To say 2020 was a year of challenges would be an understatement! The year presented many uncertainties for all British Columbians who had to quickly adapt to the many changes brought about by the pandemic. The challenges within the forest industry were no different, although we were delighted to see leaders from First Nations, community forests, regional districts, and other forestry partners innovate and collaborate to keep people working safely. This work benefitted communities and we believe the hardships could have been even more drastic if not for the ingenuity and adaptability of our partners. The tree planting season was a key example of many people coming together to find solutions to ensure one of B.C.’s biggest planting seasons continued, all operating safely and without a single COVID-19 case. 

A complaint alleging there is too much secrecy in North Cowichan’s public consultation process into the future of its municipal forest reserve has led to an investigation by the provincial Office of the Ombudsperson. The complaint was made by sixmountains.ca, a website dedicated to providing information about logging in North Cowichan’s 5,000-hectare municipal forest reserve that is run by Larry Pynn, a veteran environmental journalist and author who lives in Maple Bay. Pynn said sixmountains.ca sought the investigation after the municipality and its consultant, Lees & Associates, refused to open up meetings of the citizens’ working group that is guiding public consultations on the future of the forest reserve. …In an email to Pynn, Kate Morrison, from the Office of the Ombudsperson which is described as B.C.’s independent voice for fairness, said she has decided to investigate his complaint.

Garry Merkel & Al Gorely

As the hereditary chief of the Kwakiutl First Nation, the forests and ocean waters off the north east coast of Vancouver Island are David Mungo Knox’s sacred responsibility. …But recently Knox has begun to fear for the forests. …”When they put in the roads on the mountainside, and after they log, there is erosion and it causes landslides into salmon bearing rivers.” Western Forest Products, a major lumber company based in Vancouver, has been harvesting trees in several areas in Knox’s territory. The company says it has policies in place to minimize the environmental impact of its operations. Conservationists along the south coast of Vancouver Island who have blockaded logging roads to try and keep B.C.’s ancient trees from being felled want a further commitment from the province to protect biodiversity. Communities that rely on the forestry sector for their livelihoods also want assurances new rules won’t put an end to life as they know it.

Bev Atkins

A willingness to try something new led a Williams Lake woman to enjoy a 40-year plus career in forestry.  “That was a good way to finish my career,” Bev Atkins recalled of her retirement from the BC Wildfire Service in December of 2018.  Launching a career path in a primarily male-dominated industry was no piece of cake, but Atkins has never been one to back away from a challenge.  While forestry did not initially interest Atkins, who grew up at her family homestead in Meldrum Creek, she knew she did not want to leave the area to become a teacher.  …“Being that I was raised on a farm, being outdoors was a natural fit for me,” she said, noting she had previously worked as a summer student with the Ministry of Agriculture. 

The forest sector has deep roots in rural British Columbia with multi-generational families working in the industry either directly in logging or in related businesses like selling logging trucks. Continued forest industry decline threatens a long-established way of life for those relatively few people remaining in the sector.  The forest industry’s decline began in 1988. Since then, that decline has been exacerbated by the impacts of the mountain pine beetle epidemic and by a shortage in timber supply owing to unsustainable logging, wildfires and forest health issues related to clearcutting and climate change.  Since 1988, the forest industry has contracted radically. The pulp mills that once stood in Prince Rupert, Kitimat, Ocean Falls, Port Alice, Campbell River, Gold River, Tahsis and Woodfibre are long since gone.

In 2012, conservationists offered a reward for information that would lead to a conviction in the theft of a giant – an 800-year-Western redcedar poached from British Columbia’s Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park. The case was never closed, but it did draw international attention to logging – both legal and illegal – in B.C.’s increasingly rare ancient forests. Torrance Coste, one of the conservationists who helped expose the theft in Carmanah Walbran, is exasperated by the pace of change. Poaching has continued unabated, and policy makers have until now done little to slow the legal harvest either. With the right equipment, a tree that has been growing for 800 years can be felled and loaded onto a logging truck in the blink of an eye. Such trees are not renewable – B.C.’s reforestation programs cannot replace an intact old-growth forest and the complex ecosystems they play host to.