Region Archives: Canada West

Two new reports find B.C.’s old-growth forests are still on the chopping block despite claims to the contrary by the provincial government and a U.K.-based corporation. Government data leaked to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) shows B.C.’s Ministry of Forestry rejected more than half the proposed logging deferrals recommended by an expert panel with a mandate to protect important old-growth forests. … The analysis shows ministry personnel removed 55 per cent of the areas of large old-growth trees the panel recommended be protected from logging. …Minister of Forests Bruce Ralston said the leaked data “confirms what we have been saying all along — that 2.42 million hectares of old-growth forests are deferred or newly protected since November 2021.” …B.C.’s old-growth forests continue to fuel a biomass power plant in the U.K., according to a new investigation by Conservation North, the Bulkley Valley Stewardship Coalition and Biofuelwatch UK.

…“Probably late 2020, but especially 2021, was when we noticed we’re starting to lose trees to the western hemlock looper outbreak,” he says. “We identified that this is not typical of what you would usually see.” The park board’s manager of urban forestry, Joe McLeod, is overseeing the response to the devastating infestations that have now lasted several years, a response that involves cutting thousands of dead and dying trees in the name of keeping humans safe. …For regular habitués of the park the effects can be jaw-dropping. And some have questions. …One of those alternative views comes from arborist Norm Oberson of Vancouver-based Arbutus Tree Service. Oberson feels the fire risk has been greatly exaggerated. …McLeod describes that argument as “patently false.” …McLeod says prolonged consultation could be fatal to mitigation efforts. … “If we had to get public approval for every tree that we remove in the city, we would never get 100 per cent consent.

BC Wildfire Service had a record-breaking year for applications from people wanting to be firefighters. For the upcoming season, BCWS received 1,700 firefighter applications — nearly double last year’s 860. “I’m actually surprised,” says David Greer, director of strategic engagement at BC Wildfire Service. “It’s a big jump.” The last time the service saw such interest was in 2003 when 2,000 people applied. Each year, BCWS has 1,600 to 2,000 firefighter employees. That number does not include initial attack, wildfire technicians, heavy equipment and line-locating teams. Greer credits opening the application window earlier and staggering it to the successful number of people applying. …Staffing numbers for the 2024 season are consistent with the last seven to 10 years, according to Greer. Roughly 200 firefighters are turning over and leaving the organization from last year, he tells Glacier Media.

BC Timber Sales (BCTS) has confirmed Joe Smith Creek cutblock (TA0521) is to go to auction by April. That decision was reaffirmed to the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) in a Feb. 22 letter from BCTS’s Pierre Aubin, a practices forester for the Chinook region, which encompasses the Coast. “TA0521 will be harvested using a partial cut harvest method. The harvest openings will have an average of 40 trees left standing in each hectare in addition to significant retention patches. Due to the unique partial cut harvest system, TA0521 will be added to the Roberts Creek High Retention Research Project led by Ministry of Forests Research Branch and supported by BCTS,” Aubin wrote. That correspondence, along with a letter from the Ministry of Forests’ Sunshine Coast Natural Resource Region district manager, delivered responses to a call by the SCRD directors for  TA0521 to be protected as an old-growth recruitment area.

Researchers across Canada have released a new study on the 2023 wildfire season classifying it as a record-breaking year across the nation. An early wildfire season has had “profound” impacts on Canadians, from health issues due to mass amounts of smoke to record-breaking evacuations. Ellen Whitman, a forest fire research scientist with NRCan, and one of the authors of the new study… said the residual impacts of the 2023 season will make the 2024 wildfire season in Alberta challenging due to the lack of recovery from the drought. …With low snowpacks throughout western Canada, Whitman anticipates the most challenging aspect of the 2024 wildfire season is the lack of recovery from the 2023 drought. …After experiencing a wildfire season like 2023, Whitman says communities need to be more proactive, citing the benefit to fuel mitigation around communities, whether through fire smart thinning of prescribed burning or trying to get ahead of the problem by treating the landscape.

The current wildfire danger in the Calgary Forest Area (CFA) remains LOW. Widespread snow blanketed most areas of the CFA over the past week. With the anticipated warmer weather in the coming days, we may begin to see exposed areas which can present an early season wildfire risk. In areas where snow remains on the ground, the wildfire danger should remain low in the short term. It is too early to predict the severity of the 2024 season, as the greatest impact will be from late season snowfall and early spring rainfall amounts. Weather dependent, crews may continue establishing guard for the Ribbon Creek Prescribed Fire as soon as March 12. …Preparations for the 2024 wildfire season continue in the CFA. Additional wildland firefighters completed their fitness testing and onboarded earlier this week. We now have 3 crews ready to respond to any new wildfire starts as well as assist with prescribed fire operations and other local projects. Additional staff will continue onboarding in the coming weeks. 

