Region Archives: Canada West

A group of forest-based organizations have come together to advocate for the future of forestry in the province. ForestryWorksforBC is a new, grassroots initiative, representing more than 1,000 businesses across BC’s forestry sector. The campaign is rallying to raise awareness about forestry’s critical role in the well-being of rural and urban communities. “We in the industry have done a very poor job in telling our story – all the positive things that we do, all the contributions that the industry makes,” said Ken Kalesnikoff, who appeared before the Regional District of Central Kootenay’s board of directors during its regular meeting on August 15. Kalesnikoff is President and CEO of Kalesnikoff Lumber near Castlegar. He petitioned directors to raise their voices for the future of forestry by sending a letter to the Minister of Forests, and requesting a meeting at the Union of BC Municipalities’ (UBCM) annual convention next month.

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The ongoing logging saga along the Highwood River in Kananaskis Country seemingly has no end in sight. Though logging was approved by the provincial government for roughly 1,200 hectares of forest in the Upper Highwood area to be cut down, conservationists have pushed back and raised alarm bells on the potential environmental impact if logging proceeds. But the nature of the project has highlighted glaring deficiencies in the approval process and understanding the long-term environmental impacts from clearcutting, specifically what level of research and study should be done before approving such a plan and who picks up the tab? …The project has already been mired in issues after a bridge constructed by Spray Lakes Sawmills, who were bought by West Fraser Timber in 2023, is in the process of being removed. …West Fraser has committed to continuing with public engagement and now has the harvest scheduled for fall 2025.

Approximately 80,000 new trees will need to be planted over the next two decades to meet the goals of the city’s Sustainable Urban Forest Strategy. This includes city and private property. “Excluding the Agriculture Land Reserve (ALR) the analysis identified that Kelowna’s canopy coverage currently sits at 22 per cent,” Todd Cashin, urban forest supervisor, told council at its Aug. 26 meeting. Grassland cities, like Kelowna, typically have a canopy cover between 20 and 25 percent, he added. Of the city’s five districts, the Gateway (UBCO/Airport) and Urban Centres have the lowest canopy coverage. “However, the coverage does increase as you move from the core areas to the suburbs and rural districts,” Cashin said. Approximately 75 per cent of trees are on private property. 

Robert Dennis Sr.

Shannon Janzen

In communities up and down the coast, hard-working forestry families are worried about the rising cost of living and whether they will still have their jobs by the end of the year. In 2023, an estimated 4,000 coastal forestry-dependent workers lost their jobs. Today, more than 44,200 people living in coastal communities rely on an unstable forest sector for their livelihoods. Why is this happening? Because we have been focusing on the wrong priorities and failing to attract investment in domestic manufacturing of second-growth forests. …Hundreds of millions of dollars are needed to retool and restructure sawmills and pulp mills for global competitiveness and to cost-effectively transition from old-growth to second-growth forests. …Coastal forestry has a long-standing negative reputation for investment, stemming from many factors including environmental opposition and regulatory uncertainty. …The Iskum Nations are eager to invest in the full supply chain of coastal forestry, but to do so there must be a shared vision for change.

JASPER — Parks Canada says a weekend drenching of rain on parts of Jasper National Park is doing a lot to quell fire activity, but the wet weather also comes with a warning. In a daily update on the local wildfire situation, Parks Canada says parts of the national park received over 30 millimetres of rain on Friday night. …But Parks Canada cautions all that rain could make slopes and burned trees unstable, and gusty or shifting winds could cause fire-weakened trees with loose roots to fall. The wildfire that prompted a weeks-long evacuation of the park and the Jasper townsite was declared “being held” last weekend. Jasper National Park and the town are still closed to visitors, but Highway 16 through the park is open and the Icefields Parkway that connects Jasper to Banff and Lake Louise reopened to through traffic last week.

