s willful ignorance on the B.C. government’s part.” ![[Tyee]](safari-reader://thetyee.ca/ui/img/ico_fishie.png)
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Additional logging deferrals expected this summer, says forestry minister
/in News CoverageCBC British Columbia
June 2, 2021
Critics want to see action now
Forestry Minister Katrine Conroy says she expects new logging deferrals to be announced this summer, following Tuesday’s announcement of a new forestry plan.
The province’s plan is intended to modernize the industry, focusing on sustainability and redistribution of forest tenures.
Deferrals temporarily protect old growth, putting harvesting on hold in old forest ecosystems at the highest risk of permanent biodiversity loss. They can expire, and can be extended.
The province says there are 57 million hectares of forested land in B.C., and there are currently 13.7 million hectares of old growth in British Columbia, 10 million of which are protected or considered not economical to harvest.
Conroy said there is a policy in the new plan’s intentions paper that is a commitment to continue to defer logging old-growth forests.
“We are continuing to engage with Indigenous leaders, we’re working with labour, with industry and environmental groups to look at where there is to identify the potential for additional deferral areas,” she told All Points West host Kathryn Marlow.
“I expect we’ll be able to announce additional deferrals this summer.”
Critics of the plan have expressed concern that deferrals were not being made soon enough — that old-growth is being logged right now, and said these actions need to be taken immediately.
“The reality is this crisis is precipitated by the government making promises to save the most at-risk old growth and then not doing anything,” Wilderness Committee campaign director Torrance Coste said in an interview on Tuesday.
“We were expecting some acknowledgement of that and maybe a faster timeline or some immediate on-the-ground measures, some things that would actually make it different out in the forest tomorrow.”
Consulting with First Nations
Dallas Smith, president of the Nanwakolas Council in Campbell River, said First Nations have been concerned about logging old-growth trees for two decades, but recent protests in the Fairy Creek area have created more awareness.
“It’s unfortunate that it’s got to the point that it’s gotten to,” he said.
Smith hopes there will be more engagement between the provincial government and First Nations communities about the process of getting deferrals.
“We would love a chance to sit down with government, with the Ministry of Forests and have that discussion about all the tenures that exist within our territories, including B.C. timber sales, and just have a talk about how we fit within those licences that go there and start making some of that transition,” he said.
“There’s no new tenures out there so we have to find a way of redistributing existing tenures while keeping the continuity of the economy going.”
He wants to find the balance between conservation and First Nations being able to benefit from forestry on their lands.
Conroy said those conversations will happen.
“From my perspective, that’s a key part of it, she said, adding that the new plans include ensuring that Indigenous nations are involved when it comes to land management.
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Five ways BC’s new forestry plan sets the stage for more old-growth conflict
/in News CoverageThe Narhwal
June 2, 2021
In the midst of escalating protests over logging, Horgan released an intentions paper on Tuesday that critics say fails to implement any immediate solutions
As protests over old-growth logging continue to escalate on southern Vancouver Island, where more than 140 people have been arrested, all eyes were on the provincial government Tuesday as it announced much-anticipated action on the future of forest policy.
But the province’s policy intentions paper failed to present any immediate solutions to the problems unfolding on the landscape, deferring action on old-growth until 2023 in a move critics say sets the stage for more conflict.
“It’s just a stunning denial of the reality on the ground,” Torrance Coste, national campaign director with the Wilderness Committee, told The Narwhal in an interview. “There was a good chance that there were people arrested during the press conference.”
Ken Wu, executive director of the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance, also pointed out the stark contrast between the passion of hundreds of people fighting to protect ancient forests and “their connection to these magnificent living ecosystems” versus the government response.
“You have, essentially, these guys who are trying to buy time and take it slowly and not put in place the key components to actually save those ecosystems. You can see the fury developing.”
The intentions paper outlined how the province plans to implement changes to its forest management policies, including preparing the way to transfer forest tenures to First Nations, but according to numerous conservation organizations, the plan lacks key elements needed to support communities and protect biodiversity.
Here’s what you need to know about the province’s plan for BC forests.
1. No new BC old-growth logging deferrals implemented
In the spring of 2020, an independent panel commissioned by the province reviewed BC’s management of old forest ecosystems and called for a “paradigm shift” in the way the province oversees the forest industry. The panel made 14 recommendations, including an urgent need to immediately defer logging in old-growth forests at risk of irreversible biodiversity loss, to buy time for the province to develop a new strategy. The panel gave the province six months to implement deferrals.
At a press conference, Premier John Horgan claimed the province is working on implementing the recommendations and cited 200,000 hectares of deferrals that were implemented last year. But critics said those deferrals failed to protect ecosystems facing the highest risk, and noted deferrals are no more than temporary protective measures. https://thenarwhal.ca/bc-old-growth-forest-vancouver-island-caycuse/embed/#?secret=SPf1B04tkD
“To say they’re implementing the panel’s recommendations is demonstrably false,” Wu said. “They missed their six-month deadline — in fact, it’s been over a year and they haven’t implemented critical deferrals, in particular on the high-productivity old-growth.”
Last month, a trio of independent scientists analyzed and mapped the province’s old forests to provide the province with a ready-to-go tool for implementing the deferrals. As The Narwhal previously reported, the map identified about 1.3 million hectares of forest in harm’s way, which is around 2.6 per cent of BC’s timber supply.
The province’s plan did not include any new deferrals, instead noting it intends to commit to more deferrals.
A statement provided to The Narwhal by the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development said the panel did not recommend a pause on all old-growth harvesting and added one of the key recommendations is engaging the full involvement of Indigenous leaders and organizations.
“Indigenous engagement is critical but will take time,” the statement said. “Government recognizes the importance of this issue to many Indigenous nations, and has sought advice from some Indigenous organizations to develop an engagement approach that can be effective. Discussions have begun with some nations, but not all nations yet.”
During a press briefing, the province noted the organizations it consulted, including Indigenous organizations, were confidential.
In a recent interview with The Narwhal, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, said time is of the essence.
“It makes no sense to have a protracted dialogue if, at the end of it, we discover the old-growth is gone.”
“It’s a basic denial of what this moment requires,” Coste said of the province’s intentions paper. “This moment requires hitting the brakes, realizing that the public trust is extremely frail. And without that public trust, none of these intentions are achievable.”
2. No clear path for funding a transition to more sustainable BC forestry
According to critics, the intentions paper notably lacks a plan to financially support the province’s modernization goals, and warned that redistributing forest tenures from large logging companies to First Nations could perpetuate the harvest of at-risk ecosystems.
“The most insidious thing is that they look like they are working to increase the economic dependency of communities, including First Nations, through an economic stake in old-growth logging,” Wu said.
