Region Archives: Canada West

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.

Three years after the Old Growth Strategic Review, the province has made three big recent announcements. …The three announcements — the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework, the Tripartite Framework Agreement on Nature Conservation and the conservation financing mechanism — each cited another shift B.C. has committed to: First Nations would co-develop the laws and policies to come. This was the first recommendation of the Old Growth Strategic Review, aimed at unrooting the long erasure of Indigenous nations’ jurisdiction and rights over their land. This “paradigm shift” will be put to the test as the announcements give way to their promised councils, negotiations and eventual decisions. Robert Phillips, the political executive for the First Nations Summit, is encouraged by the intentions so far, but wary of the time-worn grooves of inaction. …For decades, B.C.’s forest industry has been ruled by the steady beat of the allowable cut determination. 

Adam Olsen

BC Green Party MLA Adam Olsen is calling on B.C.’s minister of public safety to form a special policing unit dedicated to investigating the suspicious deaths and disappearances of First Nations people in the province. Olsen, who is from the Tsartlip First Nation and represents Saanich North and the Islands, said he’d like to see B.C. investing as much in protecting First Nations people as it does in policing opposition to resource development — opposition that is frequently Indigenous-led and generally occurs in remote areas. …In 2017, the RCMP formed the Community-Industry Response Group, or C-IRG, to enforce protest-related injunctions granted to industry. Over the past six years, the force has spent more than $60 million on the unit. Most of that went to break up demonstrations against pipelines and old-growth logging. …C-IRG also spent over $19 million breaking up protests against old-growth logging on Vancouver Island. 

Frank Varga

Frank Varga, the General Manager of Burns Lake Community Forest, attended a delegation of B.C. Forest Practitioners led by the UBC Faculty of Forestry team in Finland. Varga was the only representative from Burns Lake among the 31 delegates. The other representatives were from the Office of the Chief Forester, four educational and research institutions, the Federation of B.C. Woodlot Association, Six Forestry Consultants, B.C. Timber Sales, the Pulp and Paper Coalition, the Council of Forest Industry, private landowners, and community forests in B.C. The trip lasted for 10 days and the purpose was to understand Finnish history and the development of their forest industry that adds value to their climate change mitigation and adaptation to biodiversity actions.

ALBERTA — Pulp mill waste destined for the landfill could instead be useful as an organic fertilizer that can help reduce the environmental impact of using conventional fertilizers while improving soil and tree growth, University of Alberta research shows. A two-year study conducted on a hybrid poplar tree plantation in northern Alberta showed that compared with using conventional fertilizers alone, adding biosolids — wood and other fibres left over from pulp and paper production — reduced harmful greenhouse gas emissions from the soil. Combining biosolids and conventional fertilizer also improved soil fertility, the study showed. The findings provide new insight into what effect biosolids could have if they were redirected for use on tree plantations that feed the forest industry, says Scott Chang, the study’s lead author and a professor in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences.

Murray Wilson is a retired registered forester with views on BC’s forestry management practices.

Twenty-three cutblocks in the Sunshine Coast Community Forest (SCCF) tenure area are slated or proposed for harvest from 2023 to 2028 according to SCCF’s 2023-2028 Forest Operations Plan released last week. Eleven blocks are new to the list. This is the first time in two years the SCCF has had new proposed blocks on its plan, said executive director Sara Zieleman at the plan’s launch on Nov. 20. The official comment period for the plan is open to Dec. 20 on the new provincial Forest Operations Mapping (FOM) portal – SCCF offered to be early adopters of the portal and test the system. …Manager Warren Hansen and Zielman fielded crowd questions about climate change and old-growth recommendations on maintaining preserving forests, highlighting that 41 per cent of their tenure area is outside of operational consideration. Several crowd members including Elphinstone Logging Focus spokesperson Ross Muirhead, disagreed with their assertion that SCCF is following old growth recruitment recommendations. 

