Earth Day forms backdrop to B.C. election campaign

 

VANCOUVER – British Columbia’s political leaders made Earth Day the backdrop to their campaigning Monday, using environmentally-themed events that said as much about their approaches as the substance of their announcements.

NDP Leader Adrian Dix was in Environment Minister Terry Lake’s Kamloops riding to broadly imply a government led by him would likely put a stop to the proposed twinning of the Kinder Morgan pipeline through Burnaby, B.C., to the Burrard Inlet off Vancouver.

Dix said he would await the results of the necessary reviews held into the project that would triple the capacity of the Trans Mountain pipeline, but he added: “We do not expect Vancouver to become a major oil export port as appears to be suggested in what Kinder Morgan is proposing.”

In the past, Dix has taken a similar stance on the development of the Northern Gateway pipeline, saying an NDP government would opt out of a joint federal review already underway for more than a year and conduct its own environmental probe. Dix has also said in the past he is opposed to the project.

Liberal Leader Christy Clark took her campaign to two Vancouver-based environmental tech companies to talk about jobs the green economy can provide.

Solegear Bioplastics makes plastics from plants instead of oil. The company says in its promotional material that its products, which can be used in everything from packaging to office furniture and toys, are compostable and non-toxic.

The second company, Saltworks Technologies Inc., has developed desalination technologies that have been used by customers as diverse as NASA and the Alberta oil patch.

“Clean tech is creating the jobs of tomorrow,” Clark said after touring Saltworks, which employs 40 people and last year, was named to the Global Cleantech 100, a list produced by a global research and advisory firm.

“The NDP would stifle this kind of innovation. We know they don’t understand the economy, and we know that they would move backward on the environment, too. They have opposed policy after policy that we have brought in to protect B.C.’s environment and spur innovation.”

In a rare glimmer of agreement, both leaders expressed doubts about the Pacific Carbon Trust, the agency that was created with the goal of turning B.C. into one of the world’s leading carbon-neutral economies.

Critics, including the B.C. auditor general’s office, say the agency is almost 99 per cent taxpayer funded — $14 million — and forces schools, hospitals and other public entities to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on carbon credits, while private businesses sell their credits for cash.

Dix said Monday he would eliminate the carbon trust. He said public institutions have paid millions of dollars into the program, while private companies get money in turn for simply listing an inventory of uncut forests or unused gas projects.

“The government’s view on carbon-neutral government is to take money from cash-starved hospitals and give it to big polluters,” Dix said. “We think that money should be kept to support public institutions.”

He said an NDP government would have public institutions pay to offset their carbon emissions, but the money would be used to fund green projects.

The NDP also proposes to take $30 million in accrued earnings in the current Pacific Carbon Trust account and use the money for energy efficiency projects in the public sector.

Clark agreed the Pacific Carbon Trust hasn’t worked the way it was supposed to and said if she wins the election, her government would review the program.

“It hasn’t worked that well,” she said.

But she said the NDP has repeatedly opposed efforts by the Liberals to confront environmental problems.

Dix said Monday, though, that a government led by him would seek to meet the Liberals’ legislated greenhouse gas emissions targets. The Liberals under former premier Gordon Campbell pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by one-third by 2020.

In a news conference near the banks of the North Thompson River in Kamloops, Dix said an NDP government would invest $120 million over the next three years to fight climate change in urban and rural communities.

Much of that money would come from the NDP’s earlier announcement to shift revenues from the carbon tax, which currently go to tax cuts, to transit projects and green initiatives.

For their part, B.C. Conservatives issued a news release saying any talk of ending the Pacific Carbon Trust is thievery from their own long-held position.

“I’m pleased that Adrian Dix and the NDP continue to steal our policies,” leader John Cummins said in a news release.

But he slammed Dix’s commitment to expanding the carbon tax, saying the Conservatives would end that too.

The Ancient Forest Alliance, too, used Earth Day to take aim at the NDP’s environmental stance on forestry, which was outlined last week.

