A piece of airport land plagued by both invasive plants and human trash is looking to spruce up with the help of a herd of goats hired on to eat for two weeks. “As long as many folks here can recall, the woods have been infested with English ivy,” explained Allison Waldick, environment officer for the Victoria Airport Authority. …The goal is to protect the trees and other native species in the 30 acres of wooded area adjacent to the Victoria International Airport in North Saanich. Inspired by a Ladysmith Chronicle story detailing how a homeowner hired a herd of goats to clear a boulevard overrun with ivy and more, Waldick set out in search of goats for hire. …“You can’t program a goat and tell them exactly what they should be eating,” she said. “They eat everything in order of tastiness and tenderness, and ivy is like Brussels sprouts.”
Conservative Party of BC Leader John Rustad has a long association with the forest industry in British Columbia. His family ran a sawmill in Prince George and Rustad headed his own forest consulting firm. …But the industry is in trouble because it can’t get enough trees to cut down. Rustad blames government. Access to trees to log has become “a slow, complex and costly ordeal,” Rustad states on the BC Conservative website. Rustad has hammered on the image of an industry crippled by bureaucratic red tape for some time. …It is a criticism that has caught the NDP’s attention….The Conservatives assert and the NDP acknowledge that there is a problem here. BC Timber Sales is a vital source of logs for some companies that don’t hold secure government licences granting them exclusive rights of access to publicly owned timber.
The state of B.C.’s forest sector and the global forest products industry and market overall will be the topic of the first Global Wood Summit in Vancouver. B.C. forestry consultant Russ Taylor and ERA Forest Products Research have teamed up to organize the two-day summit which takes place Oct. 29 and 30. Industry experts on markets in the U.S., Sweden, Russia, China and Japan will discuss global forest products and pulp and paper markets and trade, and emerging sectors such as engineered wood manufacturing. …The summit will include a panel on the Chinese and North American lumber markets, and sessions on pulp and paper. Panel experts will include John Brink, the B.C. wood manufacturing veteran who recently announced plans to acquire shuttered Canfor mills. …“Companies are bleeding ink right now,” Taylor said. “The third quarter results have come out – they’re going to be horrible. But prices are now picking up, so we’re trying to figure out what’s next.”
The forest products sector has long served as B.C.’s leading source of exports and a key driver of jobs and other business activity across the province. …A host of policy changes adopted by the province have slashed fibre supply, sterilized an ever-growing portion of the Crown land base, increased operating costs for logging contractors and lumber companies, and created endless delays and uncertainty across all segments of the industry. …Current policy directions point to further pain in the next few years. What can be done to improve the outlook for B.C.’s foundational forest industry? The near-term priority should be to stabilize and then gradually increase the accessible fibre supply. …A second priority is to advance agreements with First Nations to increase their role in the forest sector. Another policy commitment should be to accelerate innovative management and regulatory models to expedite land use planning, speed up regulatory decision-making, improve wildfire mitigation and pursue biodiversity goals.
VANCOUVER — It is not an exaggeration to declare that forestry’s fortunes in recent years have been nothing short of disastrous, with more than 9,000 jobs lost since 2018. …However, there is hope for the forestry industry in B.C., and that is Canada’s bi-partisan consensus that the country needs more housing. …The CMHC found that housing starts had declined by 7% in 2023 compared to 2022, with a particularly acute 25% reduction in detached, single-family home starts. For BC, where forestry is still a prominent industry despite its ongoing difficulties, the impact of the housing and construction downturn has harmed the province hard. …However, Canada’s political leaders have realized the need for a dramatic boost in the country’s housing supply to alleviate the chronic affordability challenges faced by ordinary Canadians. …If the softwood lumber dispute means an unfriendly American market, an explosion of new housing starts in Canada is an attractive alternative.
Four watershed governance projects on Vancouver Island are sharing in nearly five-million dollars being distributed throughout the province from the Watershed Security Fund. The money will contribute to improving and rehabilitating communities’ resilience to climate change, regional food security, as helping safeguard fish, and local habitats. The Cowichan Watershed Board is receiving $400,000 to enhance its ability to support local leaders in decision-making for the health of the Cowichan and Koksilah Watersheds. The funding will help support the work of the watershed board, expert staff, technical working groups, and the community to solve problems using Quw’utsun and western knowledge and science.
Trees are a defining feature of the North Shore. They help to cool the surface temperature, and absorb water as it runs down slopes and off asphalt surfaces… But having too many trees in residential neighbourhoods can create wildfire risks, so the district should be careful when it adds more protections… While it’s hard to find anyone in the district who isn’t inspired by trees, Mayor Little expressed his “unpopular opinion” that too many green giants ought not to grow close to homes… “While I applaud the goal to retain trees throughout our community for all of the natural benefits that are self evident in there, I do think that the right place for most of them is on our public lands,” he added.
The operator of a pulp mill in northwestern Alberta has been fined $1 million for letting almost 31 million litres of toxic wastewater flow into the Peace River. Environment and Climate Change Canada says the effluent released in April 2021 was “acutely lethal” to fish. Mercer Peace River Pulp Ltd. pleaded guilty last month to a section of the Fisheries Act. The conviction means the company’s name will be added to the Environmental Offenders Registry. The federal government says the pulp mill was shut down for maintenance and waste was directed to a spill pond, where it was to be stored until it could be gradually treated and released into the river. But the investigation found there wasn’t enough room in the pond for that additional effluent.
The Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation is moving ahead with the second stage of removing looper moth-damaged trees in Stanley Park. During Tuesday night’s Park Board meeting, commissioners approved a plan to fell the trees killed by the hemlock looper. The hemlock looper insect experiences population outbreaks roughly every 15 years, however, the most recent outbreak resulted in significant tree mortality in the park causing an elevated risk to public safety,” the Park Board stated. Phase two is set to begin by the middle of this month, finishing by early 2025. Replanting is set to follow in the spring of next year. …“Our response efforts in Stanley Park have been vital to ensuring the continuing safety and well-being of park users, park infrastructure and wildlife species in the park,” said Bastyovanszky. “Further, it’s an opportunity to build a stronger Stanley Park that can better withstand future insect outbreaks and climate change impacts.”
