Region Archives: Canada West

October has been a very busy month. Our Indigenous Forestry Scholarship Program (IFSP) team has been busy traveling to many areas across our province working with our students and meeting with industry and academia to develop partnerships and grow relationships. Our organization was busy preparing for and presenting our annual FNFC Provincial Forum that was held in Kamloops on October 11-13. I raise my hands up to all our FNFC staff and the Province who made it a success. I could not be present this year due to a loss in our family and am grateful to all my colleagues and friends for reaching out to me and my family at that time to share your condolences. … The FNFC has been working with the province and industry as part of the Value Added Accelerators working group.

In this edition of the FireSmart BC news:

• The FireSmart Canada Neighbourhood Recognition Program – Princeton Neighbourhood Feature
• FireSmart BC Education Program Update – FireSmart BC Education Program was recently launched to equip educators and students with essential knowledge on safety, fire science, mitigation, prevention, and ecosystem stewardship.
• Call For Footage – We are looking for images or videos of the fires that impacted either West Kelowna or the Shuswap regions in the Summer of 2023.
• Upcoming Summit: Save the Date! – The next Wildfire Resiliency and Training Summit will be held April 20-24, 2024, in Prince George, BC. Stay tuned for more information and keep an eye out for updates.
• Get FireSmart Podcast: Episode 33 – Hear from Wayne Schnitzler, Executive Director of the First Nations Emergency Services Society.

On Oct. 19, forestry and municipal types mingled together at the Seven Hills Golf and Country Club for an open house, hosted by the North Island Community Forest Limited Partnership, (NICF.) …It was back in 2011 when Port Alice, Port Hardy and Port McNeill were awarded a small but significant forest tenure, and a diverse group of local talent was chosen by the respective town councils to be the board of directors.  …The volunteer board of directors announced, after dishing out more than $6 million in profit so far, that they were at it again, as more money was made with a recently completed project. …That contract was for salvaged/damaged windfall in the Marble River operating area, approximately 7800m3 of wind fallen timber. …Recreation continues to be a key part of NICF’s focus.  …It wasn’t all good news on the forest front. NICF continues to “lose value” due to log theft and unauthorized firewood cutting. 

Ken Wu

Last week, BC Premier David Eby announced a new $300 million “conservation financing mechanism.” Based on a startup contribution of $150 million from the Province and $150 million from the BC Parks Foundation (the charitable partner of the BC Parks agency), the fund will support First Nations communities to establish new Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs).  ….Conservation financing is funding for Indigenous communities linked to the establishment of new protected areas and conservation initiatives. In BC, the Province cannot unilaterally establish protected areas and “just save the old-growth” on Crown/unceded First Nations lands; the support of local First Nations governments is a legal necessity in their territories.  …Conservation financing is key to meet the needs of Indigenous communities for sustainable economic development alternatives to their old-growth logging dependencies. 

Martha Barwinsky

On a sunny October day in Winnipeg’s West Broadway neighbourhood, a private contractor used a piece of heavy machinery called a tree care handler to remove a large elm on the boulevard near John Unger’s home.  Unger said it was bittersweet to watch the machine — equipped with a telescoping boom and a hydraulic grapple saw — quickly cut through large branches, removing the tree faster than crews could if they only had chainsaws and a bucket truck.  …While the number of trees with Dutch elm disease that were identified to be removed this year is down significantly from the average of the previous four years, Winnipeg is still playing catch-up on trees that were marked in 2022, according to city forester Martha Barwinsky.  “We did get behind and a lot of that has to do with the labour shortage, so labour shortage through private industry and even with ourselves,” Barwinsky said.

In the October edition, you’ll find:

• BCCFA and the Ministry of Forests partner to support the efforts of community forests in long-term wildfire resiliency activities and expansion of cultural and prescribed fire with $300,000 in new funding.
• Regional Meet Up – The Southern Six Annual – West Boundary, Harrop-Procter, Kaslo, Nakusp, Slocan and Creston community forests were all represented at their annual gathering, this year in  Harrop Proctor.
• Funding Bolsters Chinook Community Forest’s Vital Wildfire Risk Reduction Work – With funding from the Forest Enhancement Society of BC, Chinook Community Forest is moving forward on the essential work of fuel mitigation.
• Forest and Fire Management in BC: Toward Landscape Resilience Webinar Recording Hosted by the BC Wildlife Federation. Tracy Andrews and Nick Reynolds from the BC Forest Practices Board (FPB) along with provincial forest and fire expert Bruce Blackwell discuss FPB’s recent fire management report.

