Region Archives: Canada West

An old piece of local logging history has made its way back to its original home in Powell River. The city says a steam donkey, also known as a steam powered winch, has been installed at Lindsay Park. It was built in 1918 by Vancouver Engineering Works and was used by the Anderson Sawmill, run by Andy and Clara Anderson on Powell Lake in Block Bay from 1932 to 1960. …After their business was unable to run, they decided to donate the entire sawmill to the Burnaby Village Museum, who said they would get the steam donkey up and running again. However, that proved to be too costly. In 2014, through a grant from the Powell River Community Forest and partnerships with Powell River Forestry Heritage Society, the city and qathet Museum and Archives, the steam donkey has been brought home and installed close to where it was once used.

ALBERTA — Spray Lake Sawmills is in hot water again with environmental and recreational groups concerned about logging in Kananaskis, as the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has launched an investigation into the forest products company surrounding the construction of a bridge this summer. The Alberta Wilderness Association says the bridge Spray Lake Sawmills (SLS) built over the Highwood River to access forests they plan to clearcut this winter requires a permit from the federal fisheries department. However, SLS did not receive such authorization. SLS insists they have followed all the rules. …SLS’s Ed Kulcsar said, “In general, DFO permits are only required if a project proponent is unable to protect fish and fish habitat while conducting their works. At SLS, we follow all approval processes and implement all measures and best management practices to ensure the protection of fish and fish habitat on all our bridge installations.”

Prince George urban forests are threatened by fragmentation from suburban development and we need to change development pathways to protect biodiversity. Fragmentation is a ubiquitous phenomenon, with nearly 20% of the world’s remaining forest now found within 100 m of an edge, 50% within 500 m and 70% within 1 km. Typically, this means that forests are separated by roads, agriculture, utility corridors, subdivisions, or other human development. It usually occurs incrementally, beginning with cleared patches here and there, perhaps a new subdivision or utility corridor and over time, these non-forested patches tend to multiply and expand until the forest is reduced to scattered, disconnected forest islands. You can see this in Prince George using Google Earth. New subdivisions and other land use seriously threaten the health, function, and value of the remaining forest. …We therefore need to take the impacts of fragmentation into account when making decisions about land use and development within our city.

The amount of old-growth forests cut in British Columbia in 2021 was almost a fifth higher than the provincial government reported, according to a new analysis. The report, released Wednesday by the Sierra Club BC, found 45,700 hectares of old forest were logged that year, more than 19 per cent higher than the 38,300 hectares later reported by the B.C. government. “We need more honesty about what’s happening,” said Jens Wieting, the Sierra Club BC’s senior forest and climate campaigner. “We found some really disturbing numbers. …Wieting says the province is using an outdated system to compile annual logging information. That system relies on inputting cutblock information from logging companies and from Landsat satellite data into a government database. …In a statement, the ministry said it has been been working to make data on B.C.’s forests more accessible to the public through satellite-based change detection and data collection.

Sarah Dickson-Hoyle

KAMLOOPS, BC — Gabe Jules has witnessed a drop in both the numbers and health of the deer population in his territory, which has been ravaged by two devastating wildfire seasons in three years. Jules—rights, title and wildlife representative for Skeetchestn First Nation, about 60 kilometres west of Kamloops, B.C… has seen how severe burns from record-breaking wildfires can affect everything, including winter feed for deer.  …The research analyzes deer fecal samples with help from the Toronto Zoo to measure cortisol levels, a stress hormone, said Shaun Freeman, a wildlife biologist. The research will be used to inform Skeetchestn on how environmental factors such as wildfires, logging, and development like road density will impact their deer harvesting management. …The wildfire seasons, alongside other environmental factors like logging and other land management practices, have left Skeetchestn to consider a five- to 10-year reduction in harvest, Jules said. [to access the full story, a National Observer subscription is required]

Related coverage: Skeetchestn wants limits on hunting mule deer after wildfire destroys habitat

Residents in electoral areas around the Capital Regional District and Islands Trust can now consult a new series of maps that chart wildfire risk linked to the vegetation. It’s a new approach for the two organizations, which said the mapping is developed “through a simple scientific approach that identifies where wildfires are most likely to impact developed areas.” Electoral areas are communities situated outside of municipalities, and tend to be referred to as rural or unincorporated. Severe wildfire activity around the province coupled with dry conditions over the summer raised residents’ concerns. …The new maps have been made for the Juan de Fuca Electoral Area, the southern Gulf Islands and Salt Spring Island. Juan de Fuca district maps include Port Renfrew, Shirley, Otter Point, East Sooke and Willis Point, while the southern Gulf Islands maps feature Galiano Island, Mayne Island, Pender Island and Saturna Island.

