As the provincial government advances plans to carve British Columbia’s lands into zones where logging and other industrial activities are permitted or barred, a former longtime public servant says he is struggling to not be cynical about what could lie ahead. In August, The Tyee broke the news that the provincial ministries of Forests and Water, Land and Resource Stewardship were proposing to divide B.C.’s vast and spectacularly diverse lands into “working forest,” “multiple-use” and “conservation and protection” zones. The details were included in a leaked internal government email. The zoning exercise is happening as Premier David Eby tells Forests Minister Ravi Parmar to find more trees for companies to log in order to meet a logging target of 45 million cubic metres per year. Forest ecologist Andy MacKinnon, who worked in the Forests Ministry for 30 years, said he worries that the “Path to 45” initiative will drive the zoning plan.