Category Archives: Forestry

VICTORIA – The Forest Practices Board will audit the forest planning and practices of the Valemount Community Forest Company Ltd., specifically community forest agreements KQ5, K2T, and forest licence A93987, in the Prince George Natural Resource District, starting Monday, July 24, 2023. Auditors will examine whether timber harvesting, roads, bridges, silviculture, wildfire protection and associated planning carried out between July 1, 2021, and July 28, 2023, met the requirements of the Forest and Range Practices Act, and the Wildfire Act. The Valemount Community Forest is in the Robson Valley Timber Supply Area in east-central B.C., and the territories of the Simpcw First Nation and Canim Lake Band. The audit area is both topographically and ecologically diverse, as reflected in the broad mix of tree species, the diversity of wildlife habitats and the wide variety of land uses in the area, including forestry, recreation, agriculture and protected areas.

Aaron Wilde & Alexa Fowler

ALBERTA — Two local youths have been immersed in the world of forestry this summer, and their experiences will be showcased through the Forest Products Association of Canada. In July, FPAC announced this year’s Green Dream Internship Program recipients, including Whitecourt’s Alexa Fowler and Aaron Wilde. Fowler said… “Before I got this job, I didn’t really understand what the forestry industry is like and didn’t understand what opportunities there are.” She attends the University of Lethbridge [and] is working at Millar Western. …Whitecourt’s other Green Dream recipient is Aaron Wilde, who is working with the Alberta Newsprint Company this summer. “After all that the environment has done for me, I am happy to work in the forestry industry and give back,” Wilde said. He is a second-year mechanical engineering student at the University of Alberta, according to FPAC.

The University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Forestry is launching nine new micro-certificates aimed at delivering in-demand skills and knowledge in a flexible manner to working professionals in forestry and construction. The micro-credential system is designed to work with the schedules of older professionals with an eye to meeting the needs of industry, said Sheri Andrews-Key, program lead and lecturer with UBC. …The nine new certificates are: Tall Wood Structures, Fire Safety for Timber Buildings, Zero Carbon Building Solutions, Hybrid Timber Construction, Forest Health Management, Communication Strategies for Resource Practitioners, Strategic Management for Sustainability, Environmental Footprints of Organizations and Circular Bioeconomy Business Development. The micro-certificate program was initially launched in 2021 with one certificate. In less than three years, the program will have grown to 13.

The logging of private forest lands, including for vineyards, is generating plenty of concern in the Cowichan Valley. It should also be a wake-up call to North Cowichan council to do what it can to protect B.C.’s most at-risk forest type — the coastal Douglas fir — found in the Municipal Forest Reserve. The latest controversy centres on California vintners logging 24 hectares of land off Menzies Road to grow grapes. Most of the logged land consisted of coastal Douglas fir. …At this Wednesday’s council meeting, Councillor Christopher Justice will propose a motion that North Cowichan consider the “financial and resource” impact of joining the Coastal Douglas-Fir Conservation Partnership. …It is no small irony that while the Agriculture Ministry supports removal of this forest, two other provincial departments — the Forests Ministry and Environment Ministry — are members of the protection-seeking partnership.

A Western red cedar tree that is believed to have been centuries old fell in Vancouver’s Stanley Park over the weekend, at what experts describe as a particularly stressful time for trees in the area. It was anywhere between 800 and 900 years old, according to local tree tour guide Colin Spratt. …Spratt said any number of stressors — drought, pollution, fungi or insects — could have led to the tree’s demise, but the heart rot brought it down. Spratt said the tree’s collapse could be a symptom of a larger problem in Vancouver’s largest park. …Spratt, said the Vancouver Park Board should consider watering the large trees — something he said would be unthinkable in years without large-scale drought. Joe McLeod, the park board’s manager of urban forestry, said the fallen tree will now act as a “nurse log” as it decays.

