Region Archives: Canada West

Cam Brewer, Herb Hammond, & Sean Markey

Cam Brewer says humans mistakenly believe cities exist independent of nature. “The idea that we’re separate from nature underpins many of the mistakes we’ve made that have led to ecological catastrophes and human isolation and inequality and problems with cities,” says Brewer, an environmental law professor at Simon Fraser University. “This idea that nature is out there, separate from where we are, was never true and isn’t true.” Brewer is a co-author, along with Slocan Valley forest ecologist Herb Hammond and SFU professor of environmental management Sean Markey, of a new book, Nature-First Cities. The book explores how cities have become ecological wastelands, and it outlines the psychological costs of living with minimal access to natural spaces. It offers strategies for the redesign of urban spaces in ways that integrate nature, proposing solutions beyond traditional greening efforts. 

Elora Van Jarrett is no stranger to wildfires. Having grown up in BC, she’s been around them her whole life. But unlike many of us who were raised in the province, Van Jarrett doesn’t just read or hear about forest fires — she’s on the frontlines fighting them. The UBC forest resource management alum has spent summers with the BC Wildfire Service in helicopters, on intensive hiking expeditions and at the frontlines of the province’s wildfires. In Van Jarrett’s 15-year career with the service, she has worked in almost every role — from battling wildfires with a crew of 20 people to taking to the sky as part of the Rapattack team, an initial attack crew trained in rappelling from helicopters into hard-to-access, fire-ridden areas.

A 31.5-hectare forested area on Gabriola Island known to locals as Wilkinson Woods has been bought by the Regional District of Nanaimo and added to an adjacent park. The purchase brings the amount of land added to 707 Community Park since 2018 to just over 171 hectares — making the total size 460.3 hectares. 707 Community Park is the regional district’s second-largest park. …“Gabriola’s undisturbed ecosystems are quickly disappearing and becoming increasingly fragmented,”said Hugh Skinner, president of Gabriola Land & Trails Trust, who noted that only 12 per cent of Gabriola is currently protected. The additional parkland will help Gabriola get closer to the Islands Trust average of 20 per cent protected land, he said. …Funding for the purchase came through short-term borrowing of $750,000 by the RDN’s Electoral Area B Community Parks and Halls Service and a $100,000 contribution from the Gabriola Lands & Trails Trust. The owner also reduced the price by $483,000 based on the overall market value.

Melanie Murray and Howard Breen

NANAIMO — A pair of environmental protestors charged in relation to multiple disrupting incidents will serve their sentences in the community. Howard Gerald Breen, 70, and Melanie Joy Murray, 48, were sentenced on multiple charges related protests in Nanaimo in 2021 and 2022. Justice Ronald Lamperson said their sentences must make it clear these kinds of acts are not lawful. “The need for a sentence to achieve denunciation and general deterrence is heightened when there is an identifiable peer group who are acutely aware of the offence and the court proceedings. The Crown says that is clearly the case here.” A joint submission for Murray gave her 12 months probation and 50 hours of community service. Breen, facing six mischief and a pair of breach of undertaking charges, will serve a nine-month Conditional Sentence Order followed by 18 months of probation for the mischief charges, with 12 days of time served credited for the breaches of the undertaking.

Members of Parliament along with industry forestry experts and Indigenous land stewards criticized present and past governments for not doing enough to prevent the wildfires that destroyed 30 per cent of Jasper in July.  Witness testimony during a parliamentary hearing Wednesday noted outrage over the lack of integration of Indigenous stewardship practices.  Meetings started in late September to examine the reasons why the Jasper wildfire started this summer. Thousands were forced to evacuate the area and more than 32,500 hectares of land was burned. “The intensity and prevalence of fires like these are exacerbated by climate change,” said Dane de Souza, a Métis Nation wildfire researcher and firefighter. “However, their cause is directly tied to the colonial suppression of Indigenous fire stewardship and fire on the land,” he said. De Souza said that Indigenous fire stewardship is a landscape-based science that is the culmination of 20,000 years of knowledge and practice. 

James Steidle

Regardless of whether the BC Conservatives or BC NDP come out on top in the recounts, the BC Greens will hold the balance of power. Here’s the northern BC agenda from a Green perspective they should demand in any coalition. Get plantation thinning going: The former BC NDP government was holding back on approving plantation thinning permits. Get small value-added forestry going: Every home in Prince George should have local birch hardwood flooring but you can’t even buy it. Ban forestry herbicide spraying: …only the Green Party said ban all herbicides. Get meaningful Indigenous reconciliation going: Lots of work to do but a big one is funding a northern Indigenous Art, Culture and Technology centre in Prince George. Legalize grizzly bear hunting: For too long urban progressives have alienated rural folks to keep their urban base happy with political decisions like blanket bans on the grizzly bear hunting. 

