B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) has launched a new tool to engage the public during environmental assessments, empowering people to have a more meaningful impact on the decision-making process for major projects proposed throughout the province. EPIC.engage is a new engagement platform designed to improve the overall experience for people providing feedback during the public comment periods of an environmental assessment. …“Public engagement is a critical part of our environmental assessment process and of transparency. It provides valuable information about proposed major projects in BC,” said George Heyman, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy. “EPIC.engage makes it easier for the public to provide information that is both helpful and might otherwise be missed during the technical process of an environmental assessment.” Providing feedback is anonymous. The platform protects the identity of commentors while verifying that are not “bots” or people seeking to undermine a project or the assessment process.

The Skattebo Education Forest is located on the east shore of the Kootenay River between Nelson and Castlegar, just south of the community of Glade. Classes from natural resource diploma programs visit Skattebo to participate in field trips where they collect forest, fisheries and ecosystem data and learn to interpret this information. Skattebo also provides Selkirk Innovates researchers with the perfect location to test new technology and techniques in projects that benefit local communities, industry, and the environment. Principal investigator Dr. Brendan Wilson leads this suite of forestry intelligence research. “We’re very excited about the work we’re doing in Skattebo,” says Wilson, “because it connects learning with real-world applied research.” Skattebo research projects are currently testing methods to identify individual trees in the forest, quantify common forest stand metrics, determine canopy heights, determine tree health status, identify cones for seedstock, assess understory fuels and more.

Summer is just around the corner and for much of British Columbia that now means dealing with the looming threat of wildfires. But for one Abbotsford company it is their time to shine. Conair Aerial Firefighting, located on the Abbotsford International Airport grounds, is a global leader in the battle against wildfires and continues to grow. The company boasts the third-largest fleet of any company in Canada, with 70 aircraft taking on challenging situations all across the planet. They have been used for years in places like B.C., Alaska, Alberta, Australia, France and Washington State. Conair also recently announced a new deal to work with the Saskatchewan provincial government to battle fires in that area. Conair invited the media and government officials to tour their facility on April 26 and learn more about both the production and training aspects of the company.

The decision on whether to list, further delay or forego the auction of logging rights for TA0521 (Joe Smith Creek cutblock) “will be coming in the next few weeks” according to an April 24 email from the Ministry of Forests to Coast Reporter. Documents posted on BC Timber Sales’s (BCTS) website had the auction listed to occur by March 31. In the email the Ministry stated “initial timelines for cutblock decisions were estimates only. The Ministry will take as long as is necessary to ensure the proper reviews are conducted before decisions are released.”  On April 25, Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) ended an over three-week protest presence in opposition to logging the site at road access to the cutblock, just off the B & K logging road in the Roberts Creek area. Spokesperson Hans Penner told Coast Reporter the group would stand down “for now,” while it would be “keeping a close eye on BCTS’s sales list.

The Sunshine Coast Streamkeepers Society, the Roberts Creek Official Community Plan Committee and Elphinstone Logging Focus and individuals have contacted BC Timber Sales (BCTS) with concerns about the agency’s plans within the Sunshine Coast business area over the next three years. Those who have not yet submitted comments have until May 4 to do so. A public BCTS notice provides links to mapping and details on proposed cutblocks, tree retention areas and road sections. Just over 1,200 hectares are slated to be included in 64 cutblocks within BCTS’s map area 1214 (which includes areas on the upper and lower Sunshine Coast) from May 2024 to May 2027. …Streamkeepers pointed out, “logging the Roberts Creek headwaters will change the natural hydrology of the ecosystem of both the forest and the numerous upper main tributaries.”

The reservoir at Mountain Station, which feeds all the water pipes in Nelson, is not really a reservoir. …“Our reservoir is actually the snowpack, along with Five Mile Creek and the other creeks,” Chris Johnson, the city’s manager of community planning, climate and infrastructure says. The West Kootenay snowpack is only at 72 per cent of normal this year. But a low snowpack is not necessarily a threat to Nelson’s water supply, says Johnson. “We could still have a spring and summer such that enough precipitation falls that ensures the creeks continue to run strongly throughout the dry season.” Should Nelson be worried about its drinking water supply over the long term, in light of the lower snowpacks caused by climate change? It depends on the interactions of a multitude of factors including snow, rain, temperature, the aspect (north or south facing) of the watershed and how much forest cover it has.

ALBERTA — Impending clear-cutting of treasured hiking and biking areas near Bragg Creek will be done responsibly, Alberta’s minister of environment and protected areas said Tuesday. But conservationists and outdoor enthusiasts say they have their doubts, and insist logging two large blocks in the West Bragg Creek and Moose Mountain areas is also economically dubious. Forestry company West Fraser said it’s going ahead in the fall of 2026 with logging what could be nearly 900 hectares of forest in a recreation zone less than an hour from Calgary. They have provincial government sanction to do so under a 20-year forestry management plan, but only under sustainable conditions, said Environment and Protected Areas Minister Rebecca Schulz. “My department is concerned with ensuring we are protecting the environment, that environment standards are upheld, that we’re looking at impacts to water, wildlife, air and biodiversity — so those are the kinds of things we look at before projects move forward,” she said. 

Related coverage in CBC: West Fraser to host open house on contentious logging plans

UBC Forestry and the Centre for Wildfire Coexistence are excited to announce the Wildfire Coexistence in BC: Solutions Symposium, in partnership with the Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science at UBC Okanagan! This Symposium will bring together British Columbia’s leading wildfire experts and practitioners to highlight the urgent need to develop a transformative vision and implementation strategy for wildfires before it is too late. We will shed light on the profound impacts of wildfires and tremendous costs to the BC population, emphasizing that the 2017‒2023 fire seasons were not an anomaly but a new and escalating reality fueled by climate change. Join us June 3-5, 2024 at UBC Okanagan in Kelowna and learn about the stark realities of the societal, health, cultural, environmental, and economic costs of wildfires across British Columbia and the actions needed now.