Andrea Lyall

UBC Forestry would like to congratulate Dr. Andrea Lyall on receiving the Faculty of Forestry Best Doctoral Dissertation Award for 2023. Dr. Andrea Lyall’s doctoral dissertation is entitled “Kwakwa̱ka̱’wakw People – Forests Relationships: The Forests are Our Cupboards, The Ocean is our Refrigerator”. This research explores the integral relationship between forests and the Ḵwiḵwa̱sut’inux̱w Ha̱xwa’mis community in present-day British Columbia, Canada, focusing on how forests are central to their identity, culture, and livelihoods. Utilizing Indigenous methodologies and participatory action research, Andrea’s research highlights the significance of forests in maintaining cultural identity, traditional practices, and access to essential resources such as traditional foods and western red cedar, while addressing concerns about cultural erosion and limited forest preservation policies within the community.

Amid a severe drought, negotiations are under way in Alberta that have not occurred for a generation. The provincial government has convened hundreds of large water consumers in hopes of reaching voluntary agreements to share water in river basins at risk of severe shortages, a move made necessary by a little-understood water-allocation system that originated in the 1800s. The government has described those talks as the most extensive negotiations of their kind in the province’s history. Though a wet spring might yet bring relief, the Alberta government has decided not to try its luck. This winter, many rivers reached record low levels. As of early March, several reservoirs in Southern Alberta were also far below normal levels for this time of year. …In the mountains and throughout most of Alberta’s agricultural areas, snowpacks are meagre. [to access the full story a Globe & Mail subscription is required]

The Mission Municipal Forest has logged its best year yet. In 2023, the City of Mission’s forestry department reached a record-breaking $7.5 million in net profit from timber sales. Forestry director Chris Gruenwald presented a quarterly report to council on March 4 that also recapped 2023 as a whole. The funds will be transferred to the Forest Legacy Reserve, which can be used by council to invest in future capital projects. Previous forestry profits have resulted in contributions towards the Boswyck Seniors Centre, a portable mill at Mission Secondary School and a CT Scanner for Mission Memorial Hospital. “While forestry returns fluctuate year over year, our forest has proven a consistent source of revenue for the City over the last 66 years,” Mission Mayor Paul Horn said. “Our forebears demonstrated remarkable foresight when they acquired the Tree Farm Licence so our council’s aim will be to invest those resources in a way that similarly serves our future.”

In this newsletter you will find:

• 2023 Woodlot Conference: Looking Back, by Sarah Sutton
• Gord Chipman’s Executive Director’s Report: In with the New, 2024 will be another year of changes in the Forest Industry.
• E-Business Update by Tom Bradley including Woodlot for Windows (W4W) Improvements
• Cutting Permit Status by Melissa Steidle, North Region Representative
• Rainfall Shutdown Procedures – Overview for Licensees
• Sara Grady: Is it time to fight fire with fire (again)?

For months, officials in the Ministry of Forests have been working on a map that radically departs from the recommendations of a panel appointed by the provincial government to advise it on how to protect BC’s imperiled old growth forests. The map suggests that behind the scenes bureaucrats in the ministry, which is often accused of having a deeply embedded logging bias, are intent on undoing the work of the panel and freeing up as much old growth forests as possible to be cut down. The leaked mapping data… reveals that ministry bureaucrats have rejected more than half of the proposals made by the panel to defer logging of some of the biggest and best remaining old growth trees in the province, a move that clearly favors the logging companies that the ministry regulates. “What’s happening behind the scenes is sabotage,” says Michelle Connolly, director of Conservation North.

Re: Less than 1/3 of Old Growth Management areas are actually old growth (CPAWS). I am a helicopter pilot who works with the logging companies on the West Coast. Logging in B.C. is a responsible, sustainable industry. …I flew a group of tourists over an area north of the Broughton Archipelago a year ago. One of the tourists asked indignantly, “Is there anywhere that has not been logged?” My immediate answer was, “Yes, everything you see out your window now is old growth.” …Hours later, we were flying up a valley further inland, and a comment was made about the pristine forest in this area. I explained that everything they saw out their windows was a second-generation forest. …Logging is a culture, not just an industry, and should be showcased to the world — not a boogie man for environmental groups to raise money to fight.