SenseNet is a Vancouver-based technology company providing a rapid wildfire detection solution. The upstart leverages fire detection technology integrating sensors, cameras, and artificial intelligence-powered analysis to provide accurate and early alerts to wildfire threats. SenseNet this week announced a partnership with neighbouring drone company SkyScout AI to combine the two B.C. companies’ technologies. “The integrated solution provided by SenseNet’s sensors and state-of-the-art AI algorithms, combined with the drone technology of SkyScout AI, provides an unprecedented early fire detection system that can be deployed and scaled to enable informed and immediate response, critical to first responders charged with expansive wildfire surveillance and mitigation,” stated SenseNet chief executive officer Hamed Noori.

Four watershed governance projects on Vancouver Island are sharing in nearly five-million dollars being distributed throughout the province from the Watershed Security Fund. The money will contribute to improving and rehabilitating communities’ resilience to climate change, regional food security, as helping safeguard fish, and local habitats. The Cowichan Watershed Board is receiving $400,000 to enhance its ability to support local leaders in decision-making for the health of the Cowichan and Koksilah Watersheds. The funding will help support the work of the watershed board, expert staff, technical working groups, and the community to solve problems using Quw’utsun and western knowledge and science.

We are updating our Community Wildfire Resiliency Plan (CWRP), and we want to hear from you! From Oct. 23 through Nov. 4, we invite our community to get involved and share your thoughts as we refine our CWRP. This plan will help the City and West Kelowna Fire Rescue develop achievable and strategic action items to enhance community wildfire resiliency, while prioritizing wildfire risk management in the wildland-urban interface, where homes and buildings intersect with forested areas. …Join us for an in-person Open House on Wednesday, October 30 at City Hall. …The CWRP is the primary wildfire risk reduction plan for communities in British Columbia. The City of West Kelowna’s 2024 CWRP builds on the recommendations of the 2018 Community Wildfire Preparedness Plan (CWPP), further strengthening our neighborhoods against future wildfire threats.

The offensive against Dutch elm disease is paying off after the invasive fungus that kills elm trees was detected for the first time in Edmonton in August. The city expected to fight the disease for years to come but mayor and councillors heard Wednesday that the fungus hasn’t spread. …In some of Edmonton’s mature neighbourhoods, boulevards are lined solely with old, sweeping elms. The fungus was detected in four trees in the Killarney neighbourhood in northeast Edmonton at the end of August. The three infected city owned trees have since been removed, as well as 21 trees identified as having potential for transmission. …A fungicide will be applied to elm trees in the spring when it’s the most effective.

OLIVER, BC — After a decade of hard work at the fish hatchery and more than two decades from the Okanagan Nation Alliance restoration project, the Valley is expected to see a record return this year for sockeye. As of Tuesday, the ONA team is estimating upwards of 300,000 fish making it into the Okanagan River to spawn. “It’s safe to say that we are just overwhelmed with fish this year,” Hatchery Biologist Tyson Marsel said. …Crews have been working down the river in Oliver, collecting broodstock for the hatchery located on Penticton Indian Band land. Salmon are sorted by gender and quality, then loaded into bags and floated down the river into larger tanks which would bring them up to the hatchery for fertilization. …The long-term program aims to restore the historical range of sockeye in the upper Okanagan watershed, Okanagan Lake, and Skaha Lake systems — part of the Columbia River Basin.

ALBERTA — The geographical landscape in and around the Bow Valley will be gradually changing in the coming years. Though new development for a growing population is often the go-to thought when change is occurring, new fireguards and prescribed burns will aim to offer greater protection to both the population and communities. One only has to look at archived photos from 100 or more years ago to see a considerably different landscape. Not only were the communities far smaller than they are now – which is true of the majority of towns and cities across the country – but the forests surrounding the valley municipalities were far thinner and more widely dispersed. …With the exception of smaller wildfires, the Bow Valley hasn’t seen a large-scale one in more than 100 years. …In the coming years, a greater priority of decision-makers in different levels of government needs to put emphasis on increased fire protection.

While it’s been done in the past, the N.W.T. won’t be relying on staff in towers to detect fires on the landscape. That’s according to Mike Gravel, the director of the N.W.T. government’s forest management division. His comment was in response to Dehcho MLA Sheryl Yakeleya during a committee meeting Monday to discuss the Department of Environment and Climate Change’s response to the 2023 wildfire season. Yakeleya said she’d like to see a return to the use of towers as a detection method. Gravel, however, said there’s been an industry-wide shift away from the practice because of safety concerns. The question was part of a larger conversation around the use of Indigenous traditional knowledge in fighting fires and forest management. “Traditional knowledge plays a big role in how we fight fire in the Northwest Territories,” said Jay Macdonald, minister of Environment and Climate Change. 

