Dear North Cowichan mayor and council, and Premier David Eby: It’s not surprising a four-councillor cluster voted against a cogent April 15 motion urging our province to review and strengthen our forest policies, including those governing raw-log exports. The difference this time is right-wing councillors Findlay, Manhas, Caljouw Jr., and Hogg seemingly disregarded valley forest workers, and backed corporate timber firms’ desires for less, not more, public land-harvesting rules and regulations. Coun. Chris Justice’s logical, timely motion aimed to boost wood-fibre supplies for Canadian processing and value-added manufacturing — supporting local and Island forestry jobs — partly through a long-sought raw-log export ban. …Admit the current industry’s end is near. Instead, let’s finally explore making alternative, job-rich building materials in North Cowichan and elsewhere.

©AlbertaWildfire

Ten years on, the devastating Fort McMurray wildfire is still teaching Albertans and informing policy. “Even a very large developed community in northern Alberta is not immune from the impact of wildfire, and that really hit hard with a lot of people, and I think there are some lessons that we’ve taken on as an organization that and we’re sort of living those changes now,” said Christie Tucker, information unit manager with Alberta Wildfire of the May 3, 2016 fire that ravaged the northern Alberta city, causing the evacuation of roughly 90,000 residents at the time. …If Fort McMurray had its lessons, one is that wildfire risk isn’t just out where the wild things are. The wildland urban interface is where Albertans are living and working up in resource-based industries, up against what used to be wilderness. That is a space the province is paying a lot of attention to, Tucker said.

Vancouver park board staff want to inspect the health of city trees less often, partly because they can’t keep up with new demands related to maintaining the city’s 150,000 street trees and 38,000 park trees. But an expert in tree risk assessment warns that while a proposal to change the manner and frequency of tree inspections could be cost-efficient, it might not be cost-effective as it could result in dangerous trees being missed. “It comes down to money, but you’ll miss defects in trees that cause tree parts to fail,” said Norman Oberson, a provincially certified tree risk assessor, owner of Arbutus Tree Service, and a board member of the Trees of Vancouver Society. Instead of conducting detailed inspections and pruning every seven years, park board staff are proposing doing this every 10 years for the city’s street and park trees.