They live among us and they could strike at any time. This is the alarm bell being sounded by arborists about so-called zombie trees. They appear undamaged immediately after severe weather conditions, such as storms and drought, but are in fact damaged internally and can fall at any time. Severe drought conditions across British Columbia could mean an increased number of hazardous zombie trees this year. Recognizing, and removing them is the only way to protect infrastructure and individuals in harm’s way, experts say. “What ends up happening is the trees are forced to use their stored energy to combat the drought, and they’re unable to produce excessive stored energy to fight back against pests, against storms,” said Scott Gardner, district manager at Davey Tree Expert Company. …He said he looks for signs of rot or mushrooms growing at a tree’s root section and abnormal growth patterns, damage or decay in the upper canopy. 

A B.C.-based lumber company is forging ahead with forestry projects with a focus on Indigenous partnership. The Gorman Group operates mills across the province, including in Canoe, Revelstoke, Lumby and West Kelowna, and has always fostered a relationship with each region’s local Indigenous bands, said communication coordinator Nicole Arkle. After the devastation of the Bush Creek East wildfire, the company is strengthening its work with Skwlāx te Secwepemcúlecw, working on rebuilding projects and prioritizing environmental needs. While further information on specific projects will be released in coming days, Arkle said the company is passionate about doing the most it can to support decolonization efforts and highlighting the “many incredible things” the band and other Indigenous groups are always working on. “The forging of this relationship is a feel-good moment for all,” said James Tomma, Skwlāx te Secwepemcúl̓ecw Kukpi7 (Chief) in a media release.

The BC government is proposing major changes to the way the province’s forests are managed. Forests Minister Bruce Ralston said B.C.’s rules and practices need to be updated in the face of climate change and the growing frequency and severity of extreme weather events. Proposed amendments to B.C.’s Forest Act, Forest and Range Practices Act and Wildfire Act will change how road-building and logging permits are issued, while giving prescribed burns a “legal standing.” …The province is pledging to work more closely with First Nations to increase the use of the technique Indigenous communities have used for centuries, tool to reduce wildfire risk. …Other proposed changes to the act include stiffening penalties for individuals and organizations that break forest regulation rules, as well as giving decision-makers discretion when giving out cutting and road-building permits.

Register now to get the early bird rate for the 76th FPBC conference and AGM, scheduled for February 7-9, 2024 at the Delta Hotels Grand Okanagan Resort in Kelowna. The 2024 conference will again be a hybrid event with both in-person attendance and virtual participation available. A volunteer group of forest professionals, chaired by Matt Scott, RPF, is currently hard at work on creating the program that will challenge and stimulate you. The 2024 FPBC conference will focus on the inter-connectivity of all aspects of the forested land base and will feature sessions on wildfire and fuel management, forest landscape planning, employee retention, collaborative planning, ecosystem integrity, partnering with First Nations, forest product diversification, and lessons learned from forestry in Finland.

Check the newsletter for the Forest Professionals British Columbia for these headlines and more:

• FPBC Registration Renewal Opens on November 1 with New Online System
• Voting in FPBC Board Election Opens in December
• FPBC Welcomes Niv Resheff as New Business Services Lead
• Get Early Bird Rates for 2024 FPBC Conference and AGM
• Join Community of Practice Wildland Fire and Fuel Meetings Series
• Register for FPBC Webinar with Dr. Suzanne Simard, RPF

The Province is making changes to enable safer, more effective stewardship of the landscape, including forests, and the revitalization of cultural and prescribed fire and new compliance and enforcement measures. …If passed, amendments to the Forest and Range Practices Act, the Forest Act, and the Wildfire Act will help address public and First Nations’ interests in how forests are managed, giving government new tools to manage Crown land timber harvesting. …Changes to the FRPA will provide new tools to the Ministry of Forests’ compliance and enforcement team to better enforce natural resource laws in the province. The changes will strengthen the protection of First Nations values and interests and allow for a greater range of contravention penalties, ensuring there are appropriate consequences for non-compliance. …Amendments to the Wildfire Act will give prescribed fire legal standing in B.C.’s forest management tool kit … and allow for advancement in prescribed burns as a wildfire-mitigation practice.

