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A leaked provincial cabinet document indicates that the provincial government is contemplating “suspending” the powers of one of its most powerful public servants in order to expedite a controversial logging program that has raised alarm bells in the professional forestry community.

The document leaked late Tuesday afternoon, is the second confidential report in as many days to find its way out of government through back channels — a sign, perhaps, of the growing unease that some public servants in the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations have with some aspects of the “jobs” agenda of Pat Bell, minister of jobs, tourism and innovation.

Bell, MLA for Prince George-Mackenzie, and John Rustad, MLA in the nearby riding of Nechako Lakes, have been actively promoting a plan to ease or eliminate environmental constraints on logging activities so as to artificially extend logging rates in the interior of the province where several rural communities are heavily dependent on logging and milling jobs.

The driving force behind the move is that after 25 years of elevated logging rates in the central interior of the province in response to two outbreaks of mountain pine beetles that killed upwards of one billion mature lodgepole pine trees, the logging and milling industries are running out of trees to cut. Personal Student Loans For College

The growing scarcity of trees came sharply into focus in January when an explosion and ensuing fire at the Babine Forest Products sawmill in Burns Lake — the town’s largest employer — destroyed the mill, killing two workers and displacing 250 more.

In the immediate aftermath of the mill burning down, word rapidly spread that the mill would likely not reopen given the generally depleted nature of forests throughout the region. But Bell and Rustad claim to have found enough trees to provide Hampton Affiliates Ltd. — the owner of the aforementioned mill — with enough wood fibre to reinvest in a new facility.

The trouble is that to get at the wood, the government would essentially have to override previous forest planning processes that set limits on what could be logged in order to protect remnant patches of old-growth forest, important wildlife corridors that make it possible for important species like woodland caribou and moose to survive, other forests with high biological diversity values, and forests with high visual values, for example forests within sight of communities or in important scenic corridors.

Such a plan, the leaked cabinet document makes clear, would likely place cabinet in a difficult position with the office of the chief forester, one of the most important posts in the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Operations.

‘Extraordinary legislation’ urged

“This action to enable a higher short-term supply would be a deviation from chief forester policy and practice in timber supply management,” the cabinet submission dated April 7 reads. “There is some risk that the independent chief forester of the day may not agree with this action, or of a legal challenge if he/she does.”

The same document then goes on to recommend that Cabinet consider introducing “extraordinary legislation” to artificially prop-up logging rates in the Lakes Timber Supply Area or TSA, thus providing the necessary “certainty” for Hampton to invest in a new Burns Lake mill.

“Under this option,” the leaked memo reads, “government would enact legislation to enable a set of specific actions to add certainty to the supply of timber for a new Babine Forest Products mill over a 15 year period.”

Such actions, the memo continues, would “suspend current Forest Act provisions for the chief forester to set the annual allowable cut and the Minister to make license apportionment decisions in the Lakes TSA.” The legislation would then “vest these functions with the Lieutenant Governor in Council.” In other words the decision would simply be a political decision, driven by the provincial cabinet.

Bruce Fraser, former chair of British Columbia’s independent Forest Practices Board, expressed deep concern over the contents of the memo.

“The independent status of the chief forester is designed to ensure effective management of the forests,” Fraser said. He said that were such legislation to be introduced it would mean that professional and technical expertise within the ministry was superseded by short-term political considerations. “Once that door is open, you can allocate pretty much anything” to be logged. It becomes “the burn the furniture stage.”

Pine beetles, jobs and road miles

A big unanswered question arising from the leaked cabinet document is what the provincial government may yet be contemplating when it comes to the chief forester’s powers in three other large timber supply areas where the pine beetle has also been active. Those TSAs include that in Bell’s riding — the Prince George TSA — as well as the Quesnel and Williams Lake TSAs. Those three TSAs, along with the Lakes TSA, were all each subject to “mid-term timber supply” studies conducted by the chief forester and other ministry staff last year. The studies resulted from a directive issued by Pat Bell, who was then forests minister.