VANCOUVER — Heavy rain in parts of British Columbia over the weekend has lowered wildfire activity in the southern part of the province, but firefighters say strong winds are creating some tree hazards for crews. The BC Wildfire Service says in its latest update that the number of active blazes in the province has fallen to around 311, continuing a downward trend where about 240 fires were burning entering the weekend. The wildfire service says while much of the southern part of B.C. received rain and some parts had heavy precipitation, it was accompanied by winds gusting up to 102 kilometres per hour. The wind “blew trees down along fire lines in the south” and forced a fire camp in Invermere, B.C., to move to another location, but no one was injured. Environment Canada is forecasting some precipitation early in the week, but most of B.C. will see warmer, drier weather as the weekend approaches.

Decades of work to suppress fires in Jasper National Park may have inadvertently contributed to conditions that fed a devastating wildfire that ripped through Jasper in July, experts say. The fire, which burned in the Jasper townsite, was the largest in the national park in over 100 years, according to Parks Canada. The fire consumed more than 33,000 hectares. While fires are not uncommon in Canada’s Rocky Mountains, studies suggest the number and size of fires has significantly decreased over the last century, largely due to suppression. “We conclude fire suppression has altered the fire regime and reduced resilience of the mountain forests in Jasper National Park,” Raphael Chavardes and Lori Daniels wrote in a 2016 research paper. The paper was part of Chavardes’s master’s degree at UBC and Daniels was his supervisor. …Chavardes said, prior to Jasper becoming protected in 1907 by the federal government, the forest burned about every 40 to 60 years, on average.

Penticton [has] tens of thousands of mature trees in its urban forest. Penticton council approved a staff recommendation to endorse the city’s first Urban Forest Management Plan following a presentation by Ysabel Contreras, parks planning and capital projects coordinator… Council also endorsed staff to incorporate tree canopy targets into the next Official Community Plan review and to submit an application to the Growing Municipal Fund: Growing Canada’s Community Canopies program in support of tree planting initiatives in the city for the next two decades. …Findings revealed mature tree canopy cover is 17 per cent within the municipal boundary, with an average of 12 per cent in urban areas, she said. The goal is to increase the overall number to 18 per cent, including an increase from 12 to 25 per cent in urban areas.

A technique called ground-ripping is being used to prepare soil for replanting in areas of the Chilcotin heavily destroyed by wildfires in 2017. It is not a new method, but something Daniel Persson, forestry superintendent with Central Chilcotin Rehabilitation Ltd. (CCR), has tried before and hopes it will be a success in the region. He explained ground-ripping is typically done with a bulldozer and it has ripper teeth behind, sometimes even two or three, to cut into the soil 30 to 50 centimetres to loosen hard layers of soil and create planting spots for the planters that come in one year after. …”We are ripping the ground in a north-west and south-east direction because …it protects the trees from the sun by creating a little embankment on both sides,” Persson explained. Planters will plant the trees in the middle and even that tiny bit of shade helps the trees survive.  

Rhonda Milliken

A Whistler ecologist… released a peer-reviewed, self-funded study that supports her thesis that thinning the forests around Whistler as part of fire mitigation efforts actually increases the risk of fire in an ecosystem that is naturally more resistant to fire than forests in other parts of Canada. Millikin, a retired fire scientist… looked at the impact of thinning by comparing the microclimate of the forest floor in thinned areas and unthinned areas. According to the findings, which were published this month, “fire thinning led to warmer, drier, and windier fire environments.” …Millikin and her co-authors say their research showed forested areas that undergo fuel-thinning see microclimate variables change in the direction of an increase in wildfire potential, with more solar radiation reaching the forest floor, increased ambient temperature, and higher wind speeds. Combined with decreases in relative humidity, soil moisture, and snow depth and cover in spring conditions, fuel-thinning is increasing wildfire potential.

LADYSMITH, BC — A logger sports event that many Ladysmith residents were hoping would return this summer has been put on the back burner due to a lack of competitors. The event is coordinated by volunteers from the Ladysmith Tour de Rock team and Husky Forest Service. “We were in need of new cradle/working wood for the show this year and the folks from Mosaic Forest Management literally stepped up and donated the three large fir logs that are the base for show events,” volunteer Duck Paterson said, adding that “a new outfit, Spuzzum Contracting, also stepped forward with a donation to cover all the expenses.” 