Ken Wu, the group’s executive director, said it’s hard to tell what Dix’s announcement last week on protecting old-growth means.

“The NDP’s environment platform is like a blurry moving sasquatch video in regards to potential old-growth forest protections and park creation — you can’t discern if it’s real and significant, or if it’s just Dix in a fake gorilla costume running to get attention,” said Wu.

“We need the NDP to commit to a science-based plan to fully protect BC’s endangered old-growth forests on Crown lands, to ensure sustainable second-growth forestry, and to commit to a B.C. park acquisition fund to purchase and protect endangered ecosystems on private lands.”

Earlier in the day, Clark appeared on a Vancouver talk show and sparred with the host about her government’s latest budget.

The Liberal party has staked its political fortunes on a balanced budget by the end of this fiscal year, but the NDP claimed the budget is actually at least $800 million in deficit. The NDP has said it would not balance B.C.’s books until the end of their four-year mandate if they were to be elected.

“Whether or not the budget is balanced isn’t based on what people believe or what municipal managers believe,” the premier said. “Go ask Moody’s. … they said it was balanced. These are the world’s experts. Dominion Bond Rating said the budget was balanced, again, the world experts in this.”

A few hours later, Clark dialed back her claim.

“What they say is we have a superior record of fiscal management and they say that our revenue targets are absolutely on,” Clark said. “In contrast, the NDP say our budget isn’t balanced because they say our revenue targets are all out, well, the NDP isn’t telling the truth about that.”

In a report issued April 12, Standard & Poor’s affirmed the province’s AAA rating but did not proclaim the budget balanced.

Company analyst Paul Judson said the incumbent Liberal government introduced a budget with a plan to bring the province’s operating budget “back into balance” in fiscal 2014.

Rating agencies are “agnostic,” he said.

But Helmut Pastrick, chief economist for the Central 1 Credit Union, said while the reports are not an endorsement of any political party or government, they could be considered a warning about economic direction.

“Perhaps its just a cautionary note, if you will,” Pastrick said.

In its March 26 report, Toronto-based Dominion Bond Rating Service confirmed the province’s high rating on long- and short-term debt, but also noted that the budget measures may not be implemented before the May 14 vote.

“Nevertheless, the fiscal progress made to date and a relatively low debt burden in relation to peers provide British Columbia with sufficient flexibility within its current ratings, be it to withstand further economic malaise or a potential relaxation in fiscal discipline,” said the report by Travis Shaw, vice-president of public finance.

Moody’s Investors Service affirmed an AAA rating in its April 4 report, citing the province’s “strong fiscal flexibility and track record of prudent fiscal management.”

Neither Moody’s nor DBRS declared B.C.’s latest budget to be balanced.

Link to Maclean’s online article: www2.macleans.ca/2013/04/22/earth-day-forms-backdrop-to-b-c-election-campaign/

Mountain Caribou are Canada's largest old-growth dependent animal.

Caribou count may be lowest ever

A herd of endangered mountain caribou in Wells Gray may have dropped to its lowest number, but the latest survey data are under wraps according to a scientist who lives near the park.

Trevor Goward said this year’s count — which found only 58 animals from a herd that numbered 400 in recent years — was leaked and the figures won’t be publicly released for weeks.

“It is a disaster,” said Goward. “I guess they’re holding off for various reasons,” he speculated. “It wouldn’t look good for the government.”

In response to a request from The Daily News, a spokesman with the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations said the March data are under analysis and it would be premature to comment on them.

A lichenologist who studies the tree lichens on which the caribou feed, Goward has been lobbying for a moratorium on low-elevation clearcut logging that borders the park in the upper Clearwater Valley.

Clearcuts drive up populations of ungulates such as deer and moose, along with their predators, wolf and cougar, which in turn prey upon the caribou. Caribou are particularly vulnerable; they typically produce one calf every second year.

“It’s got to be this constant eroding of the population by predators,” Goward said. “It’s obvious something is going on. They’re not evolved for high predation.”