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The Northwest Territories government is confirming an anthrax outbreak among the Slave River Lowlands bison population. The Department of Environment and Climate Change reported the suspected outbreak last week after 15 bison carcasses were found. This week, it says the outbreak has been confirmed by laboratory testing and a total of 28 carcasses have been found. …Parks Canada says two cases were confirmed along Highway 5 in Wood Buffalo National Park. …Parks Canada says it is extremely rare for humans to contract anthrax but they can from direct contact with dead bison. Parks Canada is putting a traffic control area in place to prohibited and public access. An incident management team is working to detect and dispose of the infected bison and treating soil to prevent the spread of anthrax spores. Anthrax outbreaks are a semi-regular feature among the North’s bison herds. Last year, 50 bison died in the same park.

Leslie Dart

In a video viewed millions of times on social media, Leslie Dart walks across a desolate and burnt landscape in Saskatchewan. She plunges a small spade into the ground, levers open a hole, drops in a seedling, then stomps the hole shut, barely breaking stride as she does it again, and again. By the end of that day, Dart had planted 4,545 trees. In the past three summers, she has planted 372,290 trees across Canada. Dart, who now works in the aerospace manufacturing industry after graduating from Durham College, is among the thousands of tree planters, many of them college students, who work mostly for logging companies across Canada to plant trees each summer. …The B.C. Ministry of Forests says replanting is a legal requirement for forestry licensees, who must “regenerate” a specified number of trees in their stewardship plans. More than 200 million seedlings are planted in B.C. each year.

Stephan Martineau

In the Slocan Valley in B.C.’s southern Interior, a community group has used logging rights and responsibilities granted by the province to help reduce wildfire risk. That model — where a community has stewardship of the forests in its surrounding area — could help other communities successfully confront the increasing threat of climate-driven wildfire in B.C., says Stephan Martineau, the manager of the Slocan Integral Forestry Cooperative, known as SIFCo. He’s an advocate of putting wildland-urban interface areas surrounding communities — including First Nations – under its own stewardship system, so communities can directly tackle the wildfire risk. …The area-based rights, called a community forest, allow the residents to have a say on logging and preserving natural values. …Brian Watson, the operations manager for the Forest Enhancement Society of B.C., said the Slocan co-operative’s efforts demonstrate a cost-effective strategy for community protection but also serve as an impressive demonstration of landscape-scale climate change adaptation and wildfire preparedness.

As we have often seen, one of the strengths of our reforestation contracting sector is its ability to adapt to unexpected conditions ranging from road washouts to a COVID pandemic. But 2023 may be showing the limits of that resilience. Disruptions to this year’s seasonal planting campaign have been various, numerous, and severe. For many planting contractors, and nurseries lately, it’s been difficult to maintain operational tempo and continuity coping with heat, drought, smoke, wildfire, and floods. The unsettled conditions may be affecting the workers’ resolve as well. …Through all this, nevertheless, the vast majority of this year’s estimated ~390-million seedlings (290 in BC the rest in Alberta) already have or will be planted. Approximately 60 million seedlings planned for this summer in BC are underway-albeit subject to smoke and fire. …Just how the industry can adapt to this operationally and contractually will be a major topic for the WFCA annual business and market summit in Kamloops in September.

Alberta’s wildfire season has been taxing on several communities, but they’re having some positive impact on the province’s mountain pine beetle population. Nadir Erbilgin, a professor of forest health and the department chair of renewable resources in the faculty of agriculture at the University of Alberta, said that in order for wildfires to eliminate pine beetles they have to fully burn the trees that they are infesting. “When you burn the trees, you’re burning the insects under the bark, when the fire kills the tree it is no use to the beetles because they rely on the fresh source under the bark and it becomes charcoal so they cannot use it,” said Erbilgin. “The population is significantly declining.” …Erbilgin said that management activities and the province’s push to get rid of the beetles through burning and tree cutting are a huge contributing factor to the decline of the beetle alongside the colder weather.