In BC local weather stations capture essential data. An array of instruments record and transmit vital information to a small team of scientists who quickly interpret what it could mean for wildfires. …Every morning during the months-long fire season, Matt MacDonald, lead fire weather forecaster with the BC Wildfire Service, examines conditions with his team and hundreds of frontline firefighters… As the size, frequency, duration and intensity of wildfires increases, it’s impossible to ignore how the burning forests around us shape our lives and impact our communities. Yet most of us know very little about what firefighters do on a daily basis or how decisions around wildfires are made. “It’s kind of this secret world, in some ways, that people don’t know much about,” Kira Hoffman, a fire ecologist and researcher with the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, said. “We should know how fires are fought.”

We have recently seen the Government of Canada put a protection order on caribou in Quebec under the Species at Risk Act. The Quebec government has protested that the measure is an unreasonable incursion into their regulatory space, and threatens jobs and communities. As a sector that operates on the landbase, Alberta’s forest industry empathizes with Quebec’s frustration. Setting the federal-provincial politics of this debate aside, there are obvious flaws in the Species at Risk Act (SARA) that need to be fixed urgently, both for our environment and our economy. The biggest flaw is SARA’s assumption that landbases are static. In Alberta, we see frequent pressure from the Act to leave forests standing with the belief that if we simply leave them alone, our forests will exist in the same state forever. The reality is very different. …SARA and its implementation are frequently barriers to the cycle of sustainable harvesting and planting that mimics the natural cycle of fires. 

Central Chilcotin Rehabilitation in Williams Lake, is making strides in improving forest health in the Chilcotin region with its brush-cutting initiatives. This method involves removing excess vegetation to enhance the overall health of the forest, reduce wildfire risks, and improve wildlife habitats. Daniel Persson, CCR’s forestry superintendent, highlights the importance of these practices in maintaining the forest’s multiple benefits for local communities, including economic, recreational, and ecological values. Thinning dense tree stands, particularly when they are young, allows remaining trees to grow more effectively and creates a more resilient forest. This technique not only boosts the growth of commercially valuable trees but also reduces the risk of severe wildfires by eliminating ladder fuels that can help fires spread.

PRINCE GEORGE – The Antler Creek fire that forced the evacuations of both Barkerville and Wells was first spotted southwest of Barkerville on July 20th. It was noted early on from local government officials that the conditions with dead wood and tricky terrain made it a challenge to get a handle on that wildfire, a fire the head of Barkerville called a “monster fire.” It was also Al Richmond who noted that the fuel sources that became problematic. “That whole corridor along the highway from Quesnel to Wells and into Barkerville is lined with dead pine. It’s a bomb waiting to go off.” He suggests, had there been proper fuel mitigation, the Antler Creek fire would not have taken off to the degree it did. …But the Minister of Forests Bruce Ralston says the Mountain Beetle epidemic did a lot of damage to BC’s forests and efforts were made to address that.

An invasive beetle that destroys ash trees has been confirmed in five areas of Vancouver. After the emerald ash borer was first detected this spring, federal officials conducted surveillance and found that the EAB (emerald ash borer) had impacted ash trees in five areas of Vancouver. Those include Strathcona Park, Andy Livingstone Park, and Coopers Park, as well as an area of Marinaside Crescent (between Davie Street and Coopers Park), and the intersection of Keefer and Heatley Avenue. “The impact of EAB will be less than what was seen in Eastern Canada as ash trees are not as prevalent in Vancouver — they comprise about five per cent of the tree inventory on public lands,” said a park board spokesperson in an email. “We do not have an inventory for ash trees on private lands, but we estimate that it is low as ash trees in B.C. are not a part of the native forest.”