Coste said First Nations relying on the revenue generated by old-growth logging need to be compensated for any economic losses resulting from putting the brakes on forestry activities, but noted that Premier Horgan said he cannot implement deferrals without consent from Indigenous communities.
“The choice for First Nations is: agree to deferrals and get no revenue or agree to logging and get revenue. That’s not a choice, not after 150 years of colonization,” he said. “There’s zero dollars earmarked under that policy intention, zero dollars earmarked in the budget and zero plan for how these immediate, medium and long-term steps will be funded.”
Wu said without alternative economic solutions, old-growth logging will continue.
“That’s a game changer if there’s no funding and agreements to protect the at-risk old-growth and to finance the alternative, which is conservation-based economies,” he said. “[The province has] made no commitments to increase … provincial funding for Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas and associated sustainable economic development.”
The Ministry of Forests did not respond to questions about allocating funding to support its policy intentions.
3. Province intends to double forest tenures held by First Nations
One of the principle themes outlined in the intentions paper is increasing Indigenous participation in BC’s forest management. At the press conference, Horgan repeated his government’s commitment to reconciliation.
“We continue to collaborate with First Nations, and others, to make sure that we protect species, and we protect the biodiversity that is so critically important to our old-growth forests,” he said. “It’s vital that we do not repeat the colonial activities of the past and [dictate to] the First Nations what they do on their territories today.”
According to Jessica Clogg, executive director and senior counsel with West Coast Environmental Law, these statements only addressed one side of the story.
“I was quite appalled at how the premier hid behind the Crown’s constitutional duties to Indigenous People in justifying [the province’s] failure to act on its commitment to immediately defer at-risk old-growth,” she said. “The province has continued for decades to issue cutting permits to new tenures, all without Indigenous consent, keeping the momentum of clearcut logging going in this province. And yet, when it comes to pressing the pause button in order to avoid talking and logging while negotiations are ongoing, the premier then trotted out consultations as an excuse.”
The plan, according to Horgan and Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development Katrine Conroy, is to double the tenures owned by First Nations.
“The idea of breaking up tenure concentration and ensuring local partnerships with Indigenous Peoples are all good words,” Clogg said. “But when you look at the details, you see the province saying that they hope to increase the amount of replaceable forest tenure held by Indigenous Peoples to 20 per cent from the current level of 10 per cent. That’s effectively saying that they intend to leave the other 80 per cent of logging rights in the control of major forest companies.”
She added that it’s more nuanced, but said the province’s commitment to implementing the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples needs more than 20 per cent.
“That is barely scratching the surface.”
Clogg admitted one policy intention gives her some optimism.
“What I read as a commitment to work with Indigenous Peoples to reintroduce prescribed and ceremonial burning — there are definitely forest ecosystems in which Indigenous management through fire was an integral part of the historic ecosystem condition. That is a very positive thing.”
Wu noted the province has an opportunity to protect BC’s forests, which he said Horgan acknowledged.
“The one tiny little glimmer of hope is it seems like he’s recognized that the federal government is providing $2.3 billion largely for Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas over the next five years and BC’s share of that would probably be [around] $300 million.”
He said that funding could be used to support communities as part of a strategy to save what’s left of BC’s old-growth.
4. Intentions include plans to maximize value and support local manufacturers
Several of the policy intentions focused on restructuring provincial rules and regulations to support local manufacturers, including addressing issues with the province’s own forestry outfit, BC Timber Sales, which manages about 20 per cent of BC’s forests.https://thenarwhal.ca/indicative-of-a-truly-corrupt-system-government-investigation-reveals-bc-timber-sales-violating-old-growth-logging-rules/embed/#?secret=yD5vFpAJW0
Clogg said there could be positive outcomes from revising how BC Timber Sales operates in the province, but warned any changes would need to be supported by additional measures to ensure local manufacturers don’t have to log themselves to access the wood.
The province also noted its intention to revise its rules on how companies operate on the landscape, which could reduce the amount of waste, which is typically burned on the forest floor. But Clogg said the wording in the intentions paper is vague.
“The way the language in the paper is structured, you could say the province is finally going to take some measures to prevent high-grading — taking some of the highest and best trees and leaving the rest,” she said. “On the flip side, we could be going back to the bad old days, where you had even more draconian ‘log it or lose it’ provisions.”
She added that the province’s plan does little to shift the forest industry away from being controlled by a handful of large companies.
“The underpinning foundation of our forest sector is a set of what we call tenures — various licences and logging rights — that were established between the ’40s and the ’60s, and were always designed to attract and support major logging companies,” she said. “That fundamental foundation would not be altered by these proposals.”
5. BC forestry plan does not address the biodiversity crisis
The 2020 old-growth strategic review urged the province to prioritize biodiversity and at-risk species over the economic benefits of the forest industry. The intentions paper does not mention biodiversity and instead focuses largely on forest-based economy.https://thenarwhal.ca/bc-biodiversity-targets-ecojustice-report/embed/#?secret=5voV5472Vv
Andrea Inness, campaigner with Ancient Forest Alliance, said in a statement that was a glaring omission from the intentions paper.
“A vision for BC’s forests that isn’t firmly rooted in ecological health does no favours for communities. This path continues to rob British Columbians of old-growth forests and the critical ecological services they provide while driving communities ever closer to the looming economic cliff ahead of them.”
Clogg said it was clear the province continues to view BC forests as timber supply, not ecosystems, and noted the speakers at the press conference included forest industry advocates and lacked any environmental organizations.
“The timber-oriented orientation of the intentions paper really leaves me doubting that this increased discretion the province now intends to give itself legally will be used in a way that protects biodiversity and ecosystem health or upholds Indigenous Rights.”
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BC government’s forestry announcement fails to address old-growth crisis
/in Media ReleaseVictoria, BC – The Ancient Forest Alliance is highly critical of yesterday’s announcement by the BC government of its intentions to modernize BC’s forest policies while at the same time failing to address the ongoing old-growth crisis.
“Today’s announcement on forest sector modernization widely misses the mark in terms of what steps are critically needed to ensure the ecological sustainability and long-term economic viability of BC’s forests,” stated AFA campaigner Andrea Inness. “Truly modernized forest policies would include ending the outdated, unsustainable, and massive industrial logging of the grandest remaining stands of ancient forests.”
Haddon Creek – Vancouver Island. TFL 46 – Teal-Jones
“As protests continue to erupt across southern Vancouver Island and beyond in response to the BC government’s destructive old-growth liquidation policies, Premier Horgan has missed a critical opportunity to build public trust and prove the NDP are serious about the forestry paradigm shift that they promised last fall by halting logging in contentious, at-risk old-growth forests. Instead, they peddled more highly misleading figures on how much old-growth forest is protected and blamed climate change, not logging, for the loss of these forests.”
