CHEK News coverage of proposed logging by Island Timberlands in old-growth forest only a few hundred metres from the world famous Cathedral Grove in MacMillan Provincial Park on Vancouver Island.
"At first glance Bill 8 — the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act — looks like housekeeping legislation. Read a little closer and one discovers one of the most pernicious pieces of forest legislation to be tabled in the legislature since a forests minister lost his job over the same issue in 1989. Bill 8 includes an addition to the Forest Act that would allow the forests minister to invite corporations to roll over their forest licences into Tree Farm Licences (TFL), effectively transferring private ownership rights to the corporation without any reciprocal benefit in the public interest..."
Thanks to the Powell River Voices, Sierra Club, and Communication, Energy, and Paperworkers (CEP) for hosting a great evening with a full house last night, with a presentation and discussion on raw log exports, TFL expansion/forest privatization, and ancient forest protection.
An area of rainforest near Prince George is so unique that it should be designated as a provincial park and protected as a United Nations World Heritage Site, says a new study by the University of Northern B.C. The area, called the Ancient Forest, contains massive stands of giant red cedars usually associated with wet coastal forests, as well as rare plants and lichens.
Myths and Facts about the Proposed TFL Expansion Bill, by Independent MLA Bob Simpson
Independent MLA Bob Simpson says documents show that the BC Liberals have no intention of following their proposed law to enable the conversion of volume-based forest ...licenses to area-based tenures.'It’s clear from the leaked cabinet document and Minister Thomson’s letter that Hampton Affiliates has already been promised the first Tree Farm License under the Liberals’ proposed legislation,' said the MLA for Cariboo North. 'The government doesn’t have the right to make this offer because there is no legal way they can fulfill it unless Bill 8 passes.
This appears to be essentially a giveaway to big companies,” said Jessica Clogg, a lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law who specializes in forestry issues. She was referring to a tenure rollover plan given first reading last week that ...would give forest companies the ability to convert their volume-based forest tenures to area-based tenures called tree farm licences.“We have seen a lot of consolidation in the industry and this is setting us up for that last grab by those that are left standing to lock down their rights,” she said Thursday. “I see a clash of the titans over the B.C. land base.
A British Columbia government bill that would radically shift the management of public forests is drawing criticism from environmental groups, the head of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs and opposition politicians.
The B.C. government continues to look for ways to feed more timber to struggling sawmills through proposed Forest Act changes, but the government is failing to consider the massive role intact old-growth forests play in fighting climate change, says the report, Carbon at Risk: B.C.’s Unprotected Old-growth Rainforest.
One year of logging old-growth forests in southwestern B.C. blows away a year of carbon-emissions reductions made through climate-change fighting initiatives such as the carbon tax, says a Sierra Club report released Wednesday.
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