Region Archives: Canada West

John Brink

PRINCE GEORGE — A local business owner involved with the forestry industry in British Columbia for over 50 years, is sounding the alarm about the current state of the sector. John Brink is the owner of Brink Forest Products Ltd., and has served as a director of the Council of Forest Industries (COFI), and has also represented Canada in softwood lumber disputes with the United States. He says that the forestry industry “is broken” and the “policy around it is broken.” Brink says that British Columbia needs to “totally from the bottom up, redesign our forest policy.” Brink says that due to lack of access to fibre in B.C., companies are pursuing opportunities elsewhere and major primary manufacturers are going to places like Sweden and the Southeastern U.S. due to access to fibre and being able to plan ahead in terms of fibre availability.

In 2021, all eyes were on Fairy Creek, [with] protests taking place in then premier John Horgan’s own riding. …On April 12, 2021, the Pacheedaht First Nation released a statement saying, “We do not welcome or support unsolicited involvement or interference by others in our Territory, including third-party activism”. …I filed a freedom of information request asking for any correspondence between the government and the Pacheedaht First Nation preceding the statement. …According to email correspondence included in the draft’s release—five days before the statement was made public—Rod Bealing, Pacheedaht First Nation’s forestry manager, sent a draft statement internally within the nation to elected chief Jeff Jones and a band manager, asking for suggestions. Five hours later, Bealing sent an email to Eric Kristianson, who was then assistant deputy minister for “strategic initiatives” in the BC premier’s office: “Please find our proposed statement attached. Please call if any questions,” Bealing wrote.

Lori Daniels

The Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia has set up a new wildfire-focused research initiative… The Centre for Wildfire Coexistence, backed by a $5-million donation from the Koerner family, will focus on mitigating catastrophic risks, said Lori Daniels, a UBC forestry professor who will become the inaugural holder of the school’s Koerner Chair in Wildfire Coexistence. …The use of the term “co-existence” flags what Dr. Daniels sees as a big part of the UBC initiative’s purpose: building awareness of how wildfires and prescribed burns can contribute to healthy ecosystems and reduced wildfire risk. …Dr. Daniels expects to work closely with local communities, including Indigenous groups, all levels of government and other academic institutions, including Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, which this month approved plans for an Institute for Wildfire Science, Adaptation and Resiliency at its campus. [A Globe and Mail subscription is required to access the full story]

Additional coverage from the UBC Faculty of Forestry: Revolutionizing Wildfire Preparedness in BC: Centre for Wildfire Coexistence

UBC News: UBC Forestry to launch Centre for Wildfire Coexistence thanks to $5M donation from the Koerner family

Sustained leadership, and a spirit of innovation and partnership today, can help forge the models of Crown-Indigenous relations that can carry Indigenous communities, sustainable natural resource management, healthy ecosystems, and vibrant local economies into the future. …One year ago, we stood with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as he announced a historic commitment to support four Indigenous-led conservation initiatives: in Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, northern Ontario, and in our marine territories on British Columbia’s north Pacific Coast, also known as the Great Bear Sea. Taking place at COP15, the announcement set an ambitious tone for the global gathering, which culminated in an agreement among 196 countries to reverse biodiversity loss. The announcement also uplifted an innovative conservation finance approach called Project Finance for Permanence, which was born in Canada more than two decades ago in our traditional territories, as part of an initiative that weaves together nature, economy, and community in the Great Bear Rainforest. [to access the full story a Hill Times subscription is required]

MACKENZIE, BC — A unique feeding program for an at-risk B.C. caribou herd appears to have helped the population more than double its numbers over the last decade. The program is spearheaded by Doug Heard, a retired wildlife biologist who formerly worked for the provincial government, and takes place in Kennedy Siding, a 223-hectare section of critical habitat for threatened woodland caribou located about 200 kilometres north of Prince George. …Heard, or a technician from the McLeod Lake Indian Band, distributes nutritional pellets in a series of covered feeding troughs in the Kennedy Siding area, at the base of the Rocky Mountains, about 30 kilometres southeast of Mackenzie, B.C. The pellets are a combination of corn and grains. …The B.C. government has also carried out wolf culling programs in the South Peace region since 2015 to improve survival rates for caribou herds, including the Kennedy Siding group. 

With no logging planned for North Cowichan’s municipal forest reserve until the forestry review is completed, staff is anticipating the municipality will have to turn to general taxation to help cover the reserve’s expenses for the first time since the review process began in 2019. At a committee of the whole meeting on Nov. 28 to discuss the upcoming budget for 2024, forester Shaun Mason… said all that’s left in North Cowichan’s forest reserve fund as of the end of 2023 is $230,490, which leaves a $112,000 deficit in the department for 2024. The fund has been covering the lost revenue since the municipality decided to suspend logging in the reserve in 2020 until the review is complete. Mason said the forest department’s main focus for 2024 is on the forest-review process and continuing with general maintenance and management in the forest reserve. 