The new intentions paper outlines a suite of forest policy changes, including tenure re-distribution that will give First Nations greater access to forest resources in their territories, increased emphasis on value over volume in the forest sector, and a “strengthened” annual allowable cut for BC’s controversial logging agency, BC Timber Sales.
Near logging roads constructed by Teal-Jones approach the unprotected headwaters of the Fairy Creek Valley.
“Transferring tenures while failing to fund and support economic alternatives that help leave ancient forests standing will only further entrench the status quo of old-growth logging and leave forestry-dependent communities, including First Nations, with few options to diversify their economies,” stated AFA campaigner TJ Watt. “While we welcome policy that allows for greater decision-making in line with communities’ interests, values, and aspirations, how will communities be able to adequately address those various needs when the only economic option on the table is more old-growth logging?”
“The BC government’s forestry plan must be accompanied by funding to support expanded deferrals in the most at-risk forest ecosystems, Indigenous-led protected areas, and sustainable economic alternatives to old-growth logging, while taking advantage of the $2.3 billion in federal funding that’s recently been committed to expand protected areas across Canada, including for new Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas.”
“The plan must also be coupled with legislation to protect remaining old-growth forests, the adoption of an ecosystem-based management approach in BC’s forest sector, and lower annual allowable cuts that respect ecological limits.”
“The BC NDP keeps saying they’re committed to implementing the recommendations from their Old Growth Strategic Review Panel,” stated Inness, “but they have failed to make the connection between these proposed policy changes, the declining state of old-growth forests, and the need to transition to a value-added, second-growth forest sector.”
“A vision for BC’s forests that isn’t firmly rooted in ecological health does no favours for communities. This path continues to rob British Columbians of old-growth forests and the critical ecological services they provide while driving communities ever closer to the looming economic cliff ahead of them.”
The intention paper – and Premier Horgan’s speech during yesterday’s announcement – did little to reassure British Columbians that his government is taking the old-growth crisis seriously.
“It’s beyond frustrating to hear Premier Horgan continue to repeat false and misleading claims about the amount of old-growth remaining in BC, how much is protected, and what the steps the province has taken. It seems almost every day he’s doing more to damage public trust and undermine the province’s credibility on the old-growth issue.”
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Politicians, environmentalists, industry divided on B.C.’s forestry plan
/in News CoverageCBC British Columbia
June 1, 2021
B.C. Greens, Sierra Club B.C. say old growth forests still at risk; industry council praises announcement
After weeks of arrests and attempts to block old growth logging on Vancouver Island, the province’s anticipated forestry announcement proved to be a disappointment Tuesday to protesters and environmentalists.
The province unveiled a plan Tuesday for “sustainable forest policy” that largely focuses on redistributing forest tenures — the agreements between government and harvesters.
While the province said the plan is to include more Indigenous Nations, forest communities and small operators in forestry agreements, critics say the move does little to address the need to preserve old growth forests that are actively being logged, including trees inside lots at the Fairy Creek Watershed.
“It was heartbreaking,” said Jens Wieting, forest and climate campaigner with the environmental group Sierra Club B.C. “We are seeing thousands of people across B.C. joining protests, and they know we are in the midst of a climate and biodiversity crisis.”
The province says there are currently 13.7 million hectares of old growth in British Columbia, and 10 million of those hectares are protected or considered not economical to harvest. There are about 57 million hectares of forested land in B.C.
But for the past decade, conservation groups like the Ancient Forest Alliance, the Wilderness Committee and Sierra Club B.C. have all used provincial data to argue that old growth trees in the areas where the trees grow biggest are being cut down at an unsustainable rate.
Last year, more than a dozen recommendations were made to the province in a report aimed at protecting old growth forests. The province maintains it is committed to implementing them by 2023.
Critics say that’s not soon enough and would rather see immediate deferrals of old growth logging.
“We are losing any and all remaining trust that the B.C. government is serious about implementing these changes before it’s too late,” said Wieting.
It’s a sentiment echoed by Sonia Furstenau, leader of the B.C. Green Party and MLA for Cowichan Valley.
“This really shows a lack of leadership and a lack of understanding of the moment we’re in,” she told CBC News. “British Columbians want to see the last of this land protected.”
Torrance Coste, national campaign director for the Wilderness Committee, said that while many of the policy intentions laid out by the government are worthy, such as more tenure for First Nations and strengthened enforcement for companies that break the rules, the most important missing component was immediate action.
“These forests are falling now,” he told All Points West host Kathryn Marlow.
“There needs to be some interim action. There needs to be some, not permanent action, but some protections for some holds on logging right now. And instead, we’re seeing [Horgan] make more commitments and broaden the issue and really sidestep the commitments that he has already made.”
Industry support
The premier was asked why Tuesday’s announcement did not include immediate action to prevent logging of old growth trees in the Fairy Creek watershed, where protesters have been defying an injunction in Horgan’s own riding.
“The critical recommendation that’s in play at Fairy Creek is consulting with the title holders,” said Horgan. “If we were to arbitrarily put deferrals in place there, that would be a return to the colonialism that we have so graphically been brought back to this week by the discovery in Kamloops.”
In a statement, the B.C. Council of Forest Industries applauded the government’s announcement, saying a collaboration with various stakeholders moving forward will help “sustain good jobs for British Columbians.”
Between wildfires, the mountain pine beetle, and a declining timber supply, the province says there have been 1,620 permanent, 420 temporary and 820 indefinite job losses in the forestry sector.
With files from Chad Pawson
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BC premier’s new forestry plan adds fuel to old-growth fire
/in News CoverageNational Observer
June 1st, 2021
Environmentalists say BC’s new vision for forestry isn’t going to quell the current wildfire of old-growth protests. File photo of Caycuse Camp activists locked to chainsaws courtesy of Rainforest Flying Squad
Environmental groups already riled by the pace of protections for ancient forests in BC were further provoked after the province failed to announce any new old-growth logging deferrals in its new vision for forestry Tuesday.
“If Premier John Horgan’s intention is to make the conflict raging around old-growth forests even worse, this is the perfect plan to do that,” said Torrance Coste of the Wilderness Committee.
The unveiling of the NDP intentions paper to modernize forestry policy took place as 1,000 protesters defied an injunction over the weekend to support Fairy Creek blockades — happening in Horgan’s own riding on Vancouver Island for the past nine months.
As of Monday morning, RCMP had arrested 142 people in connection to protests in logging company Teal-Jones’s tree farm licence (TFL) 46 near Port Renfrew — which is becoming the epicentre of environmental civil disobedience on a scale comparable to the 1990s War of the Woods in Clayoquot Sound.
The plan — which won’t be complete until 2023 at the earliest — includes worthy goals such as reconciliation and co-operation with First Nations, ensuring more communities benefit from forestry, and diversifying access to tenure and timber supply, Coste noted.
