Region Archives: Canada

Last March, we travelled to northern Vancouver Island and hosted four public meetings about logging in the span of five days. …In a few weeks, we’re going back to do it again. The vast majority of Vancouver Island’s original forest has been logged. One way or another, the end of old-growth logging is coming. We have to talk about what this means. We have to talk about how communities adjust so that the trend of shuttered businesses and shrinking logging towns doesn’t continue to grow. We have to talk about what the consequences of cutting down the last remaining old-growth will be – for Indigenous cultures, ecosystems and endangered species, water and the climate, and local jobs in a diverse economy including tourism. These are really hard things to talk about, but we have to talk about them anyways.

The Cariboo Regional District will kick off a series of wildfire community consultation meetings this Sunday in Forest Grove to look back and learn from this summer’s destructive wildfire season. “We’ve got 17 meetings to do and we’ll have to do some other follow-up meetings in some other communities that weren’t as directly impacted,” says CRD Board Chair Al Richmond. “We’re going to be having the various agencies for the most part that were part of the operation. So, we’re hoping to have the RCMP there, the Cariboo Fire Centre, the Emergency Social Service folks.” He says the meetings will allow residents to ask questions or express any concerns they may have.

The caribou heads on Cariboo cans have been counted. The numbers are in and more than 18,000 trees will be planted in the local region next year based on beer sales. Pacific Western Brewing has for years attached the sales of their Cariboo line of beers to reforestation. This past summer the local manufacturer focused on replanting the areas devastated by the season’s wildfires. For each purchase of a six-pack under the Cariboo title (Genuine Draft, Blonde, Honey, Light and Malt) in the month of September, PWB earmarked 25 cents for buying seedlings. Sales of the Cariboo line went up 20 per cent this year over last, largely attributed to the silviculture campaign, said a PWB representative.

The city is seeking provincial government money to help pay for an update of its plan to keep Prince George from being overrun by wildfires. The move comes in the wake of this summer’s series of massive forest fires which sent more than 10,000 evacuees into the city. Other than heavy smoke, Prince George was unaffected but the event did revive a concern the city could become a victim. “As a city in the forest, Prince George is susceptible to the impacts of wildfires,” the city’s engineering and public works general manager Dave Dyer said in a report to council. The city’s most recent plan dates back to 2005 and was drafted in advance of securing a licence to harvest beetle-killed pine out of the 3,880 hectares of undeveloped Crown land within the municipal boundary.

Gerald Cordeiro & Tyler Hodgkinson

A Douglas fir bark beetle infestation near one of Nelson’s water sources could lead to further outbreaks as well as potential wildfires if not addressed before next spring. That was the red flag Kalesnikoff Lumber waved in front of city council during a presentation Monday afternoon. Development supervisor Gerald Cordeiro told council the outbreak near Selous Creek needs to be taken care of before next April when beetles begin to fly in warmer temperatures. …Kalesnikoff still needs permission to log the area, which requires approval from the Ministry of Forests, Land and Natural Resource Operations. The ministry also needs to give Kalesnikoff’s plan an exemption from current regulations that limit more than one per cent of visible landscape be altered by cutting.

A video that details the beauty of the community of Youbou, and the negative impacts of any logging that could be done close to it, is getting lots of hits on YouTube. The approximately three-minute video, which was made by Don Kitch, owner of the Youbou Guest House, was created in response to possible plans by the TimberWest forest company to log some of its land in the hills above the community near Cowichan Lake. …There is also a petition that is circulating through Youbou asking TimberWest not to log in the hills that will be sent to the forest company and the province.

Judy Darcy & John Horgan

Premier John Horgan spoke today on the impact the BC wildfire had on the forest industry. He says the NDP government is working closely with the Ministry of forests to get an idea of the damage the wildfire had on effected regions. “The Chief Forester of course was making determinations on what the annual liable cut would be based on an expectation on a certain level of harvestable timber, that now is going to have to be re-written.” The premier says he doesn’t want to pre-judge the work of the chief of forester, but in coming up with the annual cuts for the interior region he didn’t believe the fire effected the number that was presented to him.

Private landowners should be compelled to reduce the fire risk on their land, West Kelowna city council says. Council agreed Tuesday to ask the provincial government to introduce such legislation, citing a need to better protect communities against wildfires. Currently, neither the province nor a municipality can compel a landowner to thin out trees or clear away underbrush. “We need to have the ability to mandate a cleanup (for fire mitigation purposes) on somebody’s property,” Coun. Duane Ophus said.