For the past five years, the provincial government has focused on a mountain caribou recovery implementation plan in an attempt to rebuild populations. Despite those efforts, the Wells Gray herd has continued to decline, evidence that the plan has failed, Goward contends.

The underlying issue is vanishing old-growth forest, primary caribou habitat. Neither the NDP nor the Liberals has said they would take additional measures to protect old-growth forest, said Ken Wu, founder of the lobby group Ancient Forest Alliance.

“They’re the largest old-growth dependent species in Canada,” Wu said. “This is a large mammal. It’s really one of the iconic species in B.C.” The southern Interior represents the largest concentration of what remains of the species.

The NDP’s forestry plan does not stress old-growth protection, which represents a broken promise by party leader Adrian Dix, Wu said. When Norm Macdonald, NDP forest critic, was in Kamloops on Monday, he characterized old-growth concerns as primarily an Island issue.

“Old growth forests across the province are in danger, especially in areas of the southern Interior,” Wu said. The governing Liberals don’t have a good track record, he added.

“They maintain that they’re managing old-growth forests, which is simply not the case.”

Terry Lake, Liberal candidate for Kamloops-North Thompson and former environment minister, challenged that assertion.

“We have old-growth management areas throughout the province, so I think we are managing that well,” he said, adding there is always a balance between protecting environment and providing economic opportunity.

He believes Canfor has no immediate plans to log in the area and noted that the Upper Clearwater Valley is protected through a management plan established in the late ’90s.

Without seeing the latest data, Lake would not concede that the Wells Gray herd is in serious decline. That bureaucrats would withhold the data is just conjecture, he added.

“The (caribou) recovery plan is not something where you will see results in a couple of years,” Lake said. “You have to look at a 10- to 20-year horizon, and in some cases they may never come back.”

In the case of Wells Gray, it’s the buffer forests that border the park that need to be protected from further logging, environmentalists say. They are also pushing for sustainable forestry on second-growth stands.

The NDP has lost its bearing on the issue, Wu suggested. That’s why their forest plan has been described as indistinguishable from that of the Liberals.

“They have forgotten the history of what they saw in the War in the Woods in the ’90s. If there were ever a time to be bold and keep their promise, the time to do that is now.”

Yet time appears to be running out for mountain caribou. Goward calls the decline “death by a thousand clearcuts.” He’s started an online petition drive through Change.org to pressure politicians.

“We’re watching the demise of something comparable to the decline of the buffalo on the prairies.”

 

Read More: https://www.kamloopsnews.ca/article/20130419/KAMLOOPS0101/130419802/-1/kamloops01/caribou-count-may-be-lowest-ever

Photograph by: DARRYL DYCK

NDP’s forestry-policy plank sparks partisan ire, disappoints ecologists

PRINCE GEORGE – New Democrat Leader Adrian Dix has released a multimillion dollar election plan that he believes will help grow and improve B.C.'s forest industry, but critics say the proposal makes promises that will be hard to keep.

In Prince George Monday, Dix announced the five-point forestry plan that would see $310 million invested in the industry over five years if his party wins the election in May.

The NDP leader announced his government would invest in skills training, to improve forest health, to expand global markets for B.C. lumber and to cut raw log exports, while it reinstates a jobs protection commissioner.

“Skills training is really the principle focus of our economic plan, to ensure young people have the skills they need for the jobs of the future,'' Dix said.

The B.C. Liberal Party immediately criticized the plan, saying it lacks policy details.

“After months of delay, I think British Columbians were expecting more,'' said Forest Minister Steve Thomson in a news release.

George Hoberg, a forest policy expert at the University of British Columbia, said Dix's promise to reduce raw log exports will be hard to keep.

“Raw logs are always something that politicians talk about, but it's actually very hard to deliver in terms of either policy or real change in the industry,'' Hoberg said.

“Our comparative advantage is in raw resource material or in commodities, not in more labour-intensive value-added production,''
he said.