The results of that work were temporarily posted on a government website Tuesday morning and early afternoon before the government summarily removed them following questions about the document raised in the legislature by Independent MLA, Bob Simpson.

That document flagged that there was a serious problem brewing in all four TSAs due to years of elevated logging activities in response to the pine beetle outbreaks.

“Under current lumber market conditions,” the document read, “it is uneconomical to harvest dead pine located at long haul distances from the mills. Licencees [logging companies] have indicated that the economic supply of dead pine varies from 1.5 years in Quesnel to about five years in the Prince George TSA.”

The document went on to suggest that the depth of job losses and mill closures could be offset, somewhat, by relaxing virtually all constraints on logging forests that had been reserved from logging for environmental reasons.

But job losses would, nonetheless, occur and they would be formidable.

In the Lakes TSA, for example, relaxing the logging rules would mean that instead of local milling and logging jobs falling from 1,572 jobs in the days before the pine beetle outbreak to 434 jobs in the near future, the jobs would decline to 521 jobs instead — a difference of 87.

In the Prince George TSA, relaxing the logging rules would “maintain” an additional 1,915 jobs. But overall, the decline in milling and logging jobs would still fall dramatically from 13,371 jobs in the pre-beetle-attack years to 8,763 jobs in the near future.

In the Quesnel area, relaxed logging rules were estimated to “maintain” 377 more forest industry jobs. But again, the overall trend was down from 3,321 jobs in the pre-epidemic period to 2,092 jobs in the near future.

And in the Williams Lake area, relaxing the logging rules allegedly maintained 1,144 jobs than would otherwise be the case. But once again, the trend was down from 4,626 pre-epidemic jobs to an estimated 2,955 jobs.

‘Things that need to be discussed’: Clark

In response to questions in the legislature by opposition leader Adrian Dix about the leaked cabinet memo yesterday, Premier Christy Clark said that the document had not gone before cabinet “in the form” that Dix and others had before them.
 “But it does discuss many of the things that are under discussion in the community — things that need to be discussed, issues that we’ve talked about with the steelworkers, with the First Nation, with community leaders and with people from across the province,” the premier said. “These are discussions that we have to have, and it’s a much bigger issue than just in Burns Lake.”

Clark also said that the government would be “consulting the public about these issues.” Presumably, it is hoped, that will happen before a decision to “suspend” the chief forester’s authority is made.

Read more:   https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2012/04/19/Logging-Levels/

Old-growth forests, wildlife corridors and other long-protected timber zones in the British Columbia Interior could be opened up to logging in order to keep mills operating, according to a cabinet document detailing a proposal under consideration by the provincial government.

The document, stamped “Confidential Advice to Cabinet,” was prepared for Forests Minister Steve Thomson earlier this month.

It proposes shifting forest management from a stewardship model to one that puts short-term economic interests first – but warns that such a dramatic policy change could trigger legal challenges and that it might meet with opposition from BC’s chief forester.

Mr. Thomson, who Wednesday said he was concerned that the document had leaked out, said he has been presenting a variety of options to cabinet on the crisis precipitated by the pine-beetle infestation, “but no decisions have been made yet.”

He wasn’t sure if the leaked document, which wasn’t in his possession at the time of the interview, had been presented to cabinet as it stood, or if it was an earlier version that was later revised.

But he said the issues raised in the document are under consideration by cabinet.

“It’s to provide awareness around some of the options that are being considered,” he said.

NDP Leader Adrian Dix raised the matter in the House Wednesday afternoon, saying: “The submission suggests that the proposals to seek adequate timber supply … would not be possible under current laws and would require, in fact, significant changes to allow it to happen.”

But Premier Christy Clark told Mr. Dix the document he had obtained “did not ultimately go in that form to cabinet,” although she did not provide any details on the final version.

The leaked document deals with timber-supply problems in the BC Interior, where a massive area of forest has been destroyed by pine beetles. Over the past several years, the annual allowable cut throughout the region has been increased, to allow the forest industry to harvest dead trees before the wood loses its commercial value.