Only four fires have started in BC in the last 24 hours, while 20 have been declared out in the same time. Currently, 353 fires are burning across the province. That is according to the BC Wildfire Service (BCWFS). …“In general I would say we are in a much different place than we were last season going into the fall,” said Forrest Tower. …While only 18 properties are on evacuation order across the province right now, Bowinn Ma, Minister of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness said nearly 1,600 properties are currently under evacuation alert. BC has just passed one million hectares burned this season, which makes it the province’s fourth-worst fire season on record by hectares burned (behind 2023 – 2,840,104 hectares, 2018 – 1,354,284 hectares, and 2017 – 1,216,053 hectares). Nathan Cullen, the Minister of Land, Water and Resource Stewardship, added over a quarter of the province is also at a drought level 4/5.

Dave Moyles was a wildlife biologist with the government of Alberta – his daughter recounts his decades chasing woodland caribou. How does a wildfire crisis threaten an already fragile species? Unprecedented and devastating wildfire seasons in recent years have undoubtedly factored into the equation, and the future of woodland caribou in Alberta has never been more uncertain. In 2023, a record-breaking 3.3 million hectares burned — nearly seven per cent of the province’s forests — disturbing more land than the 11 previous fire seasons combined. A recent report by the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute found woodland caribou lost more than five per cent of critical habitat to wildfires in 2023, with northern herds facing the most severe losses, including nearly 13 per cent in Bistcho Lake range and nearly 14 per cent in the Caribou Mountains. …We’ve reached a tipping point with caribou… They’ve been here so long and yet they could so suddenly — in a relative blink — disappear. 

FORT NELSON, B.C. — Members of Fort Nelson First Nation (FNFN) head to the polls on August 21st. 26 candidates, including incumbent Chief Councillor Sharleen Gale, are up for seven spots. …Gale has spoken about industry development within the forestry sector for FNFN and is a director on the First Nations Major Project Coalition, an organization supporting First Nations involvement within infrastructure and industry projects. …An article in The Tyee this week alleges mismanagement of funds, including an interest-free loan given to Peak Renewables. …The article, written by Ben Parfitt, also alleges there are concerns regarding $6.7 million that was advanced to FNFN Forestry LP. …FNFN denied the claims in the story. “This article is full of errors and inaccuracies. With only a minimal effort, Parfitt would have discovered our current forestry work is based on salvage operations.” …“This is not journalism. This is a hatchet job that contributes to lateral violence within our community by dividing us.”

Plans are in place to harvest forested areas of the North Shuswap areas affected by last year’s wildfire. Canoe Forest Products Ltd. (CFP) has been accepting public input on an amendment to the  Gorman Group’s Okanagan Shuswap Forest Stewardship Plan to proceed with salvage harvesting in areas above Scotch Creek and Celista damaged or destroyed by the Bush Creek East wildfire.  “Harvesting in this area is planned to salvage fire-damaged timber before a significant reduction in the economic value of the timber occurs due to a deterioration in the quality…,” reads a public notice issued by CFP. “Salvage harvesting will also address the expected increase in Douglas-fir beetle that will infest any remaining green Douglas-fir timber.

PRINCE GEORGE, BC – The Honourable Diane Lebouthillier, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans Canada and the Canadian Coast Guard announced the Government’s intention to construct a new Pacific salmon hatchery in Prince George, BC, to support conservation and rebuilding of Chinook and sockeye salmon. The proposed hatchery will be built through federal investments under the Pacific Salmon Strategy Initiative (PSSI) and operated by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) in collaboration with Lheidli T’enneh First Nation and with support from Canfor Pulp Ltd. Construction is expected to begin this fall on federally administered land on the north bank of the Nechako River, near its confluence with the Fraser River. The proposed conservation hatchery will fill a critical infrastructure gap in the upper Fraser River region, serving to boost survival of numerous at-risk salmon stocks.