The NDP's commitment to improve forest health includes an emphasis on increasing the province's research capacity, updating forest inventories and doubling the number of seedlings planted annually.

Hoberg said he is impressed with the plan's focus on forest health.

“The biggest challenge that we face in forestry is renewing the forest that has been disseminated by the mountain pine beetle and the Liberals have not been particularly effective at investing resources on that,'' Hoberg said.

“The one big change that we will likely see, if the NDP is elected, is a greater commitment to government funding of inventory and silviculture,'' he said.

Hoberg was surprised at the lack of discussion of environmental issues in the NDP plan – something he said the Liberal forestry plan also lacks.

Ken Wu at the Ancient Forest Alliance called the plan “a big disappointment ecologically.''

“It essentially continues the unsustainable status quo of old growth liquidation and over cutting which has led to the collapse of ecosystems and communities,'' Wu said.

Dix campaigned for party leadership with a promise to address old growth deforestation, but he now appears to be reneging on his commitment, Wu said.

“We are hoping that the party will move forward with additional policy commitments in the lead up to the election so that Dix fulfills his promise to develop a provincial old growth plan which was his 2011 leadership bid promise,'' Wu said.

Dix said the plan was developed in consultation with forest industry businesses, union leaders and with communities.

Some of the suggestions are in line with a 2011 report created by the B.C. Government and Service Employees Union, which suggests tightening raw log exports and increasing staff levels within the B.C. forest service.

A spokesperson from the Council of Forest Industries, which represents over a dozen forest companies in the province, wasn't available for comment.

Globe and Mail online article: www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/ndps-forestry-policy-plank-sparks-partisan-ire-disappoints-ecologists/article11253131/

Old-growth redcedar stump in the Klanawa Valley. Vancouver Island

NDP forest plan ‘minor deviation from unsustainable status quo’: critic

The New Democratic Party's forestry platform released this morning is a major disappointment, said Ken Wu, the executive director of the Ancient Forest Alliance environmental group.

“I'm just looking at this with rage here,” he said in an interview. “This is a minor deviation from the unsustainable status quo.”

This morning NDP leader Adrian Dix released a five point plan for forestry. It included a commitment to skills training for the industry, more emphasis on forest health, improved inventory and building markets for B.C. wood. It also talked about reducing the export of raw logs and re-instating a jobs protection commissioner.

The plan calls for $30 million in added spending on forestry in 2013-2014, building to $100 million five years from now.

“There are some aspects that are progressive, but there's not a lot of detail,” said Wu. Restricting raw log exports is positive, for example, but today's announcement didn't say how the NDP would do that, he said.

During the NDP leadership contest, Dix promised an NDP government would develop “a long-term strategy for old-growth forests,” which Wu made note of at the time.

“He has not kept his promise,” said Wu, adding the NDP could still make that commitment. “They need to do it soon. At this point I'd say the NDP just don't get it on forest conservation. They still have a chance, but this forestry platform is a flop ecologically.”

Wu said individual MLAs such as Scott Fraser in Alberni-Pacific Rim have championed the protection of old growth forests. “We need the entire NDP party to make it part of their platform to protect endangered old growth and ensure sustainable second growth forestry.”

The NDP platform says the party would take five years to double the number of seedlings planted by the government on Crown land to 50 million annually.

In a February interview, NDP forestry critic Norm Macdonald criticized the BC Liberal government for failing to meet an earlier commitment to be planting 50 million seedlings a year by 2012.

Noting at least one million hectares were already known to be not sufficiently restocked, Macdonald said, “Any competent government, and it comes down to competence, any competent government looks after its most valuable asset.”

Link to article on The Tyee website: https://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/2013/04/15/ForestStatus/

Ancient Forest Alliance calls for science-based forest plan

*Note: The Green Party has adopted the key recommendations of the Environmental Law Clinic’s proposed Old-Growth Protection Act. It appears that the NDP support the scientific assessment component of the proposal, however they have not yet committed to the calls for protection and fully ending old-growth logging in endangered regions.

