The area surrounding Powell River, BC is home to some of the finest granite big wall climbing in North America, and also home to some of the last stands of old-growth forest in the region. Local climbers have long benefited from easy access to remote zones thanks to logging roads and generous land use policies, but have struggled with the choice to look away as pristine valleys are stripped for timber. Arc’teryx’s new documentary On The Verge covers the complex interplay between those who rely on the region’s trees for their livelihood and those who live to climb on nearby mountains.

The residents of the Village of Granisle will benefit from the efforts of the village, the Babine Lake Community Forest, Lake Babine Nation and the Forest Enhancement Society of British Columbia (FESBC), in providing a safer haven from wildfires, in the future. The village undertook a Wildfire Fuel Mitigation Project in partnership with the BLCF and through funding from the FESBC, in order to make Granisle a safer place from the wildfires. The project was a result of an idea that the former Granisle Mayor Frederick Clarke had, according to Gord Pratt, who is the operations manager with the FESBC. …A few of the objectives that are important to the FESBC that the Granisle project is also focusing on are, to reduce the wildfire risk in and around the community of Granisle, to increase the fibre utilization of the residual fibre around the site …and therefore reduce the carbon footprint and green house gas emissions.

Work continues on the $1 million project to log mainly conifer stands and remove material along the Buck Flats Road that pose as a wildfire risk to properties within the District of Houston. As identified in a 2018 study prepared for the District, the prospect of prevailing winds from the southwest driving a wildfire toward the District was identified as a significant risk. When cleared of conifers and material, the plan is to replant the area with deciduous species such as birch or poplar which are not as conducive to burning. …Money for the project comes from the Forest Enhancement Society of B.C., a provincial agency, to the District and management has been contracted to Pro-Tech Forest Resources of Telkwa. …Forest Enhancement Society of B.C. manager Gord Pratt described its financial participation in the project as complementary to reducing wildfire risk combined with the commercial potential of what’s being logged.

…the [Kermode] spirit bear is far rarer and far more ecologically vulnerable than previously believed, according to Christina Service’s research. A peer-reviewed study — published in Ecological Solutions and Evidence by Service, a group of scientists and First Nations stewards from the Kitasoo/Xai’xais and Gitga’at First Nations, the University of Victoria, the Spirit Bear Research Foundation and the Raincoast Conservation Foundation — shows that the genetic change that produces the spirit bear is up to 50 per cent rarer than previous estimates. Service is the wildlife biologist for the Kitasoo/Xai’xais Stewardship Authority and led the research along B.C.’s Central Coast. She said the study provides valuable data for land use planning and shows that further conservation efforts are needed. …Only about half of the areas with high concentrations of spirit bears are protected by parks and other protected areas. …The gene variant, discovered by UBC scientist  Kermit Ritland, controls red hair in humans and light hair in other mammals

EDMONTON — Grizzly bears are doing their best to get along with people, but it still isn’t enough. Newly published research concludes that without large wilderness areas to replenish their numbers, grizzlies would disappear from landscapes they share with humans. “The persistence of bears near people, when we see them along highways or near towns, they’re really propped up by the fact they exist near some sort of secure wilderness,” said Clayton Lamb, a University of Alberta biologist… Researchers found bears in populated areas in Alberta and British Columbia have even changed how they hunt in an attempt to share living space with humans. “The bears are doing what they can,” Lamb said. “The difference might have to be made up by us.” The study… digested 41 years worth of mortality, movement and demography among 2,669 grizzlies over nearly 400,000 square kilometres of British Columbia.

Icel Dobell

A call to action — the survey. First, the good news: the University of British Columbia team reported at the Forestry Advisory Committee meeting that in addition to the inestimable recreational, health, and ecological benefits of the municipal forest reserve, North Cowichan taxpayers could potentially make as much or more money through carbon offsets than by logging our Six Mountains. …we paid for [the report] and we, citizens and council, deserve to see it directly online  — but this may not happen. …we are told that the public gets just three to four weeks for consultation on an interim management plan for the forests. That includes a survey from which the consultants, Lees and Associates, will then extrapolate what the public wants before delivering their verdict to council in September. …What I heard is that our community forests are worth so much more standing than shipped offshore to be sold back to us as two-by-fours. 

A new injection of government money is helping a B.C. First Nation start an ambitious project in the world’s only inland temperate rainforest. The Lheidli T’enneh Nation… announced Monday that both the provincial and federal government are contributing funds toward an $8.7 million development project the nation is planning in the Ancient Forest Provincial Park, or Chun T’oh Whudujut in the local Lheidli language. Chun T’oh Whudujut is located 120 kilometres east of Prince George, and according to B.C. Parks, covers an area of over 11,000 hectares, including 685 hectares of protected land. The Lheidli T’enneh Nation plans to use the new funds to build new hiking trails, a sweat lodge, a pit house and a gazebo in the park. 

Effective immediately, Diane Nicholls, British Columbia’s chief forester, has set the new allowable annual cut for Tree Farm Licence (TFL) 26 near Mission to 60,000 cubic metres. The licence, held by the Corporation of the District of Mission, is located north of the community of Mission, approximately 60 kilometres east of Vancouver. The new cut level set by the chief forester is 33% higher than the previous level of 45,000 cubic metres that was set in 2010. The increase reflects updated data, which indicate tree stands have higher volumes and are growing faster than previously estimated. There are 6,563 hectares available for timber harvesting in TFL 26, which is 10,935 hectares in size. The major tree species is western hemlock, followed by Douglas fir. The licence area was awarded to the District of Mission in July 1958 and is recognized as the first community-managed forestry operation in B.C.

David Broadland

One of the great enduring myths told about BC’s forest industry is that “forestry pays the bills, folks.” Those are the exact words a Vancouver Sun reader used recently to dismiss a report by three BC forest scientists that urged the provincial government to put an immediate moratorium on further logging of large, old-growth trees. That reader’s view? No can do. Forestry pays the bills. The Sun reader didn’t say whose bills; perhaps forestry pays his bills. But this rationale—that the forest industry is of such great economic importance to BC that nothing should be done to disturb its operations—has been used for decades as proof that any change in direction on public forest policy would be foolhardy. That may have been true 40 years ago, but those days are long gone.