But the NDP government’s vision will do nothing to quell the immediate wildfire of public discord about the lack of protection for big trees and the at-risk ecosystems that support them, he said.
“It’s gasoline on the fire. It completely fails to speak to what this moment demands,” Coste said, adding the NDP is losing social licence for its forestry objectives.
“The premier doesn’t seem to grasp that everything in this plan is unachievable without immediate-term on-the-ground changes.”
BC needs to take urgent action to protect increasingly scarce old-growth ecosystems because forests have been managed solely for timber values for far too long, as the old-growth strategic review commissioned by the province found, Coste said.
“There’s strong public value for all the other important things the forests provide,” he said.
“While there are nods in this plan to change that over the course of coming years, there’s still this denial of the basic reality that we need some immediate stop-gap measures.”
Environmental groups (ENGOs) in the province want Horgan to temporarily defer old-growth logging in the most critical ecosystems, and put money on the table for First Nations that might lose revenue while discussions take place over the longer term.
Horgan reiterated his intent to meet all 14 recommendations in the old-growth review while unveiling the intentions paper Tuesday.
The province was following a core recommendation of the report by ensuring it was consulting with First Nations to avoid making any decisions around forestry in their territories unilaterally, he said.
“The critical recommendation that’s at play at Fairy Creek is consulting with the title-holders, the people whose land these forests are growing on,” Horgan said.
Not doing so would smack of colonialism, the harms of which were graphically depicted with the confirmation of a mass grave with the remains of 215 children at a former residential school in Kamloops last week, he noted.
“I’m not prepared to do that,” he said.
There must be buy-in by area First Nations for any deferrals in the Fairy Creek or other old-growth areas located in TFLs 46 and 44 in the region, he said.
The province made initial old-growth deferrals in nine areas of the province in September and has established the Special Tree Regulation to protect up to 1,500 exceptionally large trees, Horgan said.
As well, a timeline to implement all the old-growth recommendations has been set.
Old-growth activists at blockades aren’t going anywhere after hearing the province’s plan, according to the Rainforest Flying Squad (RFS), the grassroots coalition organizing the movement.
“We’re profoundly disappointed,” said RFS spokesperson Saul Arbess on Tuesday afternoon.
“What you’re going to see is a strengthening of resolve, and a strengthening of the barricades.”
More and more people from all walks of life and age groups are joining the protests, Arbess said, adding more than 90 per cent of British Columbians want protections for old-growth.
“Old-growth protection was barely mentioned, and we’re not seeing any kind of sustainable ecosystem-based management,” Arbess said.
“What we’re seeing is essentially business as usual with some modifications and changes, and a greater emphasis on allocation of timber to First Nations.”
But the economic model for relying solely on the extraction of timber is still at play, said Arbess, who had hoped to see funding commitments and initiatives to lay the foundation for other forest values, as was done in the Great Bear Rainforest.
Arbess said he hoped that ENGOs would be among the stakeholders consulted in any coming talks around the NDP’s promise to make additional deferrals — especially since no such groups were present to speak to the plan today, though unions and First Nations were extended the opportunity to do so.
“This is the opportunity to defer the five forest areas that we’re trying to protect,” Arbess said.
“But you don’t enter into an engagement process while at the same time the lands and forests under discussion are being destroyed.”
Rochelle Baker / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer
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Comment: B.C. NDP must keep its old-growth promises
/in News CoverageTimes Colonist
May 28, 2021
A commentary by a retired forest ecologist and retired professional forester and professional biologist.
When a province’s motto is invoked ironically, it may be time to reconsider that motto.
British Columbia’s provincial motto is Splendor sine occasu, a Latin phrase usually translated as “Splendour without diminishment.” Narrowly defined, it was intended to refer to the sun on the provincial shield that “although setting, never decreases.”
But the “splendour” applies equally well to the entire province. B.C. has more topography than any other province or territory — more mountain ranges, more coastlines. It has more climatic zones, more ecosystems and species than anywhere else in Canada. Or perhaps anywhere else in the world at temperate latitudes.
And that “splendour” — B.C.’s natural heritage — has been greatly diminished by our activities. This applies to our oceans and our freshwater as well, but today I’d like to focus on B.C.’s old-growth forests.about:blank
More than 80 per cent of B.C. is covered with forest — we are truly a forested province. There are more types of forest in B.C. than anywhere else in Canada, from our northern boreal forests to our coastal rainforests. For thousands of years, these forests have provided the essentials of life for B.C.’s First Nations. And they’ve provided habitat for our province’s plants, animals and fungi.
But today, we find our rich forest endowment greatly diminished. B.C. logs considerably more forest each year than any other province.
Except where we’ve built large cities, however, we haven’t deforested our province. We’ve simply clearcut our original (old-growth) forests, and regenerated second-growth forests.
But these second-growth forests are profoundly different from the forests that were logged, in just about any way you can imagine. They are different structurally and functionally, and they provide little in the way of habitat for the many species that have adapted over millennia to life in old-growth forests.
And so perhaps it’s not surprising that B.C. leads Canada in another category — we have more threatened and endangered species than any other province or territory.
One area that B.C. doesn’t lead Canada is in protecting old-growth forests and species at risk. We remain one of the few provinces without endangered species legislation.
For old-growth forests with very big old trees, only about three per cent (about 35,000 hectares) remains today outside of protected areas. That’s certainly splendour diminished.
The NDP government’s Old Growth Panel called for a deferral on logging on the most at-risk old-growth forests within six months of publication of its report.
It has been more than a year now, a year during which the rate of old-growth logging has accelerated considerably. The NDP government promised endangered species legislation for our province, but has subsequently changed their mind.
While independent scientists (using provincial government inventory data) have clearly documented and mapped how little high-productivity old-growth forest remains, the provincial government and industry continue to assure us that there is lots left, and they’re developing a plan.
Talk and log. There’s an urgency to this issue — every week fewer of these iconic forests remain.
Fortunately, more and more people are rejecting the “relax, we’re on it” message of the provincial government and industry.
Instead, they’re listening to what independent scientists are saying, or they’re paying attention to what air photos and satellite images are making abundantly clear. Or perhaps they simply appreciate what they see when they drive the backroads of our province.
For old-growth forests and species at risk, there is no objective on-the-ground difference between Christy Clark’s B.C. Liberals and John Horgan’s NDP. They share the same legislation and policies.
Perhaps the biggest difference is that the NDP promised to be a champion for forests and species, and the Liberals never did. That certainly makes the inaction of the NDP seem all the more appallingly cynical.
Activists frustrated at the inaction of our provincial government are beginning to take direct nonviolent action at roadblocks in Fairy Creek and elsewhere.
B.C.’s natural splendour is certainly diminished. But there are clear opportunities for our governments to protect some of what’s left.
For old-growth forests, the recommendations of the government’s own Old Growth Panel report provide an excellent path forward.
