Georgia Straight: Proposed logging around the Clearwater Valley near the spectacular Wells Gray Provincial Park threatens the second largest herd of mountain caribou in BC.
Policy analyst Eric Hamilton-Smith said there is growing pressure to log marginal forest — including old growth — to compensate for the shortfall due to mountain pine beetle. He also pointed to increased volumes of waste wood, policies absolving companies from having to build mills in communities and a draft policy to convert forest licences into tree farm licences. If government were serious about developing secondary manufacturing in the sector, it could create tens of thousands of jobs, he said.
An environmental coalition will Thursday attempt to push protection of the Great Bear Rainforest onto the already crowded election agenda, issuing open letters to B.C.’s main political leaders, calling for more immediate action.
Forests Minister Steve Thomson's account of proposed changes to forest licences in B.C. is being questioned by independent MLA Bob Simpson and Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives researcher Ben Parfitt.
In their dying days, the BC Liberals will introduce enabling legislation that will allow politicians to give forest companies exclusive rights over our public forests without the checks and balances of governing laws or regulations, or the guaranteed scrutiny of a transparent public process.
According to a leaked cabinet document, the “rollover” of volume-based licenses to area-based tenures was recommended to cabinet in April as an option to enable the rebuilding of the Burns Lake sawmill — a month before the committee was formed and five months before it made its recommendations public.
Given the short duration of the upcoming legislative session and the provincial election to follow, a government plan to introduce a scant two-paragraph bill granting it powers to fundamentally alter the course of forestry in B.C. is disturbing, to say the least.
Logging company Island Timberlands is putting its plans to harvest a roadside section of forest near the Alberni Highway summit on hold. They are pressing the pause button on the logging project after being hit with a wave of outrage from citizens in the Valley. Many say a roadside cut will destroy the beauty of the region and could affect tourism.
“We considered our plans over the weekend and now we are putting a temporary suspension on the harvest of the buffer along the highway,” Island Timberlands spokeswoman Morgan Kennah said in an interview Monday.
On Monday, Island Timberlands starts logging about 40 hectares of privately managed forest land beside a hilly section of Highway 4 known as the Hump. It tops out at the 400-metre-high Alberni summit, about nine kilometres east of Port Alberni.
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