Region Archives: Canada West

A protester charged with criminal contempt for breaking the injunction prohibiting interference with old growth logging in the Fairy Creek watershed has been acquitted in B.C. Supreme Court in a decision that could have ramifications for 180 others still facing similar charges. Justice Douglas Thompson found Ryan Henderson not guilty because the RCMP failed to adequately inform him of the injunction. Henderson was perched atop a tripod blocking the Granite Mainline Forest Service Road on Oct. 21, 2021, when an officer read out a short-form scripted version of the injunction that had been prepared by the RCMP. Henderson was then removed from the tripod and arrested. “The RCMP did not transmit sufficient information about the terms of the injunction order, and the information that was delivered via this script was not accurate and clear,” said Thompson in his oral reasons for judgment. 

The Government of Yukon is seeking feedback on proposed changes to the Forest Resources Act and Regulation. The feedback received during the consultation and engagement period will be reviewed by the Forest Resources ActWorking Group and final recommendations will be made to the Government of Yukon. The amendments proposed are primarily technical and administrative in nature. Some of the structural changes improve the functionality of this legislation for the Government of Yukon, industry, First Nations and the public. The proposed changes will also increase economic opportunity, enhance environmental stewardship and improve the efficiency of the Act and Regulation. The complete list of the draft recommended changes to the Forest Resources Act and Regulation is at Yukon.ca/forest-resources-act. 

A North Okanagan forestry company is lauding the provincial government for launching a new program that will ensure access to the provincial timber supply for manufacturers that make value-added products. The BC Timber Sales Value-Added Manufacturing program will be available to small and medium sized secondary manufacturers producing high-value products such as mass timber, plywood, veneer, panelling and flooring. Minister of Forests Bruce Ralston said in a statement the program will make for a stronger, more resilient forestry industry through value added manufacturing. North Enderby Timber agrees. “We are encouraged to see government set policy that will improve fibre flow to the value-added sector. We appreciate the work that has gone into making this improvement, and encourage government to continue securing fibre needs for facilities like ours,” said Warren Carter of North Enderby Timber.

Mike Bernier

Opposition forests critic Mike Bernier taking a wait and see attitude to the provincial government’s recently-announced doubling of funding to Forest Enhancement Society of B.C. For 2023, FESBC will have $50 million to distribute. Projects funded through FEBC subsidize retrieval of fire-damaged wood and logging waste from areas too remote or costly to access. Premier David Eby announced the allotment in January while attending the Truck Loggers Association Convention in Vancouver. “Doubling in essence is good, if we get results with it,” Bernier said Tuesday. However, Bernier said the better strategy is to give forest companies the certainty they need to make investment decisions. “To know that if they apply for permits, there will be a timeline that they can follow, that they’ll have access to timber and that they can look at reducing costs for them,” he said. “That’s what these companies want.”

Procter and Harrop, B.C.: A small West Kootenay community forest is implementing an ambitious climate action plan that uses forest thinning to reduce wildfire risks while also reducing carbon emissions. With support from the Forest Enhancement Society of BC (FESBC), uneconomic low-value fibre from mechanical fuel treatment projects is being shipped to a local pulp mill to avoid burning and to reduce the carbon footprint of operations. With an annual harvest of only 10,000 cubic metres (equal to approximately 200 truckloads), the Harrop-Procter Community Co-operative (HPCC) is one of the smallest community forests in the province. Despite its small size, HPCC has been a leader in demonstrating how forest management practices can be used to adapt to a changing climate while simultaneously working to reduce carbon emissions. …Several FESBC-funded projects in the communities of Harrop and Procter have generated significant carbon benefits. 

Forestry Friendly Communities recently published a series profiling four young Teal Jones Forest Professionals – Taylor Sprangers, Thomas Bennett, Calvin Lee, and Gerrit Bittner. The four are members of a larger team working in the company’s Fraser Valley woods operations, which produces a substantial volume of the logs we mill into value-added products at our main Surrey mill site and smaller speciality mills across BC. Our Registered Professional Foresters work with skilled professionals in numerous other fields to make sure cut-blocks, roads, bridges, and transportation is all done safely and in an environmentally-sustainable manner – that appropriate areas are left untouched to protect wildlife habitat, biodiversity, and streams; that everything meets and exceeds provincial regulations and our voluntary third-party forest management certifications; and that commitments to local First Nations are met. With young forestry professionals like these, Teal Jones’ future is in good hands.

