Region Archives: Canada West

The Columbia Shuswap Invasive Species Society (CSISS) is sounding the alarm after the emerald ash borer — a destructive invasive insect which kills ash trees — was found for the first time west of the Rocky Mountains in the United States. According to a news release from the non-profit, the beetle, which is native to eastern Asia, was first discovered in Michigan two decades ago. Populations have since spread throughout North America, killing hundreds of millions of trees. CSISS said the discovery was announced by the Oregon Department of Forestry in July, and warned the spread of the insect into Oregon puts the future of B.C. ash trees at risk. Nolan Novotny, entomologist and CSISS assistant, said in a statement if the beetle is introduced to B.C., “almost every single ash tree in the province will be killed over the next several decades.”

VANCOUVER — First came the moths. Then came the drought. The trees of Stanley Park, typically the green jewel of Vancouver’s downtown core, just can’t catch a break. Experts say large numbers of browning trees appear dead or dying, because of a one-two combination of foliage-munching grubs and an exceptionally dry weather spell… City of Vancouver arborist Joe McLeod said trees already stressed by infestations of western hemlock looper moth larva have been further pushed toward breaking point by the prolonged summer-like conditions. …Richard Hamelin, the department head of forest conservation sciences at the University of British Columbia, agreed that it’s not just the ongoing problem of the looper moths that is killing trees. “The heat and the drought are like additional stress that affects those trees,” said Hamelin. …McLeod has put out a request for proposals, asking experts to come up with suggestions about how to manage the moth outbreak. 

Mark Tallman

Anderson Creek Timber owns 600 hectares of forest at Mountain Station above Nelson will soon be logging on the property, but not this year. They will be spending the next few months burning slash and planning a future cut, perhaps for next year, says Mark Tallman of Monticola Forest Ltd., a consulting company that manages the property for Anderson Creek. This message is contrary to an anonymous poster that appeared around Nelson and online in September announcing imminent logging. …Even though the Anderson Creek property is …privately owned, what happens on it has deep implications for the city, in terms of wildfire risk and water quality. …Tallman says that in addition to the slash burning and road upgrades the company is working on a new management plan, and will be inviting comment from local governments and the public, in a process that will start this winter or next spring.

A rare section of diverse old-growth forest in B.C., where the coastal rainforest meets the dry interior, has been purchased by a conservation organization and handed back to the Kanaka Bar Indian Band to protect. In August, the Nature-Based Solutions Foundation (NBSF) bought the eight acres known as “Old Man Jack’s” about 15 kilometres south of Lytton for $99,000 as part of an agreement it made with T’eqt’aqtn’mux First Nation, known as the crossing place people. The group intends to return the land with a conservation covenant. …The NBSF is a new national conservation charity that launched in November. It works to protect the most endangered ecosystems by filling funding gaps needed to expand the protected areas system. This purchase is the first of other similar initiatives underway and is part of the Old-Growth Solutions Initiative, a collaboration between the NBSF, Endangered Ecosystems Alliance and Ancient Forest Alliance.

Lawyers for the British Columbia government have agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a lawsuit by a couple whose property flooded after a third of the forest in the surrounding watershed was cut down.  The agreement came in a handwritten note that was signed by the Crown’s lawyers and handed over in court on the day the trial was set to begin last month.  Ray Chipeniuk and Sonia Sawchuk had launched the lawsuit in 2014, claiming that BC Timber Sales, the provincial Crown agency responsible for auctioning about 20 per cent of B.C.’s annual allowable cut, was negligent in its failure to take reasonable care to ensure their property in northwestern B.C. would not be damaged by the logging.  ….The province’s 2015 response to the civil claim denies negligence and denies that the province owed the couple a duty of care. 

Eric Little & Chace Barber

If one guy can call his electric-car company Tesla, why not call theirs Edison, a couple of Merritt entrepreneurs figured.   While the real-life Tesla and Edison, groundbreaking inventors, became fierce rivals, Edison Motors has a way to go before catching up with Elon Musk’s car company. But the journey has begun: Chace Barber and Eric Little are building hybrid electric logging trucks, backed up by diesel generators.  …What Edison Motors has come up with is a unique diesel-electric powertrain with a 6,000-pound generator.  …The reason the truck is particularly suited to logging, Barber added, is drivers head up the mountain electrically with empty truck beds and come back down full, the brakes regenerating the batteries all the way down.  “You use the stored potential energy to get to the top of the mountain and then turn that into kinetic energy on the way down. It works pretty slick.