______________

Up-to-date science and legislation without massive loopholes is needed to protect B.C.’s remaining old-growth forests, says the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Clinic.

The proposed Old-Growth Protection Act was produced by the clinic at the request of the Ancient Forest Alliance. The group’s executive director, Ken Wu, hopes it will spur the government to action.

“It’s time for a new, science-based plan,” he said.

An industry transition to second-growth trees is inevitable as the last unprotected old-growth stands are logged, Wu said.

“We simply want the B.C. government to ensure the transition is completed sooner, while these ancient forests still stand.”

The proposal, which is similar to a plan released Friday by the Green Party of B.C., is based on immediately stopping old-growth logging in critically endangered forests and phasing out old-growth logging where there’s a high risk to biodiversity and the ecosystem.

Major elements of the plan include appointing a science panel to carry out inventories and forest risk assessments, establishing different harvest rates for old-growth and second-growth, and legally designating old-growth reserves so there are consistent, enforceable rules.

Calvin Sandborn, the clinic’s legal director, said the plan is practical, science-based and politically doable.

“We wanted something that would fix the flaws in the current system, and the flaws are numerous,” he said.

Protection now offered by old-growth management areas is limited, Sandborn said.

Boundaries are adjusted to move protected areas away from valuable old-growth stands, logging is conducted under the guise of protecting forest health, small, stunted old-growth trees are protected, rather than big stands, and areas protected under forest rules can still be harvested by the oil and gas industry, Sandborn said.

If science and current mapping were used to establish which areas should be protected, much of the political heat would disappear, especially as protecting ancient trees produces more jobs over the long term than cutting them down, he said.

“These trees are our equivalent of the ancient cathedrals of Europe,” he said.

Forests Minister Steve Thomson could not be reached Friday.

NDP environment critic Rob Fleming said the proposed legislation “speaks to the urgency of the issue.”

“The idea of a science panel to assess the inventory of old growth on the Island is a good one, and I think it’s supportable,” he said. “It echoes an earlier call from the Forest Practices Board.”

The Green party is also calling for more science-based assessments and a provincial inventory of remaining old-growth forests.

“Given the scarcity of remaining productive old growth in much of our province, it is clear that we need to head in a new science-based direction to manage our forests,” said Green leader Jane Sterk.

The party also wants to see incentives for companies to retool mills so they can handle second-growth trees, and emergency protection for endangered ecosystems, such as the eastern Vancouver Island coastal Douglas fir zone.

Comment: 1993’s Clayoquot Summer was a game-changer

Twenty years ago today, about 30 residents of Tofino were driving up and down the highway by Long Beach, communicating via handheld radios, tracking a helicopter carrying B.C.’s premier of the day and select media.

A local guy listening in on emergency, aviation and boat communications was transmitting the play-by-play, while the helicopter sought a quiet landing spot where the premier could make a “contained” statement about the fate of Clayoquot Sound’s forests.

Nothing that followed, however, in what was to become the Clayoquot Summer of 1993, could be construed as “contained.”

The Clayoquot land-use decision of April 13, 1993, sparked a mass protest that put Clayoquot Sound’s ancient temperate rainforests on the international map. Over a period of six months, the region became an icon for an environmental awakening.

Clayoquot symbolized all that was wrong with industrial logging and was a touchstone for people’s hope for change. It shook the province, inspired people to action and hatched a marketplace-oriented strategy that has been utilized in environmental campaigns from the farthest corner of Vancouver Island to the Great Bear Rainforest to Indonesia, the Amazon and beyond.

The conflict, in fact, began in the previous decade with a group of volunteers from the Friends of Clayoquot Sound and First Nations leaders who rose to protect their traditional territories. Reaction to the 1993 Clayoquot decision transformed the local conflict into a movement with reverberations to this day.