The NDP have promised to implement these recommendations. Now, all that’s required is the political will to keep their promises.
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Ottawa dollars can save B.C.’s old-growth forests
/in News CoverageNational Observer
May 27, 2021
Conservationists want B.C. to wield federal dollars to save the province’s ancient temperate rainforests. Photo courtesy of the Endangered Ecosystem Alliance
A coalition of conservationists is urging the B.C. government to use federal funds to end the province’s new war in the woods on Vancouver Island, protect old-growth forest and establish targets for endangered ecosystems.
Ken Wu, executive director of the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance, said Premier John Horgan should capitalize on federal funding and align with national and international initiatives to set targets to protect vital land and marine areas.
“It’s a game-changing plan,” Wu told the National Observer.
“Because the province can employ federal money to save these areas if Horgan chooses to do it.”
The B.C. government should adopt Canada’s protected areas targets, and preserve at least 25 per cent of its vital land and marine ecosystems by 2025, and 30 per cent by 2030, said Wu.
Currently, 15 per cent of B.C.’s land area is falls into legislated protected areas, compared to 13 per cent nationally, the alliance said.
The rest of the world is working aggressively to expand protected at-risk ecosystems, and B.C. should follow suit and protect its most valuable ancient forests at the same time, Wu said, particularly as the province boasts the greatest ecological diversity in the country.
B.C.’s participation is critical for Canada to meet its own national and international protected areas commitments, he added.
“Will B.C. join the North American leadership movement to solve the intertwined climate and biodiversity crisis or get left behind as an anti-environmental conservation laggard?” Wu asked.
A total of $3.3 billion to protect land and seas has been set aside by Ottawa in the latest budget, Wu said, adding $2.3 billion is dedicated to terrestrial areas.
B.C.’s part of the funding pie would likely range between $200 and $300 million, which would go a long way to protecting the province’s most valuable ancient forests.
The federal funding comes at a critical time for B.C., conservationist Vicky Husband, renowned B.C. conservationist awarded both the Order of Canada and the Order of B.C. for her work to protect old-growth over 40 years.
“Right now the B.C. government is being pressured by deeply concerned citizens across (the province) and beyond for an immediate moratorium on old growth logging of the last remaining most bio-diverse forests,” Husband said in a press statement.
“This pressure for change also includes support for First Nations who want to protect critical old growth forests in their territory.”
It’s vital B.C. dedicate a significant chunk of the funding to Indigenous Protected Areas, First Nations land use plans, and the acquisition of private lands for protection, the Alliance said.
Also, the province should support B.C. communities dependent on forestry revenue by providing financing for First Nations sustainable economic development linked to newly protected areas, incentives and regulations to grow a value-added, second-growth forest industry, and provide a just transition for B.C. old-growth forestry workers.
While federal funding won’t save all of B.C.’s old-growth, it could protect areas of concern and help end blockades and protests such as those currently underway on southern Vancouver Island and the Fairy Creek watershed, said TJ Watt, a campaigner with the Ancient Forest Alliance.
“The B.C. NDP government has just been handed the keys to ensure much of the grandest, most endangered old-growth forests in B.C. get protected,” said Watt in a press statement.
“Will they keep the door shut or let the solution in?”
Rochelle Baker / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer
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‘We don’t have time’: scientists urge B.C. to immediately defer logging in key old-growth forests amid arrests
/in News CoverageThe Narwhal
May 19, 2021
One year after an independent panel recommended the province immediately halt logging in B.C’s rarest forests, no meaningful deferrals have been implemented
B.C.’s rarest forest ecosystems are rapidly disappearing and if the province doesn’t act immediately to defer logging in key areas, as recommended by the 2020 Old Growth Strategic Review, they will be lost forever, according to a report released Wednesday by a team of independent scientists.
The analysis of B.C.’s remaining old growth forests and mapping tools aims to help the province meet the recommendations of the old-growth panel.
While the map was designed to flag forests that meet the criteria for deferral rather than note specific at-risk locations, the authors noted it includes places like the Nahmint River watershed and Fairy Creek on Vancouver Island, currently a hot spot of protest and near where the RCMP began making arrests on Tuesday as part of its enforcement of an injunction. The map also identifies unharvested old-growth in the Babine watershed near Smithers and rare cedar hemlock old-growth near Nelson as top-priority areas for logging deferrals.
The new analysis takes its lead from the independent strategic review commissioned by the province, which outlined criteria to determine which forests are of the highest value and most at-risk, and clarifies which areas should be immediately protected. The review recommended the province defer development in old forests with a high risk of irreversible biodiversity loss.
“It’s been a year since that report went to the government and there have been no meaningful deferrals since that time,” Rachel Holt, forest ecologist and one of the authors of the report, told The Narwhal in an interview. “We waited for the government to map what the panel recommended and there’s been no action — so we decided to just do it.”
While the province implemented deferrals last year that ostensibly protected 353,000 hectares of forest, closer inspection revealed how the numbers were skewed to include already protected areas and 157,000 hectares of second-growth forests open to logging. The province subsequently adjusted its numbers to reflect the inclusion of second-growth.
The new analysis identifies about 1.3 million hectares of at-risk forests across the province, which is about 2.6 per cent of B.C.’s timber supply. According to the analysis, the actual area that requires logging deferrals will be much smaller and the province has the tools to put any planned cutblocks and road building on hold while it works with First Nations and other stakeholders to develop land use plans.
“Following the old-growth strategic review panel’s direction, [the province] should take that map and overlay it with planned cut blocks and defer harvest in those areas until the planning is done,” Holt said.
Old-growth review recommended a ‘paradigm shift’ in how B.C. manages its forests
The strategic review highlighted the urgent need to stop looking at B.C.’s forests as timber supply and start prioritizing Indigenous Rights and ecological and cultural values. It acknowledged this transition won’t happen overnight but noted the urgent need to put the brakes on logging the rarest trees while creating a new strategy.
The first step is to figure out which forests need to be saved, which is where Holt and her colleagues come in.
“Our map represents the key criteria that the old-growth panel outlined for immediate logging deferrals, including the tallest, largest forests, plus rare and ancient forest,” Dave Daust, forester, modeler and project lead, said in a press release.
“With this blueprint, the province can act immediately to ensure any existing or planned logging in these areas is put on hold while it pursues a government-to-government approach for forest management that puts Indigenous rights and interests, ecological values and community resilience ahead of timber volume.”
Holt explained that the data and maps were created based on current provincial information, but said there are gaps that will need to be addressed.
“There will be places on the ground that aren’t on the map. They should be added, like known cultural areas or known high-value areas that for some reason don’t show up,” she said, adding that there may also be areas that have already been logged.
Scientists say there is no time to ‘talk and log’
In his 2020 election campaign, Premier John Horgan committed to implementing the panel’s recommendations.