The forest industry is hanging on to an outdated premise that clear-cut logging is not the cause of environmental degradation that is damaging infrastructure and impacting water quality in B.C. communities, says a UBC hydrology professor. Dr. Younes Alila says the industry’s reliance on climate change as the scapegoat for the increase in extreme flooding, drought and landslide events is a justification of convenience that ignores established hydrology science. Alila says existing forest management and water resource management practices continue to be business as usual, influenced by the forest industry’s misleading perspective, while independent hydrology science is showing how those practices are destabilizing our forests. “So we continue to do clear-cut logging because it is the cheapest method of logging, but the next question is at what cost?” he asked.

A University of Calgary professor is leading the charge to build solutions for industrial disturbances in Alberta’s boreal forest, in particular, seismic lines. …Alberta has around 1.8 million kilometres of seismic lines. Cut through wetlands and forests as long as 50 years ago, these lines were installed with the assumption that the trees and other plants would regenerate quickly once exploration was complete. But it has since been discovered that this is, unfortunately, not the case. Many seismic lines are successionally stagnated, meaning that they are not growing back naturally. And they have also been connected to wildlife depletion and other environmental concerns. …”They also have an impact on carbon dynamics. …McDermid leads a team representing industry, academics and government called Boreal Ecosystem Recovery and Assessment (BERA). Together, they are working to restore these common industrial disturbances.

Forest service roads are widely used by backcountry enthusiasts to gain quick access to the outdoors. But for wildlife — like caribou and grizzly bears — the roads can negatively impact their survival. …Forestry and mining, together, make up around $2.4 billion in direct revenue for the provincial government, plus at least 20,000 jobs — and accessing those resources demands roads. But when the companies move on, the roads take on a new life as access points for recreation. That access comes at a cost, both in maintenance and environmental harm. At the heart of the decision to close roads like Rady Creek is the effect on species like caribou and grizzly bears — species that need huge swaths of unbroken land to thrive. The more roads, the more people, the more disturbance, the less chance those species have of surviving. But the thought of losing access to the ridge has set the whole community on edge.

An area of Chehalis, B.C., north of Harrison Mills, was once part of the habitat for the critically endangered spotted owl. Now it has been logged. “It was only approved for logging in June of this year by the B.C. provincial government, and they approved it months after the federal minister of environment had declared that forests like this are critical to the recovery of this highly endangered species spotted owl,” Joe Foy, a protected areas campaigner for the Wilderness Committee told Global News. “So it’s a real shock to see it. It’s a real slap in the face for anyone who wants to see endangered species recover and I think most Canadians want that.” The spotted owl is considered the most endangered bird in Canada. …Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship Nathan Cullen told Global News Monday that the provincial government is dedicated to the spotted owl recovery in B.C.

Burns Lake, BC – In a continuous effort to mitigate risk to communities and essential infrastructure from the threat of wildfires, the Chinook Community Forest (CCF) has embarked on a vital wildfire risk reduction project with funding from the Forest Enhancement Society of BC (FESBC). Due to the large amounts of dead trees in the community forest caused by the mountain pine beetle pandemic, the initiative will have a far-reaching and positive impact on communities. …As part of the project, the community forest will be working on three different wildfire risk reduction areas that are prescribed for treatment which will cover roughly 200 hectares next to private property in the community. CCF is also developing prescriptions for Wildfire Risk Reduction treatments on roughly 900 hectares. …As a community forest, CCF is diligently balancing various objectives, including addressing local needs, providing compensation, generating employment, enhancing the forest’s natural beauty, and mitigating the ever-present wildfire risk.

Liam Parfitt

In the fall of 2019, Freya Logging Inc. did work to reduce the wildfire threat in a forested area at the edge of the Quesnel airport in the B.C. Interior. The company removed about 40 per cent of the high risk timber… They left well-spaced younger trees and older trees… Provincial funding helped pay for the work. …While the cost may be justified around communities, it makes it impractical to carry out on the larger forested landscape. That’s a major concern in B.C. as scientists, the B.C. Forestry Practices Board and B.C.’s professional foresters have called for the B.C. government to urgently draft a wildfire resiliency plan for the province’s vast forests. According to a 2021 provincial threat analysis, high or extreme fire risk has spread to an area in B.C. greater than the size of Germany. Liam Parfitt, one of the owners of Freya Logging, believes there is a solution.