Clayoquot Summer ’93 was triggered because the decision left two-thirds of the region, including many intact rainforest valleys, open to industrial logging. Public outrage about this decision funnelled into the largest act of non-violent civil disobedience in Canadian history, culminating in the arrest of 856 of the 12,000-plus protesters, who were tried in mass trials and jailed.

By October 1993, when the protests wrapped up, it had spilled into years known as the “War in the Woods.” Environmental groups targeted corporate customers of B.C. wood and paper products around the world, causing the province grief and the industry millions in lumber and paper sales.

In response to the non-violent but highly energized uprising, the political ground in B.C. shifted. Clayoquot marked a renaissance in First Nations land-rights discussions, and environmental groups became powerful intermediaries, both in the wood-supply chain and in the political discourse. Importantly, the public became defiant over what they saw to be legal but wrong — the destruction of the environment — and began to stir.

Out of the controversy, the First Nations in Clayoquot Sound, who hadn’t been consulted on the land-use plan, were chosen to be first in the province’s new treaty process, and a groundbreaking pre-treaty agreement was signed.

By August, then-premier Mike Harcourt established the Clayoquot Sound Scientific Panel for Sustainable Forest Practices. The outcry against wanton clearcut logging broke through barriers, sparking the province to initiate B.C.’s first forest-practices code. The logging industry circled its wagons in an attempt to defend its tarnished reputation in the marketplace, but change was apace.

The fight for Clayoquot was a polarizing issue. Wedges were driven between communities as we grappled with the biggest issues of our day with nowhere but the public forum to play them out. And yet, we all crept, agonizingly, toward breakthroughs that British Columbians can be proud of.

What happened in Clayoquot Sound, beginning in April 1993, has had a major influence on global environmental movements, the Great Bear Rainforest campaign and even the oilsands and pipeline campaigns of today — as well as on conservation of Clayoquot’s forests.

It has been 20 years. Just over half of Clayoquot’s rainforests are now off-limits to logging. But many of the region’s intact rainforest valleys are still unprotected, and the region’s First Nations communities still struggle economically.

As the anniversaries of the Clayoquot Sound land-use decision and subsequent uprising of the Summer of ’93 are marked, we see new opportunities for conservation and human well-being growing again in Clayoquot Sound. A lasting solution may soon be at hand that honours the movements for environmental and social justice begun those 20 years ago, in the magnificent, inspiring place that is Clayoquot Sound.

There are many more stories to tell about those times. There are more in the making there now.

Valerie Langer is with ForestEthics Solutions. Eduardo Sousa is with Greenpeace. Maryjka Mychajlowycz is a member of Friends of Clayoquot Sound. Torrance Coste is a campaigner for the Wilderness Committee.
 

Ancient Forest Alliance

CTV – Environmental Law Centre Proposes BC Old-Growth Act

CTV News – The Environmental Law Centre of the University of Victoria is proposing a science-based Old Growth Protection Act for British Columbia with timelines to immediately protect critically endangered old-growth forests and to quickly phase out old growth logging in highly endangered forests.  Direct Link to video: https://youtu.be/wb09Z0-4rmE

See the full press release and report here: www.ancientforestalliance.org/news-item.php?ID=624

Julianne Skai Arbor hugs the San Juan spruce

The naked tree-hugger makes her way to Port Renfrew

*See her website at www.treegirl.org

The rain barely let up in Port Renfrew Friday morning, but that didn’t stop Julianne Skai Arbor from stripping off her clothes and closely embracing the mossy trunk of the massive San Juan spruce.

“It’s my first time on Vancouver Island and there was a downpour, but it’s still beautiful,” said Arbor, the ultimate tree hugger, as she warmed up after the photo shoot.

Arbor, a 43-year-old California college professor who teaches environmental conservation, travels around the world photographing herself naked with old or endangered trees. She is lending her support to the Ancient Forest Alliance’s efforts to push the B.C. government into coming up with a strategy to protect big trees and remaining patches of old-growth forest.