“We will act on all 14 recommendations and work with Indigenous leaders and organizations, industry, labour and environmental organizations on the steps that will take us there,” he wrote.
But Holt said the province isn’t acting fast enough.
“There isn’t time to talk and log and try to create perfect maps,” she said. “Nothing is perfect, but we need to move forward.”
As The Narwhal recently reported, very little remains of B.C.’s old-growth forests. Holt, Daust and ecologist Karen Price calculated that just 415,000 hectares of productive old-growth forest remains in the province. Productive old-growth supports numerous endangered and threatened species, including caribou and northern goshawk.
As to whether the province will use the map to implement meaningful deferrals, the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development told The Narwhal in an emailed statement it is committed to protecting B.C.’s ancient forests for future generations.
“We know there is a lot more work to do. That’s why this government commissioned an independent panel to advise us on how we could do better when it comes to protecting old forests. Now, our government is working on next steps — which includes important engagement with Indigenous peoples, environmental advocates and forest-dependent communities around identifying additional deferral areas.”
Holt emphasized that the stakes couldn’t be higher.
“We are losing biodiversity and we’re losing carbon storage,” she said. “Old large tree ecosystems hold a phenomenal carbon store. We don’t have time to plant trees and wait 100 years.”
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‘A Garage Sale for the Last Old Growth’
/in News CoverageThe Tyee
May 14, 2021
Two summers ago, Brenda Sayers knelt atop what was left of British Columbia’s likely ninth widest Douglas fir tree. Sayers, a member of the Hupačasath First Nation, has long fought to protect old growth in her territory on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
“The old growth holds a lot of our history,” she said. “That tree must have been 800 years old.”
It had been felled in the Nahmint Valley by companies given the go-ahead by BC Timber Sales, the province’s own logging agency, and the largest tenure holder in the province.
On Wednesday, B.C.’s forestry watchdog found that BC Timber Sales erred when it allowed that tree and the forests surrounding it to be clearcut.
Three years after it was launched, the investigation found that the province wrongly greenlit a plan from BC Timber Sales that failed to protect land-use objectives for biodiversity and old growth protection in the Nahmint River Watershed as set out by the Vancouver Island Land Use Plan.
According to the BC Forest Practices Board report, “gaps” in BC Timber Sales’ planning “occurred over a long period of time and are creating real risks to ecosystems.” It also found that although BC Timber Sales knew about those gaps, it didn’t adequately address them.
The investigation was triggered by a complaint filed by the Ancient Forest Alliance in 2018 after its campaigners and members visited BC Timber Sales cutblocks in the Nahmint along with the Port Alberni Watershed Alliance.
“We witnessed just horrendous logging of some of the finest remaining old growth on Vancouver Island,” said Andrea Inness, forest campaigner for the alliance.
Behind the scenes, the province responded by commissioning two internal investigations on what happened in the Nahmint.
Their conclusions — made visible through a freedom of information request filed by the Ancient Forest Alliance — found that logging in the Nahmint should be halted until the issues were addressed.
Now the board is calling on the province to create a new plan for the Nahmint region with clear targets to protect rare, old growth ecosystems. That includes halting any current or future auctions until that happens.
“We would say you probably shouldn’t be investing in developing those kind of timber sales until this plan is figured out,” says BC Forest Practices Board chair Kevin Kriese.
BC Timber Sales and the province have until Sept. 15 to respond to the recommendations.
Meanwhile, BC Timber Sales continues to auction off cutblocks across the province. On the Island, over 50 per cent of that is considered old growth.
This year, BC Timber Sales plans to auction off over 1,100 hectares of old growth on Vancouver Island. That’s more than half of the land mass of the City of Victoria.
Since 2018, BC Timber Sales’ old growth cutblocks on the Island have been four times as large — over 4,000 hectares.
Last September, the province promised a “paradigm shift” in its approach to managing old growth, agreeing to implement all 14 recommendations from the province’s Old Growth Strategic Review Panel report released last year. It committed to doing that through government-to-government consultation with First Nations.
In an emailed statement to The Tyee, the province acknowledged issues around old growth. “We know, and we’ve said clearly, that the status quo on old growth isn’t acceptable.”
When questioned about BC Timber Sales’ own old growth logging activity on the Island, the province said that the Old Growth Strategic Review Panel “did not say there needs to be a complete halt to old growth logging,” adding that, “it’s important to understand that B.C. forests are among the most well-regulated and sustainably managed in the world.”
Who is BC Timber Sales?
BC Timber Sales was founded by the province in 2003 in an attempt to address a longstanding softwood lumber dispute with the U.S.
Before BC Timber Sales, major companies did most of the logging in the province. They also enjoy financial benefits flowing from their long-term tenures. “They’re essentially rent-controlled,” says Torrance Coste, national campaign director with the Wilderness Committee.
As a result, the U.S. claimed those companies had an unfair advantage. The province responded by taking back one-fifth of their allowable cut and giving it to the newly founded BC Timber Sales, which would operate as a “semi-autonomous” Crown corporation.
Because of its open-bid system, the lumber sold through BC Timber Sales-owned cutblocks are said to reflect the fair market price, which in turn helps the province set the rates for other forest licenses in the province.
BC Timber Sales suggests that the open market system distributes employment to rural communities. In a promotional video, the agency says that “by providing a reliable supply of timber through open and competitive auctions to loggers, wood processors and other forestry businesses, BCTS supports workers in rural communities across B.C.”
As of 2018, its operations supported 8,000 jobs in B.C, providing over $50 million in net revenue per year to the province, and it awarded $140 million in contracts per year to the private sector.
Calls by The Tyee to the Truck Loggers Association and the BC Council of Forest Industries were not answered by press time.
BC Timber Sales blocks come almost ready-made: they do the timber cruising, build the main roads, and make sure their blocks comply with forest policies and regulations. According to the province, “a number of biodiversity, wildlife, cultural and social values correlate to old growth stands and are specifically considered during the planning and development phases.”
But in the Nahmint, the BC Forest Practice Board’s report put that process in question.
The board found that throughout its history, BC Timber Sales sold cutblocks without an adequate forest stewardship plan to tell them how to translate the old growth and biodiversity requirements in the Vancouver Island Land Use Plan to their cutblock planning in the Nahmint. That’s because of a lack of checks and balances within the agency, said Kriese.
“Checking in on land use plans and how they’re being implemented is a weak spot,” he said, adding that oversight is largely “complaint driven.”
“Unless someone raises the issue, there actually isn’t a lot of investigation to see whether that’s being followed or not.”
Even if the agency was following the rules correctly, that would still pose problems for old growth, says Inness. “We can only hold BC Timber Sales and any other logging company accountable to the laws that exist,” she said. “Those laws are extremely outdated, and clearly put timber values well ahead of any other values — like biodiversity.”