Vernon resident Keith Schmaltz spent most of his career working in the heavy-duty equipment industry. But after a nearly 40-year career, he decided he wanted to learn some new skills and continue that career in a related field. Enter Okanagan College’s Continuing Studies department, offering programs and courses to suit all different learning needs. Keith enrolled in the Professional Industry Driver program, offered by Okanagan College in collaboration with Taylor Pro Training and BC Forest Safety Council. The program is funded by the Government of Canada and the Province of British Columbia’s Project Based Labour Market Training initiative. It has allowed numerous  participants including Keith to find continuous and stable employment opportunities.

The City of Fernie will be conducting wildfire fuel management in the Ridgemont area to reduce the risk of wildfire to the community. The fuel management project is being funded by a $150,000 grant from Columbia Basin Trust, and a $35,000 contribution from the City of Fernie, and will cover areas identified as a top priority in the City’s 2018 Community Wildfire Protection Plan. The work will be completed over an 8-week period beginning later this month and will involve removing ground fuels, pruning, thinning of the smallest diameter trees, thinning the understory, and removing sick or dead trees to better protect nearby residences by making the area more resilient to wildfire.

Quesnel’s Forestry Initiatives Program has reduced wildfire risk in 230 hectares of forested areas surrounding the community with funding available through the Forestry Enhancement Society of B.C. FESBC has so far provided $1.7 million for the Quesnel program since 2018. Wildfire risk reduction was the top priority but Kozuki said the plan also earned high marks for incorporating recreational trails and connecting them to logging roads in the area to improve access. …It also earned credit for collecting biomass fibre that was used to make wood pellets. Kozuki said the project was also well-supported in the community. Quesnel had an innovative approach to forestry enhancement but Kozuki says that doesn’t mean that FESBC project will work in every community. He said each project is proponent-driven and what the program provides will depend on what each community identifies as its priorities.

The nation’s Species at Risk Act is no law at all, says a local environmental group. The Valhalla Wilderness Society contends that the Species at Risk Act (SARA) does not provide protection under the law for the endangered mountain caribou and its habitat, 30 years after Canada signed an accord — at the UN Convention on Biodiversity in Rio De Janeiro — to protect biodiversity, which spawned the enactment of SARA. In early December Canada hosted the 15th U.N. Convention on Biodiversity in Montreal, but the event served to mark the current state of fate of the mountain caribou in the province, said Valhalla Wilderness Society’s (VWS) Craig Pettitt in a press release. “B.C. is ravaging biodiversity, not only by cutting down some of our most biodiverse and oldest forests, but also by slaughtering predators to prop up caribou numbers while the habitat destruction continues,” he said.

In the wake of the announcements of more mill closures in the B.C. forest industry, critics are renewing their calls for an end to the exporting of raw logs. Paul Johnson reports.

On the heels of a recent letter by Kit Burke, RPF, that challenged an editorial by Anthony Britneff, today’s Times Colonist has two follow up letters. Rafe Sunshine says, “Our B.C. forest replanting isn’t using the community workers to do the replanting and the tending of the new forests and preserving the biodiversity of the surrounding ecosystem. Only through communities taking on the responsibility for a sustainable yield in their forestlands will B.C. forests thrive.” Vicky Husband, in her letter Radical changes needed in forestry, says, “As a recipient of the Order of Canada for my environmental work, I have long been critical of the perspectives on forestry provided by the Forests Ministry, foresters and the forest industry. Retired forester Anthony Britneff’s perspective resonates with me. He exposes the truth. …We must act now with scrapping the old forest industry and bad management before it is too late.”