Welcome all to our October newsletter. Fall is upon us and we are preparing for the busy year to come! We have engagement, career fairs, and much work to be done – we hope you enjoy this update and that we’ll see everyone soon at one of the many upcoming events. Newsletter highlights include:

• CEO Letter by Lennard Joe
• Reconciliation in the Workplace through Allyship
• BC First Nations Provincial Forestry Forum – October 11-13 in Kamloops
• Working Together to Modernize Forest Policy

On the heels of the worst wildfire season in B.C.’s history, the provincial government has unveiled a task force and new legislation aimed at enhancing emergency preparedness and reducing the risk of disasters. According to the province, the proposed emergency and disaster management act aims to “implement a more proactive approach to emergency management,” emphasizing disaster risk reduction to safeguard B.C. residents and communities. The new task force is made up of 14 people, including Tk’emlups Kukpi7 Rosanne Casimir, Thompson-Nicola Regional District CAO Scott Hildebrand and Kukpi7 Lynn Keonras-Duck of the Adams Lake Indian Band. Also on the task force are emergency officials, government representatives and the former director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Related coverage on Radio NL with full list of Expert Task Force members.

Chris Alemany

It has been clear for decades that our forest industry is broken, particularly on the former Dunsmuir grant private lands on Vancouver Island. Many reforms have been advocated, but now … it is time for government to reverse an old wrong and buy out Mosaic Forest Management Corporation to gain back Crown control over these timberlands. One opaque and private company owned by equity firms and pension funds should not control the majority of forest on south and central Vancouver Island. The province should offer Mosaic a takeover and buyout package that would ensure compensation or re-employment for employees. With its lands returned to the public, government and First Nations can get to work managing the landscape on Vancouver Island in a new way for the betterment of all people who live here.

Warren Brown

VANCOUVER, COAST SALISH TERRITORY, BC – When wildfires threatened Lytton First Nation in 2021, Warren Brown was essential in protecting his community’s water supply by staying behind—as others evacuated to safety—to ensure the water treatment plants remained up and running. He wanted to do everything he could to ensure his community had safe and clean drinking water to come home to. Warren’s commitment to caring for his community’s clean water supply continues to play a significant role in protecting their health and safety. Today, Warren Brown of Lytton First Nation was announced as the 2023 recipient of the National First Nations Water Leadership Award at the 14th annual BC and Yukon Territory Water and Wastewater Operational Excellence Conference held in Vancouver, BC.

The B.C. government says it’s moving to eliminate single-use plastic wraps currently used to plant 45 million tree seedlings across the province every year. Traditionally, forestry companies have taken the equivalent of cellophane and wrapped the root bundles to hold them together for transportation into the field. But that old way of doing things has been recognized as unnecessary in recent years, says Randy Fournier, CEO of the B.C.-based seedling company PRT Growing Services Ltd. “The elimination of plastic wrap, quite frankly, is just an elimination of waste,” Fournier said. …Fournier says compacting peat around the seedlings provides enough density for the root system to hold together and keep seedling bundles of up to 20 trees alive before they are planted. The decision to do away with the plastic seedling wraps comes after BC Timber Sales (BCTS) carried out a successful trial using pine and spruce seedlings in the Cariboo region

Release by BC Government: Province tackles climate change by reducing single-use plastics in tree planting

The B.C. government introduced sweeping changes Tuesday to emergency management legislation meant to step up preparedness for climate-fuelled natural disasters and to provide an expanded leadership role for First Nations. The province also announced who will be appointed to a wildfire task force announced by Premier David Eby three weeks ago. The announcements were delivered on the same day the B.C. Ombudsperson’s office released a report that concluded financial support programs for people displaced by extreme weather emergencies are outdated and are not meeting people’s needs. The new emergency management legislation and the task force are meant by Eby’s NDP government to signal they are serious about helping B.C.’s communities build climate resiliency — to reduce the effects of wildfires and floods, droughts and extreme heat that have been hammering the province in the past decade.

What the climate will look like in the future concerns David Chaplin, and he says the feeling is shared by many.  It’s why he was out to show his support at a Victoria demonstration against the continued logging of old-growth forests in B.C. – joining 17 similar actions outside MLA offices province-wide on Thursday (Sept. 28).  “Three years have passed since the B.C. government promised to implement a paradigm-shift in forest stewardship laid out in its own Old Growth Strategic Review (OGSR). Yet the government has made little progress on their promises,” event organizers said.  Intact old-growth forests are one of B.C.’s best allies amid the climate crisis, the demonstrators said, noting they help mitigate environmental disasters and support ecosystems.  Chaplin touted how the forests absorb carbon pollution and help to cool communities.