OLIVER, BC — Oliver has adopted an in-depth wildfire resiliency plan, which will serve to steer the town’s priorities for the next five to seven years. The large 97 page report lays a five-year road map for the town, ultimately identifying seven categories of recommendations for developing wildfire resiliency. These categories are education, legislation and planning, development considerations, interagency cooperation, cross-training, emergency planning, and vegetation management. The Community Wildfire Resiliency Plan (CWRP) was created and presented to council by Kai Kaplan, Oliver’s FireSmart coordinator and Quentin Schmidt, RPF, with B.A. Blackwell & Associates who were retained to assist in the development of the plan. Kaplan explained that this plan for the next five to seven years would be implemented based on considerations around actions that can have an immediate impact and larger goals will be pursued based on grant funding. 

Stswecem’c Xget’tem First Nation (SXFN) in the Cariboo has signed a memorandum of understanding with West Fraser to provide a forest management framework which will benefit both parties. The MOU provides a clearer path forward for West Fraser to continue business while ensuring the economic and cultural values and concerns of SXFN are met. “This shows that we are in the forefront of stewardship of the land,” said Kateri Koster, special projects advisor with SXFN’s stewardship department. She said fibre security is a real issue in the region, but the support for local mills needs to be reconciled with the values of SXFN, such as managing forest stands in a way which helps with wildfire protection. The memorandum has been in the planning since 2020 and was signed on Sept. 27.

Trees are a defining feature of the North Shore. They help to cool the surface temperature, and absorb water as it runs down slopes and off asphalt surfaces… But having too many trees in residential neighbourhoods can create wildfire risks, so the district should be careful when it adds more protections… While it’s hard to find anyone in the district who isn’t inspired by trees, Mayor Little expressed his “unpopular opinion” that too many green giants ought not to grow close to homes… “While I applaud the goal to retain trees throughout our community for all of the natural benefits that are self evident in there, I do think that the right place for most of them is on our public lands,” he added.

As Jasper recovers from a destructive wildfire, some critics blame mountain pine beetle for turning the national park into a tinderbox. Antonia Musso, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alberta who has been working with mountain pine beetle in Alberta since 2016, is one of many experts who isn’t convinced the infestation played a role. “I think it’s really unlikely that the kill from the pine beetle had an impact on the wildfire in Jasper,” Musso said. While older scientific literature suggests that beetle-killed trees would increase the severity of wildfires, more recent literature indicates that it depends on how long it’s been since the outbreak. Musso said wildfire severity is worst between zero and three years post-outbreak when the trees are red. The peak of the outbreak in Jasper was five to seven years ago, before a major cold snap killed off most of the beetles.

The operator of a pulp mill in northwestern Alberta has been fined $1 million for letting almost 31 million litres of toxic wastewater flow into the Peace River. Environment and Climate Change Canada says the effluent released in April 2021 was “acutely lethal” to fish. Mercer Peace River Pulp Ltd. pleaded guilty last month to a section of the Fisheries Act. The conviction means the company’s name will be added to the Environmental Offenders Registry. The federal government says the pulp mill was shut down for maintenance and waste was directed to a spill pond, where it was to be stored until it could be gradually treated and released into the river. But the investigation found there wasn’t enough room in the pond for that additional effluent.

JASPER, Alberta — We evacuated west in a conga line of cars and trucks to Valemount, B.C., not knowing if our old log cabin on Lake Edith outside of Jasper, Alta., was already in flames. Three weeks later, the wildfire had ripped through the Jasper townsite. The west side of the townsite looked as if the homes had not just been burned but bombed. Out at our cabin though, flying embers had scorched the grass to within five metres of the cabin. The main fire had not reached us. …Over the last decade the lake residents had worked with park wardens in the FireSmart program to create a defensive band. We cleared brush, hauled deadfall, cut branches on live trees up two metres from the ground and lopped the sweet-smelling juniper. Our line had held. I learned from a warden that in FireSmart we were essentially following First Nations fire practices.

The majestic backdrop of Banff, Alberta, provided the setting for the 82nd annual Alberta Forest Products Association (AFPA) Conference from Oct. 9-11. Despite a last-minute venue change due to the Jasper fires, the conference saw strong attendance, bringing together leaders in forestry, government, and Indigenous communities to address the industry’s evolving challenges. The conference opened with AFPA president and CEO Jason Krips leading a tribute to firefighter Morgan Kitchen, who lost his life in the line of duty during the Jasper fires. He led the audience in a moment of silence to honour Alberta’s brave firefighters. …a keynote from Deputy Premier Mike Ellis stressed the need for proper forest management and provincial autonomy in decision-making, using the Jasper fires as an example of the federal overreach he argued has hindered local responses.