That puts the onus on government, says Inness, to legislate rules that put old growth protection front and centre. “That’s why we need those old growth recommendations from the independent panel implemented.”
Ross Muirhead, forest campaigner with Elphinstone Logging Focus, agrees. “They’re part of the hidden levers of government,” says Muirhead, “they’re going to keep going until they’re told — until there’s actual new legislation around how much old growth can be logged or how much old growth should be protected. It’s just business as usual.”
Then there’s the issue of accountability from companies buying BC Timber Sales blocks.
The best way to find out what companies are actually doing on the ground, said Mark Worthing, coastal projects lead for the Sierra Club of BC, is to visit the site itself. That’s also the only way to know which company is actually logging the block.
Companies that buy BC Timber Sales tenures tend to contract logging out to smaller operations. Sometimes those operators re-contract the job out again.
Worthing points to a picture of a BC Timber Sales cutblock with a sign nailed to a tree. The logging company’s name and phone number is written down in black Sharpie.
“They’re wholesale auctioning out stuff off to contractors who have very limited liability,” says Worthing. “They’re basically like a garage sale for the last old growth.”
Rare ecosystems on the cutting block
The Tsitika and Nahmint valleys are home to some of the island’s largest remaining tracts of unprotected, old growth forest on the island — they’re also hotspots for BC Timber Sales cutblocks.
These forests are extremely rare, according to a recent study by Karen Price, Dave Daust and Rachel Holt, who found that only one per cent consists of the big tree ecosystems that often come to mind when we hear about old growth.
“When it comes to BC Timber Sales, they are often located in the last remaining highest productivity, high biodiversity sites,” said Andrea Inness, campaigner with the Ancient Forest Alliance.
The Nahmint is a prime example. After Clayoquot Sound, the Nahmint is one of the largest tracts of old growth remaining on Vancouver Island. It’s home to endangered species like the marbled murrelet, whose habitat depends on old growth.
“It’s very devastating to see the amount of trees being taken down,” said Brenda Sayers. “There is no regard for wildlife.”
BC Timber Sales is planning to auction off 212.6 hectares in the Nahmint region this year — a marked increase from its rolling average of 56 hectares per year in the region since the agency began. In the coming years, the agency has over 600 hectares of old growth in the Nahmint mapped out for logging.
According to the BC Forest Practices Board report, those sales and planning processes should be halted immediately until a new plan is in place.
BC Timber Sales’ operations in the Nahmint throws its operations across the province into question, says TJ Watt, campaigner for the Ancient Forest Alliance.
“If we caught that there, what’s going on in other places as well?”
This year, BC Timber Sales is auctioning off four old growth blocks consisting of over 190 hectares in the Tsitika valley.
The Tsitika, located between Ma’a̱mtagila and Tlowitsis territories, was once the lesser-known site of old growth blockades in the 1990s. The province established the Lower Tsitika River provincial park in response, protecting about 10 per cent of the area adjacent to the coast and Robson Bight.
“The big, gut-wrenching trade-off was that it meant that they weren’t able to protect the upper Tsitika,” said Worthing. “So what we’re seeing now is the consequences of that.”
“They’re taking out the guts and feathers of the valley,” says Muirhead, who has been tracking BC Timber Sales activities on Vancouver Island. “They’re just taking everything. The valley bottom is gone, it looks like 50 per cent of the mid elevation is gone, and now they’re going higher up the slopes.”
The region is home to all five species of Pacific salmon whose spawning beds require consistent water flows and temperatures — both of which are impacted by logging. “We’re seeing less and less return and that’s a direct impact of logging — all the runoff goes into the creek,” said Seneca Ambers, spokesperson for the Ma’a̱mtagila First Nation.
“We’re the salmon people. We live off the salmon year-round — or we used to,” says Ambers, whose family now receives only one or two salmon for the year.
Among the proposed blocks in the region, Tsitika Main, a 35-hectare clearcut to be auctioned off this July, nudges up against a stream that flows into the Tsitika River.
The Tsitika and the surrounding forests are also rich in culturally modified cedars. These trees are landmarks for traditional territory, says artist and hereditary Ma’a̱mtagila Chief Rande Cook (Makwala), but he’s seen BC Timber Sales cutblocks where these trees were felled. “To wipe these trees out, and to cut us down in the process, officially removes the Indigenous people from those territories for good.”
Consultation versus consent
BC Timber Sales consults with Indigenous Nations before logging occurs in their territories. “A primary objective is to work towards reconciliation with Indigenous peoples,” said the province in an emailed statement, adding that BC Timber Sales integrates the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act into its planning decisions.
But Sayers said those commitments are falling short.
In 2018, the Hupačasath band council released an open letter calling for the B.C. government to extinguish all approved old growth cutblocks in the Nahmint Valley. The province committed to entering into talks with the Nation, but BC Timber Sales’ cutblocks continued to be sold in the territory.
The same year, the BC Assembly of First Nations passed a motion calling for BC Timber Sales to be dissolved, and its tenure lands redistributed to First Nations.
“I’ve always said that reconciliation begins on the land,” said Sayers. “Until companies like BC Timber Sales and federal and provincial policy support First Nations and their right to protect the land, they can call it whatever they want on these websites. To me, it’s just talking out of both sides of their mouth.”
The Hupačasath First Nation were not available to respond to The Tyee’s request for comment at press time, and the Tseshaht First Nation did not respond to our request.
BC Timber Sales does not consult with the The Ma’a̱mtagila hereditary chiefs whose territory that includes the Tsitika, Naka Creek and Schmidt Creek regions. That’s because government accepted a resolution proposed by the Tlowitsis band administration that functionally erased the Ma’a̱mtagila claim to their territories in the eyes of the province, said Ambers. “We ended up not having any voice in any of the decisions being made.”
The Ma’a̱mtagila Nation is currently working to reassert their title through the courts.
Instead, the province confirmed that BC Timber Sales consults with the Tlowitsis First Nation through the Nanwakolas Council, which represents five Nations in the region and does not include the hereditary chiefs of the Ma’a̱mtagila.
Ambers says BC Timber Sales is shirking its responsibility to consult with the Nation. “It’s just a blatant disregard for that complexity and a disregard for the Ma’a̱mtagila people” she said.
Cook said BC Timber Sales should put old growth logging in the Tsitika region on hold until title issues are resolved.
“Industry never stops,” he said. “It’s like, okay, let us spend a year figuring this out and taking it into court. But in a year, you could have areas completely wiped out from logging.”
Dallas Smith, board president of the Nanwakolas Council, oversees BC Timber Sales referrals for the Tsitika region.
Smith said he is concerned about old growth in the region, but revenue from old growth logging continues to be an important source of funding for the council’s member Nations.