Eddie Petryshen, of Wildsight, is on a detective mission in the Nagle Creek Valley, 150 kilometres north of Revelstoke, B.C., to ground-truth provincial government logging maps he obtained in May. The maps outline the government’s plans for new clearcuts in the disappearing inland temperate rainforest, in core habitat for an endangered caribou herd. According to BC Timber Sales … the cedar and hemlock trees slated for logging are between 224 and 336-years-old. Petrywhen, who’s been scrolling through forest inventory data and cross-matching maps, isn’t so sure. …Following Petryshen’s trip to the Nagle Creek Valley, the government paused plans for auctioning off the five Nagle Creek cutblocks, according to the B.C. Ministry of Forests. In an emailed response to questions, after turning down The Narwhal’s request to interview B.C. Forests Minister Bruce Ralston or another spokesperson, the ministry said one cutblock was deferred “for old-growth protection” following consultations with local First Nations. 

Bruce Ralston

Statement from Bruce Ralston, Minister of Forests: This year was the worst wildfire season on record here in B.C. There is no question that climate change is real, and we are feeling its impacts firsthand. Our approach to managing B.C.’s forests must also change. That’s why we are putting people and communities first by using the best science and data available and collaborating with First Nations, local communities and industry to develop new, long-term approaches to forest management. Funding for wildfire prevention programs has doubled, the locations of five new Forest Landscape Plans (FLPs) tables were announced last month, and we recently introduced legislative amendments that expand the use of cultural and prescribed burning. …By taking deliberate and thoughtful action, and through partnering with organizations like FESBC, we continue to ensure the safety, vitality and resilience of forests and communities across B.C.

Forestry workers, First Nations and mills are getting to work on Forest Enhancement Society of BC (FESBC)-supported projects that reduce wildfire risk, lower greenhouse gas emissions and provide recovered fibre to mills and bioenergy facilities. “Through a $50-million grant this year from the Province, FESBC and their project partners are making significant progress to enhance forest resiliency to wildfire and climate change,” said Bruce Ralston, Minister of Forests. FESBC-supported projects are often aimed at helping communities remove excess fibre from forests to reduce fuel for potential wildfires and provide raw materials for bio-products and bioenergy, helping B.C. reduce greenhouse gas emissions. …Fully funded by the Province, B.C. announced $50 million in January 2023 to help FESBC evaluate and fund projects. Of the 61 projects receiving grants from FESBC in 2023, nine are wildfire risk-reduction projects and 52 are fibre-recovery projects. Some serve both needs.

The Cowichan Valley’s Doman family has donated $50,000 to the BC Forest Discovery Centre to go towards a new building to commemorate the family’s long history in forestry on Vancouver Island. It will highlight the many achievements of the three Doman brothers — Gordon, Herb and Ted — who founded the Doman Lumber Company in 1955, and the family over the decades since then. Chris Gale, general manager of the BC Forest Discovery Centre, said the new building dedicated to the Domans will allow the centre to tell the story of the family the way it should be told. “The Domans’ contribution to the forest industry on Vancouver Island is gigantic,” he said. “A large lumber truck donated by the family will be located in the open end of the building and the rest will be dedicated to telling the story of the family. The family has supported us in all aspects of the centre’s operations.”

Fraser Butt

High Praire, Alberta — The rampant fires that have burned across Canada in the last few years have left people wondering what can be done to prevent such devastation from happening again. Mercer Peace River Pulp Ltd. woodlands manager Frazer Butt says that historical data shows forests in Alberta would burn every 35 to 100 years without suppression and prevention efforts. “The forest industry understands that fires are an important part of the landscape and a natural part of the forest lifecycle, but large out of control wildfires endanger human lives, communities, and infrastructure,” he says. “As part of the Forest Management Planning process in Alberta, companies operating on public land must develop long-term Forest Management Plans that forecast 200 years into the future,” he adds. …“The forest industry harvests less than a one per cent of Alberta’s forests each year and regenerates harvest areas to ensure we continue to have strong, biodiverse, healthy forests,” he says.