Between April 1 and August 17 of this year, 1,818 wildfires burned across British Columbia, destroying around 1.61 million hectares, according to the B.C. government. Several cities throughout the province also experienced record-breaking temperatures, including Lytton, B.C., which reached 49.6C on June 29, 2023. …In a statement to Black Press Media from West Fraser, they said:  “Sustainable forest management is one of the core values that we hold both as West Fraser employees and as individuals living and working in our communities and forests.  West Fraser aims to always look for ways to continuously evolve and improve our sustainable forestry practices.  …We work with Indigenous peoples, communities, scientists and governments to ensure that our forestry practices are inclusive, responsible, thoughtful and informed. This includes the relationship and partnership built with the Wells Barkerville Community Forest.

Members of the group Last Stand West Kootenay cut down some trees on Hall Street in Nelson on Thursday.  The trees were people, who fell to the wet pavement after being cut down by chainsaws that were running but had the chains removed.  This piece of street theatre was performed to dramatize what the organizers say is continued logging of old growth forest three years after the publication of the province’s Old Growth Strategic Review.  Steve McGee was one of the “loggers.”  “The B.C. government has created a situation of duress,” he said, “where us ‘loggers’ feel like we have to cut these trees, but knowing full well that in this day and age it’s unethical and unsustainable, and as ‘loggers’ we need support to move away from this as soon as possible.”

Last week, Jimmy Pattison was in town to open the new Save-On Foods. …Yet if you criticize Jimmy and the failed economic model he represents, the air goes out of the room. I’m all for celebrating success in business… but in the meantime, I’m just wondering what product Jimmy Pattison ever brought to the world? …You become a billionaire when you dominate a regional economy, just like how Canfor dominates Prince George forestry. …What I do know is he plays a sophisticated political game. He pilfers the wealth of the provincial hinterland to butter up the metropolitan, big-city elite with board chair positions and big donations and status. …Even in a place like Prince George, where we feel the impacts of an economy rigged in Pattison’s favour with every mill shut down.

Protesters rallied outside nearly 20 MLA constituency offices across B.C. to speak out against old-growth logging… Premier David Eby maintains his government is taking the issue at hand seriously. “We put in place protections for more old-growth forest than any government in the history of British Columbia. The vast majority of our big trees across the province are protected from logging right now,” he said on Thursday. “Anywhere that there is logging taking place in old-growth areas, it is because the local First Nation wants that work to continue for their own economic development, and they are saying where and how that takes place. We respect the right of First Nations to be able to make those decisions…” …He says the forestry industry is “incredibly important” for B.C., adding, “one of our solutions to climate change is to use more wood products in our province.”

Aside from the visual shock left by looking at the charred landscape, there are concerns about what the impact on drinking water could be after heavy rain or next spring’s snow melt. UBC Okanagan assistant professor of Earth, Environmental and Geographic Sciences Mathieu Bourbonnais says the impacts could be significant. …Bourbonnais believes there will be both long-term and short-term impacts because of the wildfire. In the short-term, West Kelowna could see more sediment in the reservoir’s water. …Looking longer term, Bourbonnais said it is not clear forests will regrow in the watershed due to the high severity of the burn and climate change. If there is a bright spot, Bourbonnais says the wildfire will also help regenerate growth of grasslands that serve as protection against major wildfires.

BRITISH COLUMBIA — The 2023 wildfire season is officially the most expensive and most destructive on record. According to the B.C. Wildfire Service (BCWS), a total of 2,217 fires have been detected this year, burning almost 25,000 square kilometres of trees, bush and grassland. That makes it B.C.’s worst season by land burned, easily surpassing the previous record of 13,540 square kilometres in 2018. The cost of fighting those fires is also significantly up, to approximately $770 million so far this year, more than the $649 million spent in 2017. On Thursday, the B.C. government said higher-than-projected costs to fight wildfires had contributed an additional $2.5 billion to the province’s projected deficit for this fiscal year. The government is projecting the total spend for the 2023/24 fiscal year to be $966 million. The majority of this year’s fires — approximately 71 per cent — have been sparked by lightning, while 23 per cent are human-caused, the fire service says.

The Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) has passed a resolution calling on the B.C. government to take strong steps to stop the spread of the invasive plant species Scotch Broom. Resolution NR51, ‘Control of Scotch Broom’ was sponsored by the Town of Qualicum Beach, where Broombusters Invasive Plant Society started in 2006, according to a news release by Broombusters. …Scotch Broom has been recognized as the invasive species doing the greatest harm to species at risk — the “top offender of biodiversity in B.C.” Broom spreads so quickly and densely that native species and young forest seedlings cannot compete. But the officials’ greatest concern relates to climate change and wildfires. “Scotch broom’s high flammability and its ability to spread quickly and form dense stands increases the fuel load, impeding fire management efforts, making fires more difficult to fight,” wrote Terry Peters, recently retired fire chief of Powell River.