This event takes place Tuesday, September 10 & Wednesday, September 11, 2024 at the
Best Western Plus Barclay Hotel in Port Alberni, BC. The theme is Optimizing Our Participation in the Forest Economy. Marking a pivotal moment for sustainable forestry practices and Indigenous stewardship of the land. We aim to unite Indigenous leaders, forestry professionals, environmentalists, and policymakers to explore the integration of traditional Indigenous knowledge with modern forestry management practices. We underscore the crucial role of collaboration and respect for Indigenous rights and territories in achieving ecological sustainability and unlocking economic opportunities for Indigenous communities. A significant focus will be on closing the economic gap, emphasizing the need for First Nations’ access to capital to participate meaningfully in the forest sector and creating opportunities for Indigenous entrepreneurs. Register today!

The devastating wildfire season still gripping much of the West Kootenay underlines the need for the Province to make concerted efforts to preserve existing old-growth forests, according to the Valhalla Wilderness Society. Director Craig Pettitt said there is no question the current wildfire season could have been tempered if more old-growth forest had been left intact. “The Minister of Forests has acknowledged that the province’s recent wildfire emergencies are worsened by climate change,” he said. “The need to save old-growth forest now, on the ground, is dire.” …Pettitt said preserving old-growth forests helps moderate B.C.’s fire situation through its role in “absorbing and storing the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that causes climate change, which in turn causes extreme hot weather and drought, which increases the number, severity and speed of spread of wildfires.”

Wildfires in Alberta last summer burned more area than any previous fire season and a new study shows hot, dry conditions and an unusual amount of fires started by lightning were major contributing factors. These findings come from a new study of the 2023 Alberta wildfires, published in the Canadian Journal of Forest Research. Jen Beverly, a professor at the University of Alberta and one of the study’s authors, says “it’s not unusual in Alberta to have a fire season where you have 700, [or] 800,000 hectares burned. Last year it was closer to two million.” She says the fires themselves weren’t unusual, but there were more big fires than in a regular fire season. In 2023, there were 36 wildfires that covered 100 square kilometres or more in size. 

A lone frog on the provincial government’s endangered species “blue” list, (population vulnerable to changes in habitat) has raised more questions about B.C. Timber Sales’ (BCTS) decision to log the Joe Smith Creek cutblock (TA0521) on the south Mt. Elphinstone slopes. On June 18, while hiking on a trail in that forest area, near Roberts Creek, Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) spokesperson Ross Muirhead photographed a northern red-legged frog (Rana aurora). …Since the rights to log the 13,815 cubic metres of timber on that 13-hectare parcel was awarded to Ocean View Logging on June 4, ELF alerted BCTS about the discovery the day after it happened. In that letter the forest protection group requested an amphibian survey be conducted by a registered biologist and the cutblock’s site plan be updated, per BCTS protocol. “In the meantime, no activities such as tree falling or road building should be undertaken,” ELF wrote in its letter to BCTS.

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. – The Ministry of Water, Land and Resources Stewardship has sent a Letter of Notice to the Peace River Regional District about several upcoming projects in the Fort Nelson, Peace District and Fort St. John areas. The letter was reviewed by the board of directors during the August 15th regional meeting, and outlined a proposal from the province to establish new wildlife habitat areas for Boreal Caribou. These would be established under the Forest and Range Practices Act, Government Actions Regulations (GAR) and the Boreal Caribou Protection and Recovery Plan. Consultations with First Nations and impacted tenure holders have been ongoing since July by the Ministry. Six areas in the Fort Nelson region are being assessed… Two areas in the Peace River Regional District and Fort St. John Timber Supply Area … are also being considered. …Public consultation is ongoing, and will continue until September 11th.

FORT NELSON, BC — Members of the Fort Nelson First Nation will vote in what could be a pivotal election for the band and the roughly 3,000 other people who call the Fort Nelson area their home. …For nearly four years, Chief Councillor Sharleen Gale has deepened the First Nation’s ties with Peak Renewables, a company owned by Brian Fehr, a businessman with close ties to Canfor, BC’s largest forest company. …Gale has said the partnership with Peak Renewables “allows us to lay the foundation for sustainable economic opportunities for our people.” The nation is also exploring geothermal energy projects. …As the FNFN under Gale’s leadership has deepened its ties with Peak, a number of members have begun questioning not just the wisdom but the feasibility of a project that would require such a massive increase in logging.