“We still need to keep harvesting in these areas,” he said. “BC Timber Sales is a vehicle that does that because they’re the biggest tenure holder in the area.
“But there has to be room in there to find that balance,” said Smith, referencing the need to protect some of the region’s old growth forests.
Amidst government’s promises of a new era of growth protection, Smith said he’s noticed industry ramping up its logging activity in the region.
The council has a 30 to 60-day window to provide feedback on referrals from BC Timber Sales, and they’re struggling to keep up. “We can make sure we’re putting as much lipstick on the pig as we can on their bad plans. But now we’re seeing these bad plans come a little quicker and sooner.”
“Our message to the province is going to be you know what, no more of these bad plans. You need to sit down with us. And we need to figure this out. We can’t keep kicking the can down the road on this issue.”
For Smith, that also means slowing down or stopping the rate of cut until a plan can be established. “We can’t let that talk-and-log happen anymore.”
For Ambers, the problem with BC Timber Sales’ approach with Indigenous Nations lies in the difference between consultation and consent.
“Consultation just means that you’ve asked for their opinions,” said Ambers. “Consent implies that you’re asking for permission and that you’re honouring it if somebody says no.”
If BC Timber Sales began to use a consent-based model, Ambers thinks the practices of BC Timber Sales would need to change. “A lot of our Nations don’t consent to the total wipeout of our forests.”
‘This is the low-hanging fruit’
Torrance Coste thinks that as a crown corporation, BC Timber Sales could model the paradigm shift on old growth the province has committed to.
“It’s like — this is the low-hanging fruit, you guys,” said Coste. “You could write a directive that says, hey, however much old growth you laid out this year, lay out half next year, and then half the year after that.”
Inness agrees. “They’ve promised big, big, big things,” she said, pointing to the province’s commitments to halt logging in at-risk areas within six months and to develop a strategy to transition to the second growth sector in a year.
With those deadlines looming, Inness says the province is shirking its opportunity to use BC Timber Sales as a vehicle for change.
“Instead of championing conservation and forestry solutions that support communities, they’re using BC Timber Sales to continue to destroy rare ecosystems,” she said. “It’s more than a missed opportunity. It’s willful ignorance on the B.C. government’s part.”![[Tyee]](safari-reader://thetyee.ca/ui/img/ico_fishie.png)
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Systemic errors in managing Nahmint’s old growth, says B.C. watchdog
/in News CoverageHa-Shilth-Sa
May 13, 2021
B.C.’s forestry watchdog has released a report critical of logging practices in the Nahmint valley, pointing to inconsistencies in protecting the area’s old growth forest.
On Wednesday, May 12 the Forest Practices Board released its findings, nearly three years after a complaint from the Ancient Forest Alliance sparked the investigation into old-growth logging in the valley. The independent watchdog found that forestry management standards set by the government were not met in how the Nahmint was handled by BC Timber Sales, a provincial agency responsible for auctioning off Crown land for harvesting.
Covering nearly 20,000 hectares south of Sproat Lake, the Nahmint Valley lies within Nuu-chah-nulth territory, containing old growth forest that includes some of the largest Western red cedar and Douglas fir trees in British Columbia. According to the Vancouver Island Land Use Plan Higher Level Plan Order, the Nahmint is designated as a special Management Zone. The valley is also considered one of the five “high biodiversity landscape units” in the Vancouver Island plan, a designation that sets particularly high levels of conservation for an unprotected forest.
But the forest stewardship plan that BC Timber Sales has been operating under does not adequately protect the Nahmint according to this designation, said Kevin Kriese, chair of the Forest Practices Board.
“BCTS’s FSP did not meet the legal objective, and it should not have been approved,” he said. “We looked at the remaining forest in the watershed and found there are some ecosystems that could be at risk if more logging takes place in them.”
After a 2019 field trip to the Nahmint with the Ancient Forest Alliance, plus dozens of interviews with regional experts and government staff, the Forest Practices Board uncovered a series of systemic errors in how the valley was managed by B.C. Timber Sales.
“What we found was that the district manager made an error in approving this forest stewardship plan, even though it was not consistent with the government objectives,” said Kriese.
He noted that the necessary level of site-specific planning was never done, even though the Vancouver Island Land Use Plan prioritized the Nahmint for such a detailed assessment.
“More detailed landscape unit planning was supposed to provide clear direction on how much and where to conserve old and mature forest, but that planning was never completed,” said Kriese. “BCTS was left with a complicated set of legal objectives to interpret, and we found it missed important details that are required to manage for biodiversity in the Nahmint.”
The investigation began when the Ancient Forest Alliance discovered enormous trees that were recently cut in the valley, including a few with dimensions comparable to stands listed on the BC Big Tree Registry, a public archive of the province’s largest examples of different species. A disturbed bear den was also discovered inside one of the logged old growth trees, raising concern that forestry practices in the Nahmint were below provincial standards for the area.
“With the Forest Practices Board’s investigation now complete, the evidence is irrefutable: BC Timber Sales are failing to adequately protect old-growth in the Nahmint Valley,” stated Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner Andrea Inness. “This failure exposes the gross inadequacies and lack of accountability that are inherent in BC’s forest system and the need for immediate, systemic change.”
But while the watchdog found that provincial standards weren’t met in Nahmint, logging can continue in the valley with no legal ramifications. This is due to gaps in the Forest and Range Practices Act, a legislative issue that made actions to protect the old growth forest by the Compliance and Enforcement Branch futile.
“It later asked BCTS to bring itself into compliance by amending the forest stewardship plan. BCTS stated at the time it was not required to comply with the higher-level plan order because it had an approved FSP,” explained Kriese of the failure in enforcement. “It closed the file and referred to the file to the Forest Practices Board.”
The FPB has recommended that the province conduct landscape unit planning, and to not sell any more timber in Nahmint’s “high risk ecosystems” until a more specific assessment of the area is conducted. An answer from the Ministry of Forests is expected by Sept. 15.
In an emailed response to Ha-Shilth-Sa, the ministry did not say logging will cease in the Nahmint’s high risk areas. But some measures are being taken.
“[T]he ministry if updating the Nahmint Landscape Unit Plan, adjusting Old Growth Management Areas to better capture rare and underrepresented ecosystems and biodiversity targets at the landscape level,” wrote a ministry spokesperson. “The updated Landscape Unit Plan will come into effect soon, ensuring biodiversity protection across the range of ecosystems in the Nahmint.”
Meanwhile, softwood lumber prices have reached records highs, with some species tripling in value since the beginning of the pandemic. These economic factors with undoubtably put demands on the old-growth trees within the Nahmint valley, where an average of 56 hectares have been harvested a year by BCTS since 2003, while another 22 hectares is typically cut annually by the Tseshaht First Nation under its current five-year license.
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