We are alarmed to hear that as soon as July 1, 2023, BC Timber Sales plans to tender a logging contract for the upper Conrad, Pixton/Porter Roads area. It is the location of the headwaters of several creeks running through Roberts Creek.  One of the creeks which will be impacted is Leek Creek. Leek Creek runs to the sea alongside Conrad Road crossing under Lower Road at Camp Byng’s Rorison Trail. This creek has a long history of becoming a raging torrent in spring during snow melt as well as in the fall with traditional heavy rains.  …Any logging in the areas above will undoubtedly upset the year-round streams that have only begun their recovery after the industrial logging of the 1970s and 1980s. The regional district has in the past objected to BC Timber Sales logging in Roberts Creek but unfortunately logging has still occurred where it should not have. 

The story of the boreal forest and the Indigenous Peoples who call it home is the subject of The Issue with Tissue: A Boreal Love Story showing at Vancouver Island University’s Nanaimo campus next week. Protecting the boreal forest is an existential imperative, yet it is now being clear-cut, noted a press release. The acclaimed documentary, shown at COP15 in Montreal, features renowned First Nations elders and leaders, scientists and conservationists, including Senator Michèle Audette, Innu First Nation; Dr. Suzanne Simard; elder Dave Courchene; Valérie Courtois; and Nigel Roulet. The film will be screened Friday, Feb. 10. The showing is sponsored by the Mid-Island-Nanaimo chapter of the Council of Canadians.

We are a team of international scientists and educators partnering with Quesnel’s Forestry Initiatives Program (FIP). Quesnel is, in many ways, central to the changes occurring in BC. We arrived to UBC in 2018, to increase the Faculty of Forestry’s international research portfolio. Prior to moving to BC, we worked across the tropics, out of northern Australia. Our science involves maintaining long-term partnerships with people aspiring to address challenges in their landscapes. These are learning landscapes – where people exchange ideas, where they learn from each other. For three years, Quesnel’s FIP has welcomed us. They’ve hosted field schools for our Master of International Forestry students, researchers, and contributed to shaping our research questions both in BC and elsewhere (Indonesia, Cameroon etc.). …The FIP is meant to “address the multiple challenges facing our community.”

PRINCE GEORGE, BC — We are running out of trees. Sixty years of overharvesting, bugs and fires have left us with only a fraction of what we had. There are now only two options. We can do what the East Coast fishery did when cod stocks were getting scarce – keep harvesting until the cod were nearly all gone and then shut the fishery down. …Or we can slow things down a bunch. That will mean more job losses soon. …Prince George-Mackenzie MLA Mike Morris probably has the best political grip on where we are today. He has been telling anyone who would listen for a few years how serious the problem is. …In hindsight, perhaps the cool to vindictive NIMBY reception given to West Coast Olefin’s proposed plant may now appear to have been a tad hasty.

Prince Albert, SK – On World Wetlands Day, Paper Excellence Canada today announced it has donated $150,000 to Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC). The largest single donation in Paper Excellence Canada’s history will support wetlands conservation and stewardship in boreal forest regions of Saskatchewan and British Columbia. The donation will also support wetlands training for residents and employees in industries that operate or work in the boreal forest regions of the two provinces. “On behalf of Paper Excellence Canada, I am thrilled to present this donation to Ducks Unlimited Canada and begin this exciting investment in supporting wetlands stewardship and education,” said Carlo Dal Monte, Vice President for Paper Excellence Canada. “Paper Excellence Canada is committed to conservation and sustainability in the regions where we operate, and working with Ducks Unlimited Canada on this initiative is another example of our company’s ongoing work.”

Harold Macy

Local author Harold Macy has released a new book titled All the Bears Sing – a collection of short stories, which Macy describes as fictional stories based on something real. This is Macy’s third book, following The Four Storey Forest in 2011 and San Josef in 2020. Macy has lived in the Valley, in the same house, for 40 years. He moved here when he was 26 years old and said a ’63 Chevrolet pickup is what brought him to Vancouver Island. “I just saw this as a land of opportunity and forestry,” he said. He spent many years studying and working in forestry, a lot of it here on the Island. Macy has worked for the BC Forest Service Research Branch and at UBC Oyster River as the forester. At UBC he also taught online and weekend courses in small-scale forestry and agroforestry. …This experience has influenced his writing, especially in this new book.