“The most fragile ecosystems that are still intact should be put aside,” said Arbor, who posts photos of her tree travels on her treegirl.org website and is writing a book about her love of big trees. “It’s amazing for me to see the forests on this Island and I wonder how the people who live here can watch the cutting of the forest. There is only so much you can do before it’s gone.”

The peaceful feeling of being surrounded by nature’s lifeforce in an old forest is very different from feelings generated by a clearcut or tree farm, she said.

Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner and founder TJ Watt, who photographed Arbor with the San Juan spruce, said the photos are a new way of highlighting the grandeur of B.C.’s old-growth forests so they can be protected. “When people see these images, they strike a chord.”

Jon Cash, owner of Soule Creek Lodge and vice-president of Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce, is hoping the photos promote tourism.

“When you see these pictures, it’s hard to know where to focus. She’s a beautiful woman and it’s a beautiful tree,” he said.

Big trees and especially Avatar Grove — a patch of majestic old-growth discovered by the Ancient Forest Alliance and given provincial protection when it started drawing thousands of visitors — have become a major economic driver in the Port Renfrew area, Cash said. They’re one of three top draws to the area, along with Botanical Beach and fishing.

“At the Information Centre in Sooke, one of the top three questions is: ‘Where is Avatar Grove?’ ” he said. “The big trees have drawn hundreds of thousands of dollars of business.”

The San Juan spruce, which stands in a forest recreation site beside the San Juan River, is the largest spruce tree in Canada at 62 metres tall, with a crown that spreads over 23 metres. It does not have any official protection.

Meanwhile, Arbor, who is a certified arborist, is planning to come back to Port Renfrew in the summer to pose with other big trees.

“My goal is to capture a moment of intimacy in these wild places.”

Link to Times Colonist article: www.timescolonist.com/news/the-naked-tree-hugger-makes-her-way-to-port-renfrew-1.105165

Quadra Island is the largest of the Discovery Islands

Tourism businesses slam forest policies

There’s a new confrontation brewing in British Columbia forests and it’s coming from an unlikely source. The latest battle to protect Vancouver Island’s forests isn’t being waged by an environmental organization—it’s being waged by business, in particular, the tourism industry. A group of tourism businesses in the Discovery Islands, near Campbell River, are charging the government with indifference to the needs of a major economic player in the region.

The Discovery Islands Marine Tourism Group is a coalition of businesses including the local Chamber of Commerce, which claims provincial forest policies designed by the BCLiberal government are encouraging the forest industry to clear-cut forests along marine corridors which are critical to the survival of a large wilderness based tourism industry.
The group went public with its concerns by publishing a full page ad in the Victoria Times Colonist criticizing the government for its inaction.

Spokesperson Ralph Keller says the group wanted to send a strong message to government that forest management polices aren’t working for Discovery Islands business, employees and their families. ‘We’ve spent a lot of time and money trying to convince the government there’s a serious problem here but they’re not listening.’

The Discovery Islands are home to over 120 tourism-dependent businesses: lodges, resorts, motels, campgrounds, marinas, tour companies, and related operations which employ over 1,200 people and generate $45 million in revenue every year. ‘The Discovery Islands have become a world class destination worthy of increased protection,’ Keller said. ‘We’ve become the second most important marine wilderness destination in BC, behind Tofino/Pacific Rim, yet the government is managing the forests here like its 1956. They’re treating us like bystanders instead of major revenue producers and employers.’

Keller went on to say that in the last 15 years, Vancouver Island has lost most of its pulp mills and saw mills and with them thousands of jobs—now out-sourced to Asia. ‘The once great forest industry is now just a logging industry acting with impunity, completely insensitive to our needs. They degrade our operating environment then send the timber not only out of the region, but out of the country. Is this supposed to be the BCLiberal commitment to jobs and families?’
‘We’re not against logging, but when the government revised the Forest Range & Practices Act in 2003, they gave all the power to the logging industry and left every one else out of the planning process.’