Overhanging a riverbank in the Fraser Canyon, an ancient Western redcedar shows signs of harvesting by past generations of the T’eqt’’aqtn’mux people. The gnarled tree is growing in one of the rarest and most endangered old-growth forests in British Columbia, and a newly sealed land deal has secured its protection. But for the surrounding forest, there is no certainty. The Kanaka Bar Indian Band – also known as the T’eqt’’aqtn’mux – is proposing an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area to preserve its ancient connection to these lands. …While logging companies have cleared large swaths of old growth in the traditional territories of the T’eqt’’aqtn’mux, evidence of this First Nation’s sustainable harvesting practices is still found in living trees that did not fall to commercial logging: Researchers have confirmed that branches and bark strips have been harvested here from select cedar trees since the early 18th century, or even before then.

The BC Green Party has tabled legislation to protect bear dens, which double as winter nurseries. Adam Olsen, Green MLA for Saanich North and the Islands … hopes the bill might garner cross-party support. …Biologist Helen Davis, who has researched bear dens for three decades, said the bill is potentially a positive step to ensure bear populations and forests remain healthy. Coastal black bears rely almost exclusively on hollows in massive old-growth trees to protect them from weather and predators such as cougars, she said. However, the persistent loss of large trees to logging over the past century means good den sites are declining. …The proposed legislation shouldn’t be too onerous for the province to enact or forestry companies to follow, Davis said. Logging companies harvesting on Crown land must already leave some stands of trees untouched for wildlife’s sake, she said.

Bob Simpson & John Horgan

Quesnel is one of those towns … where surprisingly little has changed in decades. The surrounding landscape is dominated by pine plantations and service roads that lead to old gold mines. Home to 12,000 people, the community lies … along the highway that follows the Fraser River through central B.C. It’s a forestry town, and you could be forgiven for assuming that local politicians would want to see logging continue in the same old way. How, then, to explain Mayor Bob Simpson, who sounds like a Green Party candidate and wants nothing less than to revolutionize the biggest industry in the province? …During his eight years as mayor, Bob Simpson has been intent on making the town a model for sustainable forestry. …“You can’t fix global forestry issues at the UN or the provincial level in Victoria. We have a scale right here that can work,” Simpson says. 

City of Powell River councillors have approved nearly $2.3 million in expenditures from Powell River Community Forest. At the October 6 city council meeting, councillors considered a recommendation for 14 different grants to two governments and several community organizations. Mayor Dave Formosa said residents of the city and qathet Regional District are indebted to the community forest. He thanked the community forest board for its efforts. “Here’s a group of absolute experts who run this operation for us,” said Formosa. “They are in the industry, they are from the industry, and it’s a team of absolute professionals. “It shows the community of Powell River that forestry is not a sunset industry. It is a renewable industry and it is an industry that brings so much back to this community.”

Drew Milne and George Heyman

Born in Cranbrook and growing up on Vancouver Island, Drew Milne explored the great outdoors whenever he got the chance. …Milne, the recipient of the 2021 Conservation Officer of the Year award, did not become a conservation officer (CO) right away. Instead, he followed his family tradition into military service, joining the Canadian Armed Forces right out of high school. …Reflecting on his passion for the outdoors, a natural resource management degree at Vancouver Island University soon followed. …he joined the B.C. Conservation Officer Service (COS) seasonal program in 2008. …Milne then joined the B.C. Government Environmental Assessment Office (EAO)… Milne was later promoted to inspector of the South Coast region, which is his current position. The region includes the Lower Mainland and Sea-to-Sky corridor, which is a busy area for public engagement. 

All fire permits in the Grande Prairie Forest Area have been suspended, except for current burn barrel, incinerators, smudges, and smoke house permits. Alberta Wildfire has issued another fire advisory for the region, citing current and forecasted weather conditions. New fire permits will not be issued until conditions improve. Essential burning will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Safe wood campfires, backyard fire pits, portable propane fire pits, gas or propane stoves and barbecues, and catalytic or infrared-style heaters are still allowed. The wildfire danger in the Grande Prairie Forest Area is now high. Another wildfire was recorded in the region Thursday, bringing the total since the start of wildfire season to 73 having burned nearly 99 hectares.

Rutland Senior Secondary Forestry students from around the Central Okanagan took their learning to new heights on Thursday… It was all part of earning their Certified Utility Arborist Training which will lead them to their next steps following graduation. The RSS Forestry Program has been around since 1990. It’s a full-time course that’s open to students in grades 11 and 12 in School District 23, and its purpose is to give students hands-on experience of what life in the forestry industry is like while they’re still in high school. “I think the skills that a lot of these students, that maybe regular schooling wasn’t the best fit for them, they come out here and they’re able to learn a lot of life skills in a practical applied scenario, and for a lot of these guys it can be life-changing for them to have that type of opportunity,” explained RSS Forestry teacher, Marshall Corbett.