In the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, Jason Fisher nailed the flesh of a beaver carcass to a tree. The bait set, he unspooled several metres of barbed wire, wrapping it loosely around the trunk to snag a fur sample for later testing..  …A wildlife biologist from the University of Victoria, Fisher had come to the B.C.-Alberta border to find wolverines. …“As the climate warms, wolverine range is contracting,” said Fisher. “In Kananaskis Country, the Golden area, you used to find wolverines. You don’t anymore.” …It’s one reason the biologist says wolverines are getting spotted in communities far out into Alberta’s prairie, he says. “Their backs are against the wall,” said Fisher. “They push into the prairies and are never heard from again. They’re just starving out.” …The planet’s changing climate is projected to unravel the natural balance as we know it — from the planet’s biggest to its smallest creatures.

Mike Morris

Since 2013, Mike Morris has served as an MLA with the BC Liberal Party (BC United) for the Prince George – Mackenzie riding. …Mike believes volume-based logging must end and that an ecological approach to forest harvesting is the only way forward. He wants to see forestry practices focus on forest health, climate change and ecosystem restoration so that wildlife can thrive and mills can continue to operate. …Mike’s wildlife advocacy work from within the government is coming to an end soon. He will not be running in the likely 2024 election, and instead, he hopes to “turn into a grizzled old trapper granddad and go trapping and take my grandkids out.” Free of the constraints that come with being an elected official, Mike may still continue to push for forestry reform and wildlife protection.

Small scale forestry in British Columbia is growing as a platform to integrate community, climate, and forest values. This policy brief highlights critical constraints facing small forest tenures and the need for engagement on long-term solutions that allow for locally driven management decisions. The intention to Modernize Forest Policy in BC creates an opportunity to break long-standing constraints facing small-scale forestry, reconsidering how forest stewardship priorities are regulated for diverse and local values. A long-term vision for small local forestry in British Columbia that creates enabling conditions for diverse and locally appropriate forest management is currently missing from BC forest policy. Small tenure holders seek greater autonomy, expanded revenue options, and improved opportunities for innovation and more diverse fibre utilization. Creating a more inclusive forest sector will require transformative policy change and local initiatives that promote diversity in tenure, management, and stewardship.

British Columbia is putting out a call for national and international help to fight wildfires that are blanketing communities in thick smoke, as some residents watch flames approach their homes. The province had requested 1,000 additional foreign firefighters to join 160 from Mexico and the United States already in B.C., said Bowinn Ma, minister of emergency management and climate readiness. Ma also formally requested more federal resources from her counterpart in Ottawa, Bill Blair, to help fight the 350 or so fires burning across B.C. She said at a briefing about drought conditions in B.C. on Thursday that an “incident management team” from Australia is arriving on Saturday. Firefighters from South Korea, France, South Africa and the Dominican Republic have also been fighting fires in Canada, during what is shaping up as a record-breaking fire season. …Blair said Ottawa is ready to deploy resources.

Doug Donaldson

The trifecta of managing forests primarily for timber values, the shifting climate, and changing settlement patterns has created a triple-threat on the ground. …We have the largest single wildfire in colonial B.C. history burning in the northeast, with the usually highest-threat season still weeks away. …With the 2017, 2018 and 2021 catastrophic wildfire seasons barely in the rear-view mirror, this season is on track to be another record breaker. …one route to a better future when it comes to wildfires in B.C. is the multi-lane path laid out in June by the Forest Practices Board. …The board calls for an overarching approach with wildfire at its centre, citing hard-hit California’s wildfire and forest resilience action plan as an example. B.C. is different from California yet the scale of the wildfire challenge we face compels actions on a similar scale. This involves a “whole of society” approach where senior governments (provincial, Indigenous, federal), communities, industry and civil society are pulling for a common goal. It’s time. The wildfires demand it.