Ross Muirhead

Another ad by Sunshine Coast Community Forest (SCCF) appeared in the Nov. 24 Coast Reporter paper this time about its 2023-2028 logging plan. The plan was first revealed at a Nov. 20 meeting and SCCF is now asking community members for feedback by December 20 – 30 days and counting. Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) attended that meeting there was a lack of detail on each block and certainly not enough for the average person to provide reasonable feedback besides “not opposed” or “opposed.” This is a ridiculously short timeframe for feedback and ELF recommends it be extended to April 1, 2024 to provide us time to get the public out to each forest and look at what could be lost. …These are two areas where no logging should be taking place in the first place due to the sensitivity and importance of drinking watersheds. In terms of protecting biodiversity, each watershed area is well represented by the mountain hemlock and alpine ecosystems.

Last week a letter writer proposed that ELF could get the public out to each planned forest cut, and deliver meaningful feedback by the 1st of April (Reexamine logging plans by Ross Muirhead).  Thirty thousand untrained Coast residents are imagined by Elphinstone Logging Focus to perform this inspection under the guidance of ELF and with ELF’s explicit  purpose to “look at what could be lost.”  I’d hazard this could take several years, if ELF has the personnel to manage it. But we already have fully trained professional foresters who can right now tell you what will be lost, and more importantly what will be gained by the work that our Community Forest has done and continues to do. [END]

KAMLOOPS, BC — A new research institute that Thompson Rivers University says would position it as an “international leader” in wildfire science and education has been given final approval. The university said the Institute of Wildfire Science, Adaptation and Resiliency aims to conduct research aimed at preventing, mitigating, responding to and recovering from wildfires. TRU’s board of governors gave approval for the establishment of the institute during its meeting last week. …The initial research team will be headed up by Mike Flannigan, a BC Research Chair, professor and renowned wildfire expert., Jill Harvey, a Canada Research Chair in fire ecology, and Lauchlan Fraser, an NSERC industrial research chair in ecosystem reclamation. Flannigan said during the university’s senate meeting in October that a new building has already been opened and is housing the researchers, grad students and postdoctoral researchers. Funding for the institute has been secured for three-years.

Two projects on the North Island will remove forest fire fuel from the woods and put it to better use. The Forest Enhancement Society of BC is getting $50 million from the province to remove windfalls and logging leftovers from forests. The wood will go to mills that can use it, and removing it from the forest will help prevent future wildfires. Provincial forests minister Bruce Ralston says there are two North Island projects worth nearly a million dollars near Port McNeill. He says they will also help North Island forestry businesses and create some new jobs. “One of the big challenges in the sector right now is the hunt for fibre, marketable fibre, in order to accomplish the work that forestry companies want to do,” he said. …Both projects will be done by the Atli Chip LP company owned by the ‘Namgis First Nation.

The 2023 wildfire season has been long and challenging. Between April 1 and October 31, 2,245 wildfires burned more than 2.84 million hectares of forest and land resulting in the most destructive wildfire season in British Columbia’s recorded history. “We started really early, snow melted three to four weeks early, we were experiencing very aggressive fire behaviour in early May and that has persisted right into the month of October,” Neal McLoughlin, Superintendent, BCWS Predictive Services. It has also been emotionally challenging with devastating impacts to multiple communities and the tragic loss of six members of the wildland firefighting community. This video acknowledges the conditions and impacts of the 2023 wildfire season. It also honours personnel and partners while paying tribute to the fallen wildland firefighters. Read our 2023 season summary to learn more about wildfire response around the province this year: https://ow.ly/aBEV50QgyRP

The Community Forest is once again paying dividends for the City of Port Alberni. The Alberni Valley Community Forest Corporation presented the city with a dividend cheque of $300,000 on November 27. The cheque represents the operating year of 2022, said chairman Jim Sears. “We are in good financial position at this time, with a healthy retained earnings position, and we are expecting that we will complete our 2023 operations by the end of this year,” he said. Sears added that the corporation is holding back “a fairly hefty retained earning” for some future bridge building. …“Our community forest does a fantastic job of balancing community needs with the potential to give back, in terms of revenue,” said Mayor Sharie Minions. “It’s a great model to show companies how land bases can be managed.”

BRITISH COLUMBIA — Putting cutblocks next to wildlife protection areas may not be the best thing for the animals, but it does help timber companies cut more big trees, and has been B.C. government policy for decades. …It’s a practice known as co-location. …And while it’s legal — even encouraged — by the province to maximize timber harvests, ecologists and forestry experts call it “double counting” and a relic of a bygone era, used by logging companies to cut some of the province’s biggest trees where wildlife needs them most. …B.C. is not short on trees. But big, coastal old growth is, today, exceptionally rare. …But old-growth logging still continues, as does the decades-old practice of co-location. …In 2021, the Forest Practices Board spelled out the motivation… “co-location means that an area reserved from harvest can serve more than one purpose, and this reduces the amount of habitat that is actually reserved from harvest.” 