A downpour of rain did not stop members of the Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance (PWPA) from rallying against the logging of old-growth forests in B.C. They gathered just off Highway 97 in front of the Peachland Mall on Thursday afteroon (Sep. 28). “It’s been three years since the provincial government launched the old growth strategy and nothing has been done,” said Alex Morrison, communications director of PWPA. “The deferral areas that they have are still being logged, so we’re just trying to keep this front and centre.” …“There are six areas of protected old-growth that the panel said you must protect and they’re right in the heart of the Glen Lake wildfire,” said Taryn Skalbania, PWPA co-founder. …Skalbania believes that the Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA), which governs activities on public lands during forest planning, road building, timber harvesting, and reforestation, is very one-sided.

Additional coverage in Global News, by Darrian Matassa-Fung: Old growth activists holding ‘day of action’ across B.C.

Kelowna Now, by Megan Trudeau: Flashmob pops up at Uptown Mall to advocate for old growth

Nanaimo Daily News, by Bailey Seymour: Protesters lament ‘soccer field’-size sections of forests being logged in B.C.

To Nathan Cullen, I am writing to you on the third anniversary of your government’s acceptance of all 14 recommendations within A New Future for Old Forests. That report called for urgency and profound change to accomplish the necessary paradigm shift to adequately respond to the climate emergency and the contribution of our forestry practices to it. The unfolding disaster of our burning forests has reminded us that nature is not listening to government’s inaction. …We have been converting our province, once described as super-natural, into an impoverished landscape, capable of creating only increased risk. …We need to return to a community-based economies that can use truly sustainable harvesting methods that do not degrade the ecologies within which they operate. To do that, you have to rebuild multi-stakeholder community committees as a permanent part of landscape planning. In the meantime, please stop BC Timber Sales and the forest industry from destroying the watersheds within which we live.

The court order that made it illegal to block logging activity in the forest near the Fairy Creek watershed on southwestern Vancouver Island has expired.  Teal Cedar first sought the injunction in spring 2021, after protesters opposed to the logging of old growth trees set up camp in Tree Farm License 46. When the temporary injunction expired, Teal Cedar applied to extend it. The most recent extension expired on Sept. 26 and, so far, the company has not applied for an extension. …”I was expecting in July to start hearing about the application, then nothing happened,” said Rani Earnhart, a legal administrator for the Rainforest Flying Squad group, which she said doesn’t really operate anymore, beyond court proceedings. Lawyers and individual protesters confirmed they’ve seen no application to extend. Teal Cedar did not respond to questions from CBC News about whether it was still planning to apply for a new injunction, or take other action.

Additional coverage in the Victoria Times Colonist by Roxanne Egan-Elliott: Court injunction against Fairy Creek protest quietly expires

Thousands of hectares of Canadian forest are sprayed every year with glyphosate, a weed-killing agent, for the sole purpose of killing off grasses, shrubs, and deciduous trees. Yes, really. It sounds unbelievable, but in the eyes of Canada’s forest industry, maples, alders, aspens, birch, ferns, fireweed, bluejoint grass, every kind of local berry, and other native species are considered weeds or pests. So they are removed, sometimes through a manual process called brushing, but more often by helicopters spraying large quantities of glyphosate. …In British Columbia, for example, the Forest and Range Practices Act requires logged areas to be replanted with seedlings that must grow within a certain time into a free growing stand. The pressure to create a viable crop of trees is real. BC’s forestry companies can be financially penalized if their replanted stands don’t achieve free growing status within the mandated period.

Vanderhoof, B.C.: The Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation (HCTF) is proud to announce over $8 million in funding for 168 fish and wildlife conservation projects across B.C. this year, with over $300,000 allocated to projects in the Omineca region, and over $1M in the northeast. … With support from the HCTF, a wide range of nonprofit organizations, First Nations and Indigenous communities, Provincial ministries, and community groups implement projects that protect B.C.’s wildlife, freshwater fish, and their habitats. Since 1981, the HCTF has funded over 3,550 projects representing an investment of over $215 million for conservation in B.C. …Among this year’s projects in Omineca is a multi-year project to study the impacts of landscape changes on moose health. Currently in its first of three years (though building on a previous project) and led by the University of Northern B.C., the project will identify variables in moose habitat that are associated with their health and survival.

Burns Lake, B.C.: The Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation is proud to announce over $8 million in funding for 168 fish and wildlife conservation projects across B.C. this year, with over $800,000 allocated to projects in the Skeena region. …Among this year’s projects in the Skeena is a multi-year project to study the impacts of partial logging on the habitats of important small wildlife predator species. Currently in its second of five years and led by the University of B.C., the project will examine predator habitat use and selection in forests harvested using partial logging practices compared to traditional logging and unlogged forests. “Partial logging has benefits for fire management and timber supply and may be more favourable for wildlife, but these benefits have not been thoroughly documented,” says project lead Dr. Karen Hodges. … The project is focused on marten and the red-listed fisher, as both are focal management species and sensitive to forest loss.