Category Archives: Forestry

Richmond, B.C. – Paper Excellence Canada announced a $100,000 gift to the Pacific Salmon Foundation (PSF) to boost efforts to conserve and restore Pacific salmon populations across B.C. The gift will be distributed through grants in communities where Paper Excellence operates to help advance community-driven stewardship initiatives at a local level. Approximately half of Pacific salmon populations are in some state of decline. Salmon encounter various challenges during their complex life cycle, including the effects of climate change, habitat loss, development, and more. Paper Excellence’s donation will support PSF’s Community Salmon Program, which awards hundreds of grants to grassroots salmon conservation projects across B.C. and the Yukon each year.

Dana Collins

Dana Collins had been involved in the Canadian forestry sector for 15 years — and had been the first woman and youngest person to lead a top-level industry group — when she noticed an opening at Mosaic Forest Management Corp. in Nanaimo. “I had a strong interest in increasing the representation of women and Indigenous cultures in the forestry sector,” she says. “I was often the only woman at the table, so I recognized the challenges facing minorities.” With this focus, Collins was a natural fit for her role at Mosaic. As manager of partnerships, she’s deeply involved in the organization’s culture of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). On behalf of the company, she actively seeks out Indigenous partners to collaborate with the company in managing sustainable timberlands. …“I knew that Mosaic was progressive,” says Collins, “but I was surprised when I joined to see just how deep its commitment is to DEI.”

Regarding the story, Forest practices pulp fiction for protestors. As much as my concern goes out to those protestors in Prince George, it’s bad to lose your job! But if they are blaming any of this on David Eby they are howling at the wrong moon. …various NDP governments have tried to save pulp mills, go back to Ocean Falls. But when the Socreds were re-elected they shut it down. …The Harcourt government supported the Skeena/Watson Island pulp mill until Gordon Campbell hoodwinked the people of B.C. into giving him a virtual dictatorship for the first four years anyway. The first to go was Port Edward pulp mill. …The list of shut down mills has snowballed in recent times, Port Alice, being dismantled at this present time, Powell River one the largest mill in B.C. now shut down forever, Port Mellon the list goes on. …Pulp Fiction anyone?

Pat Toone & Tom Daniels

SUNDRE, Alberta – Serving on a forest advisory committee over the past several decades … has been an eye-opening experience that for a former Sundre mayor alleviated concerns about industry practices like clear cutting. “Some people figure it’s terrible to cut down a tree,” Pat Toone, a former councillor and mayor, said. “And I probably was about like that when I first got on the committee,” Toone said, referring to the Sundre Forest Products Public Involvement Round Table (SPIRT) group that started in 1992 to provide the company with advice on forest management. But the years proved to be not just a chance to serve the community by representing its interests, but also offered eye-opening insight into the forestry industry’s sustainability practices. …She spoke with the Albertan alongside Tom Daniels, a woodlands manager who for many years has been with Sundre Forest Products – West Fraser and has been involved with SPIRT since 1997.

To the members of Save Our Forests: I and other workers logged these same areas many years ago and now they are backlogging the same areas again. To me, that is being sustainable. These same lands that now belong to Mosiac belonged to Crown Zellerback, later to be TimberWest – they have vast holdings in this area and are able to grow more cubic meters of wood per year than what they log. To me, that is being sustainable.  I know they do not employ the same amount of people as they did in the past, but most of the reductions are to do with technology and the ability to log more with fewer people. These companies have been able to employ a lot of people from the Comox Valley and Campbell River throughout the last 100 years or so.

Environmentalists are praising the creation of a new conservancy area near Revelstoke, but the provincial government needs to create 168 like it to meet its own protection goals of 30 per cent of its land base by 2030. The new Incomappleux Conservancy… can still be used for traditional Indigenous practices and some low-impact economic activities, but logging, mining and hydroelectric power generation are prohibited. …Charlotte Dawe, campaigner with the Wilderness Committee said the province is likely to meet its goals, if the government defers more logging, freezes mining and drilling permits in sensitive areas and places immediate moratoriums on activities in Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas. “One issue I foresee … is that government will only be interested in protecting areas where logging company buyout is possible,” said Dawe. “This could limit conservation opportunities and increase the cost.” Such a buyout happened when Interfor received an undisclosed sum for releasing 75,000 hectares from its forest tenure, Dawe said.

MERRITT, B.C. — Standing outside the Ministry of Forest building in Merritt, employees at Aspen Planers, logging truck drivers and others impacted by recent shutdowns are trying to get the province’s attention as the company waits for the B.C. government to sign off on cutting permits. …While the mill is currently operating, it’s been a difficult couple months for many of the protesters, who have come off a long period of not working. …“The only mill in town now and we still cannot get the permits approved,” he said. “We have 300,000 of cubic metres in permits waiting to be approved. …They have waited for six months to a year to approve those things.” …The mayor of Merritt Mike Goetz has heard no response from the province after several calls to the Forest Minister Bruce Ralston have gone unanswered.

PRINCE GEORGE, BC – The Anti-Glyphosate Stop the Spray folks gathered outside the Conference where the BC Professional Foresters conference was wrapping up. “So we’re here trying to meet up with the Forests Minister for a discussion about the stocking standards and growing more diverse forests in our in our region,” explains James Steidle. “Because if you drive out of town in any direction, you’ll probably be stuck in the middle of a pine plantation. And it wasn’t all pine trees before. A lot of this wildlife need deciduous species.” Glyphosate is a chemical forest companies tend to spray on the coniferous plantations as a way of killing deciduous trees. …Unfortunately, the Minister offered up a video presentation instead.

Preparing communities for potential wildfire is what the Forest Enhancement Society of BC (FESBC) does, and the City of Quesnel is one of their leading partners. The work to mitigate the potential of fires in the forest interfacing with urban areas inevitably and necessarily means strategic harvesting in the bush around any municipality, which means careful and meaningful thought put to the uses of that wood and the ways it can be logged, maximizing value and safety. The current challenge slowing the process is a lack of people to do the next wave of protective forestry work. But if there’s a municipality that has shown an ability to address the wildfire interface concern, with boots on the ground following an intelligent plan, it is Quesnel, said FESBC. …Training is the foundation of it all, said Quesnel’s former mayor Bob Simpson, a member of the Forestry Worker Supports and Community Resilience Council. 

PRINCE GEORGE, BC — A local environmentalist is hoping to discuss the falling diversity of trees with Minister of Forests Bruce Ralston and chief forester Shane Berg while they are in Prince George. James Steidle, founder of Stop the Spray B.C., is sounding the alarm about anti-deciduous forestry policies that have led to a rise in monocultures. Steidle says the last time the government tried to assess the diversity of replanted forests was in 2008, when it found a nine per cent rise in monocultures since 1987, according to a Forest and Range Enhancement Project Report. But that data hasn’t been updated and concerns in the community about biodiversity are rising. …Ralston will be addressing the Association of B.C. Forestry Professionals at on Friday.

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.