He went on to say that tourism operators are kept completely in the dark about cutting plans. “We find out about forest development plans when we start to see trees being felled. We’re being misled about forest industry intentions and have no meaningful way to influence cut block design. When we complain to government, they tell us to go talk to the licensees. Who’s writing the rules here? Whose forests are these? It’s pretty clear this government is about corporate
resource extraction and everybody else is just in the way”

Read More: https://www.islandtides.com/assets/IslandTides.pdf

Mountain Caribou are Canada's largest old-growth dependent animal.

Comment: Caribou plan little help to endangered herds

The outlook for most of B.C.’s 15 remaining mountain caribou herds is bleak.

In the south especially, it ranges from looming extinction to permanent life support in the form of periodic reintroductions, calving-assistance programs and, above all, predator culls without end.

It’s time the B.C. government faced the fact that its Mountain Caribou Recovery Implementation Plan, announced in 2007, is doing little to improve the situation for these animals and in some areas has made matters worse.

On paper the Mountain Caribou Plan looks good, promising to rebuild the population from 1,700 to 2,500 animals by 2027. This will be achieved, it claims, through a three-pronged approach comprising: first, 2.2 million hectares of mostly high-elevation forests set aside as winter habitat; second, intense predator control targeted at wolves and cougars; and third, management of mechanized backcountry winter recreation.

Actually, one of the recovery teams argued for inclusion of a fourth prong, what they called “matrix habitat.”

As originally defined, matrix habitat is low to mid-elevation forest not necessarily occupied by mountain caribou but capable, when logged, of supporting moose and deer and hence their predators in substantial numbers. Wolf and cougar populations bolstered by clearcuts in matrix habitat often spread out into neighbouring protected areas, and became predators on the resident caribou.

What the recovery team was urging was a commitment by government to refrain from creating ever more clearcuts in matrix habitat. Unfortunately, this did not happen.

Most of the set-asides are at high elevations where, granted, they provide critical winter habitat. The few places where set-asides extend to valley elevations are rarely more than small thumbs of old-growth forest protruding into landscapes already heavily logged. For the rest, the government’s plan has entrusted the mountain caribou’s future to a costly, ethically questionable regime of predator control.

The very idea that a workable recovery strategy could be founded on a war against predator populations largely of its own creation seems incredible. It is like hoping to raise chickens without building a chicken coop. You can blast away at predators as long as you like, but the problem never disappears. Sooner or later you lose your chickens.

Mountain caribou, of course, aren’t chickens. They’re a nationally and internationally threatened ungulate species, arguably the most iconic animal in the mountain region of Canada and, besides, an animal essentially endemic to B.C. They deserve better.

No doubt the architects of the caribou plan really believed that a combination of high-elevation set-asides and stringent predator control could return the mountain caribou to its former numbers. Unfortunately, they were wrong. In 2007 there were 1,900 mountain caribou in the world. Today, only about 1,500 remain.

What should be done? If you ask Steve Thompson, the minister responsible for caribou recovery, he will likely tell you the situation is dire and calls for “extreme measures.” Pressed further, he will go on to talk about his government’s commitment to transplant programs, birthing pens and still more predator carnage. What he almost certainly will not tell you is that actions of this kind amount to little more than life support, a rearranging of deck chairs as the great ship of Canada’s mountain icon goes down.

B.C.’s mountain caribou plan claims to be committed to adaptive management, which means learning from mistakes and doing better. The time has come for the government to bolster the plan by establishing new set-asides in lowland matrix habitat. This is what its own recovery team called for in the days before the planning process went political, and certainly it is the only action that can possibly begin to turn the situation around.

As to where these set-asides should be situated, that will take some thinking. One approach would be to place them in the two or three regions that according to best science are most likely to support mountain caribou in the long term. In order of viability these are the Hart Ranges, Wells Gray Park and, running a distant third, the Selkirk Mountains.

Trevor Goward is a lichenologist and naturalist who makes his home in the Clearwater Valley near Wells Gray Provincial Park.

Read More:https:// https://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/op-ed/comment-caribou-plan-little-help-to-endangered-herds-1.95843