The wildfires may be out – but they still pose a threat to those venturing into the backcountry. The BC Forest Safety Council warns that summer wildfires and ongoing drought conditions are creating potentially dangerous situations. Many parts of the province are experiencing severe drought and impacts from a catastrophic fire season. In particular, the northeast part of the province remains under Level 5 drought conditions. The region experienced several very large wildfires, including the 619,000-hectare Donnie Creek fire. During the winter, some wildfires will continue to smoulder and burn under the snow, which will create new and hidden hazards, some of which may not be obvious, the safety council says.

VANCOUVER, BC — For the time being, the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation is refusing to release the expert report behind the operation to cut down almost a quarter of the trees in Stanley Park. At the end of November, the Vancouver Park Board announced scheduled closures of the Lions Gate Bridge, Stanley Park Causeway, and other roads and trails over the next two months while it removes 160,000 trees due to pest infestation and wildfire fears. …“The primary focus is to prioritize the removal of trees affected by the hemlock looper moth infestation in heavily visited areas of Stanley Park, in alignment with preparations for winter storms, wildfires and bird nesting season,” said Park Board spokeswoman Eva Cook. Cook said B.A. Blackwell & Associates is the forestry consultant working with the board, but she refused to say how much the contract is worth. 

Alice Palmer

Members of the UN Global Biodiversity Framework have agreed to protect 30% of their land and ocean area by 2030. BC has announced how it plans to protect 30%. On November 3, the governments of Canada and BC, together with several Indigenous organizations, signed the Tripartite Framework on Nature Conservation. … Although industry groups have been relatively quiet about the agreement, several environmental groups published press releases coinciding with the government announcement. For the most part, the groups celebrated the announcement. However, some suggested the new agreement does not go far enough. In BC, only about 5% of the land is privately owned. However, much of the province is subject to unsettled Indigenous land claims. Because BC has committed to adopting the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the province will need to consult with First Nations prior to creating new protected and conserved areas. 

FREE WEBINAR | Monday, December 11 | 7:00 PM PST — The Forest History Association of British Columbia Speaker Series is pleased to present our next speaker: Dr. Ira Sutherland. Sutherland is a post-doctoral researcher at Simon Fraser University. He recently obtained his RPF and finished his PhD in the UBC Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences studying historical social-ecological changes in BC forests. Forests and society are changing, but by how much? How well is forest management keeping pace? And what does this tell us about the overall sustainability of forest landscapes in BC? This talk presents insights from Sutherland’s recently published PhD dissertation, which reconstructs social-ecological changes in BC over the past century. Join us for this free webinar. Register today. 

The president of the Cranbrook Community Forest Society opposes Schedule 7 of the City of Cranbrook’s draft official community plan which outlines hypothetical roads through the community amenity. The City has released its draft Official Community Plan which outlines a blueprint for the community to help guide its growth and future through 2042. Society president Joseph Cross has concerns with two potential roads identified which could go through the forest, he says these roads would create safety issues, hinder access and devalue the area. …Cross says the Schedule 7 map with the proposed roads is near the end of the draft plan document, prompting speculation about a lack of transparency. The society is asking city council to remove the Schedule 7 map from its draft plan, and concedes that the document contains many other elements which encourage responsible growth and development.

VICTORIA – The Forest Practices Board has released a report on the measurement and allocation of forage on rangelands in British Columbia. The report identifies several opportunities to improve the management of public rangelands. These include setting specific targets for conserving forage for wildlife and using a more robust system to measure and inventory the amount of available forage on rangelands. “The board found that government has developed good guidelines for measuring forage, but they aren’t consistently used,” said Gerry Grant, board member of B.C.’s Forest Practices Board. The board also found government lacks a current inventory of forage in some districts with high range usage.

The Forest Practices Board has published its 2022-23 annual report. Introduced by Board Chair Keith Atkinson, the report summarizes Board accomplishments over the past year and previews of work in progress.

Highlights include:

• Completion of 11 audits; 9 with issues, including 12 significant non-compliances
• Completion of 7 complaint investigations and 51 concerns either closed or resolved.
• Review of 35 Forest and Range Practices Act and Wildfire Actdeterminations
• Completion of 1 special project, including 4 recommendations to government.

You can access the 2022-23 report and past versions of Board annual reports on our website. 

Fort Nelson, B.C. – To safeguard their community from the escalating threat of wildfires, British Columbia’s largest community forest is undertaking wildfire risk reduction work with support from Forest Enhancement Society of BC funding. …The Fort Nelson Community Forest (FNCF) was formed when the largest community forest license in the province was awarded to the Fort Nelson First Nation (FNFN) and Northern Rockies Regional Municipality (NRRM) partnership. …According to Matt Pilszek, RFT, Forestry and Construction Manager with Geoterra, the fuel mitigation project will focus on protecting and enhancing the Boreal caribou ungulate winter range. The fuel mitigation treatment will reduce the accumulation of flammable vegetation and deadwood, which helps reduce the risk of large, destructive wildfires detrimental to wildlife habitat. Preserving the winter range from being impacted by wildfires ensures that caribou and other ungulates have access to the habitat they need during the critical winter months.