Feedback is being sought on a proposed community forest by the City of Quesnel and four First Nations, including Lhtako Dené, Nazko, ?Esdilagh and Lhoosk’uz Dené. An application for the project — Three Rivers Community Forest located within the Quesnel Timber Supply Area and the Cariboo Forest Region — is anticipated to be submitted to B.C.’s Ministry of Forests by December 2022 for approval. A decision is expected next year. An open house inviting individuals to learn more about the proposed community forest, followed by a community meeting, was held Monday, Oct. 3, at the Quesnel Seniors’ Centre. “Hearing that feedback allows us to tweak the application that’s going to eventually go into government,” said meeting facilitator and forester Mike Simpson. An online survey is open until Monday, Oct. 24.

A local group is calling for a moratorium on old growth logging. On Sept. 29 Slocan Valley residents gathered on Russel Creek Road to protest the planned logging by Interfor and R and A logging in the Russel Creek watershed, which contains trees as old as 1,000 years old. …residents asked the logging company employees to “come back once they have consulted with local environmental organizations and informed consent by the Autonomous Sinixt.” In the meantime, Last Stand West Kootenay has called upon the province to look at the matter and consider the section of forest set to be logged, said member Ernest Smuga. “The community is asking for an immediate moratorium on logging in the area until Interfor demonstrates how it is planning to honor these deferral areas, ground proof current data in surrounding cut blocks, and protect old growth in Russel Creek,” he said in a press release.

An investigation by CBC’s The Fifth Estate has found that Drax catapulted a small industry it says is green into an investor-driven, international operation dependent on logging in areas that include B.C.’s old growth and primary forests.  Activists, scientists and environmentalists argue that far from being green, wood pellet production generates few jobs and actually makes the climate crisis worse. And they say it’s all happening with the support of B.C. Premier John Horgan’s NDP government. …”The greenwashing of the pellet industry needs to stop,” Bob Simpson, the mayor of Quesnel, a town in B.C.’s Interior. The industry says it is renewable because trees grow back while fossil fuels do not. Scientists say that forests take decades, even centuries, to regenerate, and that burning wood produces more emissions than coal. ..Joe Aquino, Drax’s director of sustainability, said the company “only uses lower quality trees from logging operations that otherwise “would have no other purpose.”

Record-setting lack of rainfall over the past month in B.C. means no end in sight for this year’s wildfire season, officials said Tuesday. Abbotsford International Airport recorded 0.9 millimetres of precipitation last month, “the driest September on record,” according to Alyssa Charbonneau, a meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada. The hot, dry conditions have extended the wildfire season across the province, according to Brianna Hill, an information officer with the B.C. Wildfire Service. “There is still no season ending weather in the forecast,” Hill said in an email. “Many locations have been weeks without significant rainfall, while setting temperature records leading into October.” While current conditions haven’t significantly affected existing wildfires, Hill said the B.C. Wildfire Service was concerned about the impact that the extension of summer-like conditions and widespread drought could have on the potential for new wildfire starts.

Rory McIntosh

The provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta continue to collaborate in the fight against the mountain pine beetle. Since 2011 the provinces have worked together as Dr. Rory McIntosh, Forest insect and disease expert for forest services with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment explains. Since 2011 we’ve worked with the province of Alberta to slow the spread east and the spread of beetles in Alberta. We feel the best approach is to prevent the beetle from reaching Saskatchewan rather than try to manage it in a northern forest. Dr. McIntosh adds that in the early 2000s a massive outbreak in British Columbia resulted in the mortality of almost 55% of the growing pine stock. In addition, the beetles spread in two huge dispersal events in 2006 and 2009 scattering beetles halfway across Alberta. According to Dr. McIntosh detection systems have been set up in Saskatchewan’s northern forests and to date, no beetles have been found here.

The panel session Our Forests, Our Climate will be opened and moderated by Albert Nussbaum, Acting Deputy Chief Forester of BC. We will hear from Werner Kurz, NRCan Senior Research Scientist, on climate change about the role of forests, forest management and wood products in mitigating climate change while increasing resilience to climate change impacts. Rachel Pollard, Director, Ministry of Forests will discuss a new approach for forest management that will improve how we manage forest values in the context of climate change and the need for long term forest resilience. Finally, Tracy Andrews, Manager, Audits and Investigations, Forest Practices Board will talk about their recent report, Forest Practices and Water: Opportunities for Action, and the Board’s view on how changes in forest management could improve the protection and conservation of water and downstream values.

Burns Lake Community Forest (BLCF) completed its first ever prescribed fire activity since the inception of the community forest pilot project being issued back in late the 90s.  This is a milestone step in forest management, ecosystem restoration and putting good fire back into an ecosystem that desperately needs fire to rejuvenate and regrow.  A prescribed fire is different from a wildfire in that it takes a team of professionals and experts; fire specialists, fire fighters, forest professionals and statutory decisions makers to support and bring it to fruition.  …We acknowledge that our activities may have caused some concern and may have triggered for some, unintended emotional impacts, due to our exposure to the impacts of wildfire in and around our communities in the past few years.  …Post-fire effects will be monitored into the future through research opportunities examining the ecological benefits that fire generates.