ʔaq̓am First Nation leadership says it is “dismayed” with a recent decision by the B.C. government to suspend a process that proposed amendments to B.C.’s Land Act. The proposed amendments were intended to align language in the Land Act with the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA), which unanimously passed by B.C. legislature in 2019. However, Nathan Cullen, the Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship, recently announced the government is not proceeding with the proposed changes. “We are dismayed that these straightforward updates to the act were misrepresented by some people to such an extent that Minister Cullen has opted to pause the process,” said Nasuʔkin (Chief) Joe Pierre of ʔaq̓am.

Mosaic Forest Management is planting trees along the border of the Alberni Valley Memorial Gardens after logging up to the edge of the cemetery. Owner Barry Tuck says he was initially disappointed in the three dozen cypress trees planted sparingly along the edge, but the forest company has agreed to plant another 30, 6′ tall trees and clean up the harvest area. Tuck and many others were outraged after loggers felled trees to within a few feet of grave sites, despite the company promising a 20 to 30 metre buffer. He said Mosaic has demonstrated empathy and action to mitigate the problem, and he’s hoping to make the best of a challenging situation.

Everyone is welcome to a land-and-forest planning information session on March 13, 2024, in Port McNeill. The session will seek public input on two ongoing projects to support long-term forest health, climate adaptation, and a sustainable and secure forestry sector: The Gwa’ni Modernized Land Use Planning Project – an intergovernmental project between the ‘Namgis First Nation and the Province built with stakeholder and community engagement over the past two years to update land-use planning in the Nimpkish Valley; and Forest Landscape Plan and Forest Operations Plan for Tree Farm Licence (TFL) 37, in the Nimpkish Valley – jointly developed by Western Forest Products and ‘Namgis First Nation and supported by the Province, the plan proposes a consolidated approach to forest planning and management at the landscape level (e.g. timber supply area, TFL or large area-based forest tenure) and facilitates collaboration between government, First Nations and licensees, with input from interest groups, communities and the public. 

BC Greens MLA Adam Olsen retabled a bear den protection bill for the third time Wednesday afternoon (March 6), in hopes of safeguarding areas that experts say are under threat from logging. Olsen has been pushing for the legal changes since October 2022, but has yet to have his private member’s bill heard. If passed, the bill would amend B.C.’s Wildlife Act to make disturbing, molesting, damaging or destroying a bear den on Crown or private land an offence. Olsen says this is largely targeted at logging companies whose practices risk decimating bear denning options in forested areas. A March 2022 report by the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre found logging of old growth forests poses a particularly serious threat. This, the authors said, is because black bears in coastal B.C. rely almost exclusively on woody structures to wait out the winter and need large-diameter trees to do so.

Tolko Industries is planning to remove bridges from 17 crossings located on forestry resource roads in the Quesnel and Williams Lake TSAs. Work is proposed for summer/fall of 2024 and will include deactivation of roads beyond the crossings. Tolko Industries Ltd is also planning to deactivate 2 road systems west of Williams Lake in the summer/fall of 2024. If any of the sites noted above are within your area of interest and you would like to discuss in more detail, please contact Jenna Swanson, Cariboo Woodlands, prior to May 10, 2024.

Mission, BC—Net profit from the City of Mission’s timber sales last year reached a record-breaking $7.5 million. These funds will be transferred to the Forest Legacy Reserve, which can be used by Council to invest in future capital projects for the community. Council heard the update from the City’s Director of Forestry, Chris Gruenwald, at last night’s Council meeting. “2023 was a strong year for our department, despite falling timber markets over the year,” said Chris Gruenwald, Director of Forestry. “While markets overall were down significantly in 2023, we were able to take advantage of strong utility pole markets early in the year. This was combined with significantly lower stumpage prices compared to 2022, which created ideal financial conditions in 2023. It’s also important to acknowledge the hard work of our staff, contractors, and timber buyers, as their commitment to our community is one of the major reasons we were able to achieve these results.”

In a mystical moment on the back corner of Nelson’s Silver King Campus, students in the Selkirk College Forest Technology Program were introduced to an ancient Grand Fir that will soon find its place on the BC Big Tree Registry. First identified as a rarity by local freelance writer Jayme Moye, the massive tree was co-nominated for the registry by instructor Mandy Croppo’s second-year class. …In the nomination package, they named the tree Grandalf the Fir in homage of the wizard Gandalf The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. .. the two-year Forest Technology Program is one of four original programs offered when Selkirk College first opened its doors in 1966. With almost six decades of graduates, program alumni can be found in every corner of the industry across British Columbia and the world.