Halfway River First Nation has filed a B.C. Supreme Court petition to protect their treaty rights, following a provincial licence renewal for a forest tenure range located ten kilometres west of their reserve. The tenure is held by Crystal Springs Ranch Ltd., and covers an area within the boundaries of Treaty 8 and Halfway River’s traditional territory. The Halfway River watershed is nearly 80 percent covered by range tenures, noted the October 20 petition. The province disregarded Halfway River’s treaty rights by renewing the Crystal Springs licence “without incorporating reasonable mitigation measures identified by Halfway River”, the petition says. Due to a large number of tenures in their territory, band members have been forced to travel further away from the community to hunt, the petition says, with fencing erected around tenures keeping them out of traditional hunting grounds.

Jonathan Seinen has been honoured by the province at the 2023 Federation of British Columbia Woodlot Associations AGM that is taking place in Cranbrook. The Houston man will be returning home with a $10,000 grant as the recipient of a Minister’s Award for Innovation and Excellence in Woodlot Management. …Bruce Ralston, BC Minister of Forests said in a release, “Jon’s dedication to forest management, youth education programs and his commitment to his community will ensure sustainable forests for future generations.” Seinen is the Nadina Woodlot Association president and used to serve as the director of the Federation of BC Woodlot Associations. …“The Seinen family has been managing woodlot 126 since 1981,” said Mark Clark, president, Federation of BC Woodlot Associations. This year he contracted out his equipment to help build fire guards during the record-setting wildfire season.

Patrick Russell, Jon Seinen and Gord Chipman

Jon Seinen, W0126, of Houston, BC is the 2023 recipient of the Minister’s Award for Innovation and Excellence in Woodlot Management. Seinen was presented with a signed certificate and a $10,000 grant at the 2023 Woodlots Conference and AGM on October 28, 2023, in ʔaq̓am near Cranbrook. “The Seinen family has been managing woodlot 126 since 1981,” said Mark Clark, president, Federation of BC Woodlot Associations. “Jon’s story is an excellent example of the hands-on resilience that woodlotters use every day in managing their operations and it demonstrates that the forests are in good hands.” Seinen is president of the Nadina Woodlot Association and a former director of the Federation of British Columbia Woodlot Associations. Seinen has a strong sense of social license and education, often inviting school and youth groups to the woodlot to learn about forestry, and handing out tree seedlings at the end of each tree-planting season.

Mike Morris

More than a century of focusing on lumber value over supporting the environment is coming back to bite B.C., but there is still hope governments and the industry can apply sustainable practices. The Kettle Valley Wildlife Hall was packed with residents from the Boundary Region, dignitaries and guest speakers to talk about wildlife resources in critical danger after generations of what guest speaker BC Liberal Caucus MLA for Prince George-Mackenzie Mike Morris said is “not seeing the forest for the trees.” He was among other guest speakers talking about everything from recent wildfires, declining wildlife populations, atmospheric rivers, flooding and the solutions that could help at least mitigate extreme weather as climate change progresses. …Morris wrote an internal paper that was leaked, titled “You Can’t See the Forest for the Trees” looking at the century-long history of the forestry industry’s management of the province’s timber stands.

Conservationists and the B.C. government are at odds over the strength of provincial old-growth protection measures, with the Ancient Forest Alliance pointing out what it calls a “significant conservation loophole” this month. The group claims thousands of hectares of at-risk, old-growth forest were likely missed during B.C.’s 2021 logging deferral process, which allows incorrectly identified forest to be substracted from established deferral areas, but not added to them. “The misclassification of some forests as being younger than they are (is) causing them to fall through the cracks,” said TJ Watt, a campaigner with the Ancient Forest Alliance. “In this case, a forest on northern Vancouver Island was missed for logging deferral due to B.C. government data errors, and trees upwards of 10 feet or three metres wide are being cut down.”