Council will invite Island Timberlands, TimberWest to discuss backcountry access issues. Port Alberni city council will be inviting forestry companies to council regarding restricted back road access across the Alberni Valley. The topic was brought forward by Coun. Chris Alemany  …“What it stems from is concern in the community about access to logging roads and our wilderness areas around the city,” said Alemany. “There’s tons of reports on social media of people being locked out behind gates.” Councillor Jack McLeman suggested inviting Island Timberlands and TimberWest to a meeting of council to discuss the policies of the two companies and to hear the public complaints.

In 2016, under the Indigenous Forestry Program, FPInnovations developed a business case for Yale First Nations (YFN), which concluded that producing high-quality firewood from residual logs, currently piled at logging sites and burnt, was feasible and may be pursued. The results and recommendations of this study were utilized by YFN to secure funding to pay YFN members to participate in training delivered by FPInnovations. This year, between July 31 and August 2, FPInnovations delivered the following three training modules: millwork, firewood storage shed construction, and mechanized firewood processing and storage methods.

VICTORIA — Hunters in British Columbia kill up to 300 grizzly bears every year, but it is habitat loss that is actually the greatest threat to the imposing predators, says auditor general Carol Bellringer in a report. Growing communities, roads created to expand the forest industry, and oil and gas development in remote areas pose larger dangers to the overall health and growth of the species, says the report released Tuesday. Bellringer’s audit of the B.C. government’s grizzly management plan found an absence of provincial monitoring and inventory strategies, and incomplete commitments to save grizzly populations, estimated at 15,000 provincewide.

Degradation of habitat from forestry, oil and gas development and human settlement is the greatest risk to B.C.’s grizzly bear population, Auditor-General Carole Bellringer says. While Forests Minister Doug Donaldson has concentrated on ending the grizzly bear trophy hunt and enacting new regulations to enforce it, a new audit of the ministry’s management of the bear population has uncovered more serious problems. Donaldson has announced that the B.C. government will put an end to trophy hunting of grizzlies after this fall’s hunting season. …The conflicts are a result of increasing calls about grizzlies to the B.C. Conservation Officer Service. The audit revised its procedures to evaluate conflict and not automatically assume the bear should be destroyed, for example if it has entered someone’s yard to eat fruit left on trees. “An increase in resource roads – 600,000 kms existing and more added every year – also leads to more human-bear conflict, and ultimately grizzly bear deaths,” Bellringer said.

In what will surely be one of his last official acts, Mayor Rob Mackin and new Chief Administrative Officer at Town of Hinton, Stephane Labonne traveled to Edmonton on Oct. 16 to meet with representatives from the province about the Mountain Pine Beetle. The meeting gave the town an opportunity to voice their concerns about the spread of the beetle and the effect it could have on the local economy. …Mackin credits the province for coming to the table so quickly after the release of this year’s data. “I was very pleased with the quick turnaround,” said Mackin. “They were very receptive. They heard me loud and clear that this is potentially a natural disaster and that we need the province to step up and help out financially.”

VICTORIA – The Forest Practices Board will examine the activities of 0866740 B.C. Ltd., held by Aspen Planers Ltd., on forest licence A18700 during the week of Oct. 30 to Nov. 3, 2017. Originally scheduled for early July, the audit was postponed due to the forest fire situation at that time. Auditors will examine whether harvesting, roads, silviculture, fire protection and associated planning, carried out between July 2015 and October 2017, met the requirements of the Forest and Range Practices Act and the Wildfire Act. …Once the audit work is complete, a report will be prepared. Any party that may be adversely affected by the audit findings will have a chance to respond. The board’s final report and recommendations then will be released to the public and government.

Premier Horgan has tasked Environment Minister George Heyman to develop a new species at risk legislation for British Columbia. Coast Forest Products Association believes this creates an opportunity to generate made-in-BC policies and legislation which will account for the social, environmental and economic interests of British Columbians while managing species at risk. Coastal companies have a long history of science-based, responsible habitat management for species such as the Marbled Murrelet, Northern Goshawk, Grizzly Bear, Vancouver Island Marmot and others.  We operate in a world-class regulatory land use framework that emphasizes habitat management for wildlife, fish biodiversity and species at risk.