FORT ST. JAMES – An audit of the BC Timber Sales Program (BCTS) and timber sale licensees in the Fort St James field unit portion of the BCTS Stuart-Nechako Business Area found significant issues with bridge documentation, as well as unsound practices related to terrain stability assessments and soil disturbance. The Forest Practices Board (FPB) conducted the full-scope compliance audit of all BCTS and timber sale licence (TSL) holders’ forestry activities between June 1, 2021, and June 24, 2022. The audit found that one TSL holder had installed three bridges on fish streams without preparing and retaining all the required documentation. “The Forest Planning and Practices Regulation is specific about the documentation required for bridge construction. This is to ensure bridges are installed soundly and streams adequately protected,” said Rick Monchak, an FPB board member. “In this case, the licensee did not provide the legally required documents, and as the bridges were removed prior to the field inspection.”

Rosalea Pagani

Before competing in her first Powell River Logger Sports event in 2016, Rosalea Pagani, a local forestry worker with deep roots in the community, hadn’t heard of logger sports. Throwing an axe and sawing through logs for sport had never crossed her mind, until she was approached by Powell River Logger Sports board president Bob Marquis. Pagani was working for BC Ministry of Forests at the time while Marquis was one of the road building contractors. …Marquis invited Pagani that evening to practice and learn how to throw an axe. Three days later she was competing in her first logger sports event. That year was the first logger sports event Powell River had hosted in 11 years. “There were no women competing and [Marquis] wanted some local females from Powell River in the competition,” said Pagani. …The logger sports event is this weekend, July 15-16, at Loggers Memorial Bowl at Willingdon Beach. Carvers will start Friday, July 14.

Midway, BC — efforts are being made by the West Boundary Community Forest (WBCF) to better safeguard nearby communities from the potential dangers posed by wildfires. With the infusion of new grant funding from the Forest Enhancement Society of BC, the WBCF has made significant progress to reduce the risk of wildfires in the area. Last year, WBCF received a grant of just over $1.1 million from FESBC. With this funding, the WBCF has taken proactive measures to enhance the safety of the communities of Midway, Greenwood, Grand Forks, Rock Creek, and Westbridge by working to mitigate the risk of wildfires. “Sustainable community forest management is critical to reducing wildfire risk in our province,” said Bruce Ralston, Minister of Forests. Funding will be used to clean up dead material and ladder fuels in the understory, limit insect infestations by salvaging trees that host beetles, and improve foraging for wildlife. 

British Columbia’s 2023 wildfire season is now the second-worst on record — and it’s still far from over. As of July 13, 1,040 fires have been recorded and more than 1.22 million hectares have been burned, according to statistics from the BC Wildfire Service. The wildfire season is calculated from April 1 to March 31, each year. The bulk of this year’s wildfire activity has been within the Prince George fire centres, covering northeastern B.C. In that region, 346 wildfires have been reported and 1.14 million hectares have been destroyed. The Kamloops Fire Centre, which includes the Thompson-Okanagan, has had 167 fires and around 3,000 hectares destroyed. The amount of land burned provincewide so far this year now exceeds the damage from the 2017 wildfire season. …The worst fire season in British Columbia’s history was in 2018 when 2,117 fires destroyed 1.34 million hectares.

Fourth generation logger Bob Marquis has lived and breathed the forestry industry on the Sunshine Coast as well as globe-trotted around the world competing in logger sports games for more than 40 years. He is a former logger sports world champion, and the current president of the Powell River Logger Sports Board. “I started [competing] for my brother’s memorial show,” said Marquis, in an interview with the Peak. “He passed away in a logging accident.” …Marquis believes the local event is “Canada’s first real global competitive sport here in Powell River.” In 1971, BC premier WAC Bennett proclaimed logger sports to be BC’s official industry sport. At this year’s event (July 14 – 16 at Loggers Memorial Bowl), BC’s minister for sport and culture, Lana Popham, will be at the opening ceremony to proclaim July 15 as Loggers Sports Day in BC. “It’s rare to have an industry where there has been a sport created,” said Marquis.