Jim Hilton

Most Canadians know that you can remove ice faster from sidewalks and driveways if you add any dark substances (sand, kitty litter or wood ashes) and let the sunshine help soften the ice for easier removal. Unfortunately scientists are finding the same principles apply when it comes to the accelerated rate our snowpacks and glaciers are melting at all over the world. The increasing temperatures are also causing the increased melting but it appears in the case of ice, the addition of small dark particles may lead to faster melting than increasing temperatures. While natural and industrial pollution have been around for many years it is the recent record wildfires that are being blamed for some of the rapid increases in the melting. There are a number of studies taking place around the world. Research at the University of Northern British Columbia suggests most western Canadian glaciers will disappear within 80 years.

The B.C. government is moving to protect more old-growth forests and critical habitat with a type of crowd-sourced funding. Premier David Eby says the government will work with the independent B.C. Parks Foundation and First Nations to introduce the funding tool that backs efforts to protect valuable ecosystems. Eby says the province will contribute $150 million to a conservation funding mechanism that will be matched by a B.C. Parks Foundation commitment. The government says the $150 million provided by the province will leverage further donations in a crowd-sourcing approach, encouraging other organizations and people to contribute to ecosystem protection. Environmental groups… say the fund has the power to create new protected areas by working with First Nations, government and private donors. The B.C. Council of Forest Industries… the conservation funding tool is an innovative method for planning future approaches to land use and maintaining ecosystems.

B.C. has announced a new $300-million fund to protect threatened ecosystems in the province. …The funds will be managed by the foundation and will be overseen independently from government by a special committee made up of experts, half of whom will be from First Nations. …”Conservation financing is a core tool that can help us to preserve options for the future and to advance our ability to properly manage, maintain and conserve ecosystem health, biodiversity and our oldest and rarest trees,” said Garry Merkel, co-author of the Old Growth Strategic Review. …Conservationists said Thursday they were pleased to see funding materialize. …Ralston also announced new forest landscape planning that replaces existing stewardship plans, devised under the Old Growth Strategic Review and in partnership with local First Nations. They establish objectives for the long-term management of old growth, biodiversity, climate change and wildfire risk, the government said.

In related coverage:

• Province of BC: Made-in-BC tool takes further action on old-growth forest
• Council of Forest Industries: Financing mechanism represents a new and innovative approach
• Sierra Club: This is the beginning of a huge shift toward conserving forests
• The Narwhal: Old-growth fund poised to grow with federal, philanthropic donations

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It is becoming increasingly common knowledge that if you do not address a fire near a community early on, it can grow beyond our control and put lives and properties at risk. …If B.C. really wants to get serious about involving rural communities in fire management, it should dedicate funding to a First Nations and rural fire corps. Science cannot always pick up on all the subtleties of the land; this is where traditional and local knowledge becomes invaluable. …Before wildfires got this extreme, it arguably made economic sense — from a timber production standpoint — to transform the landscape into fully stocked conifer tree farms. …Broadleaved trees provide natural fire breaks that are much needed around communities and across the commercial forest. Since deciduous and mixed forests are of little interest to the forest industry, serious government incentives are needed for commercial forest practices to become climate-smart.

Erika Dort

Global trade, tourism and other forms of human movement are accelerating the spread of tree and plant pathogens between continents. …Climate change compounds this problem … trees have less resistance to disease—particularly infections from foreign regions to which they have no natural immunity. What if we could detect emerging diseases at ports and borders before they have a chance to spread? By using genomics and machine learning, UBC researchers have developed a method that can identify known tree pathogens, as well as assess the potential harm of a new, as-yet-unnamed fungus based solely on its genetic traits. This process can be completed in as little as a few hours, in contrast to other sample-analysis techniques that can take days. …With this predictive tool, we can help prevent potentially invasive plant pathogens from causing severe disease outbreaks,” says study author Erika Dort, a PhD candidate at UBC’s faculty of forestry.

James Steidle

This is part two of my firesmart musings. One thing we as a society have to watch out for is how bureaucracies will use a crisis like wildfire and its mitigation to spend more tax dollars on bloated government programs doing something that could be done for free. A great example is Forests for Tomorrow, a $50 million a year program ostensibly tasked with rebuilding our forests in the wake of wildfires and the mountain pine beetle infestation. But it is actively making the problem worse by brushing out the aspen and broadleaf on their “rehabilitated” plantations around town, including in the Bobtail Burn west of Prince George, a place where the aspen stood up to the blaze. …Maybe it’s not about forests or safety. Maybe it’s about spending $90 million on firesmart programs around communities, which according to the Union of BC Municipalities, could cost up to $11,225 a hectare.