BC government projections show that after the timber killed by pine beetles has been logged off, a major shortage of harvestable trees will occur, starting within two years and lasting for as long as 50 years.

In some regions, the amount of harvestable trees will fall by 75 per cent, causing mill closings and the loss of up to 12,000 forest-industry jobs.

A fire in Burns Lake this winter exacerbated the problem by destroying a mill the company said won’t be rebuilt without a secure supply of wood.

“Hampton Affiliates Ltd. requires government assurance of an adequate … timber supply before it will invest in rebuilding the Babine Forest Products sawmill,” states the cabinet document.

To find more timber for mills, the government has been looking at allowing logging in areas that have long been protected.

The document warns such an action “would be a deviation” from the policies followed by the chief forester.

“There is some risk that the independent chief forester of the day may not agree with this action, or of a legal challenge if he/she does,” it states.

Ben Parfitt, an analyst with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, described the document as “shocking” because it proposes casting aside the stewardship approach and overruling the authority of the chief forester.

He said a proposal to log protected areas will preserve some jobs for a few years, but eventually the timber supply will collapse, and the jobs will be lost anyway.

“If you go that route, you lose wildlife corridors, you lose biodiversity and you end up with a grotesquely compromised land base,” he said.

Vicky Husband, a leading environmentalist in BC, said the document shows government is contemplating drastic measures that would do long-term damage to the forest.

Independent MLA Bob Simpson said the public should not have to learn from leaked documents that such significant changes are being contemplated by government.

“It is time to get public consultation going on this,” he said.

Four years ago, sitting in the house he built with his own two hands way up the coast in Echo Bay, 73-year-old Billy Proctor listed the ways he could tell salmon stocks had collapsed.

Hungry eagles had taken to hunting seagulls, had even killed a couple of loons before his eyes. Bears had been reduced to clawing through creek beds for salmon eggs. Seals were chasing fish far up the streams.

Proctor even saw a humpback whale scare herring right onto the mudflats in front of his home on Gilford Island, which sits in the heart of the Broughton Archipelago, a float-plane ride east of Port McNeill.

Overfishing was partly to blame for the loss of salmon, Proctor said. So was predation by seals, sea lions and dolphins. But particularly galling was the free for-all in the forest industry: bridges and culverts disrupting streams, mudslides silting up the spawning gravel, the shock of blasting for road building killing roe.

When the shade-giving trees along the banks of a high altitude river were cleared, the rocks heated, the water temperature rose and the salmon eggs died. The rules go out the window when the logging is done away from prying eyes, Proctor said.

Me, I just sat and listened, having been advised that when Proctor opened his mouth, the smartest thing to do was keep yours shut. A commercial fisherman for 60 years, and a logger, too, his knowledge of the natural world is legendary on the coast.

The conversation came to mind Wednesday with two stories out of Ottawa.

The first one dealt with the leak of a proposal to weaken 36-year-old rules protecting fish habitat, the intent being to clear some of the barriers faced by projects such as the proposed Enbridge pipeline from Alberta to Kitimat.

The fisheries minister’s office reacted to the leak with a statement saying “federal fisheries policies designed to protect fish are outdated and unfocused in terms of balancing environmental and economic realities.”

The second story dealt with a government plan to “modernize” environmental assessment legislation for the same purpose. The Conservatives talk about being “efficient” and “effective,” about needing to save industrial development from getting bogged down by time consuming environmental reviews. They paint a picture of economic opportunities being lost to the woolly headed, woolly hatted ecoshrubs who say “no” to every job-creation idea that involves shifting a rock or chopping down a tree.

Hold on, replies Green Party leader Elizabeth May. That’s a nicely spun narrative, but not one rooted in fact.

In the entire history of the environmental review process, only three projects have been flat-out rejected, says the Saanich-Gulf Islands MP.

That includes the most commonly cited example, Ottawa’s thumbs-down to a proposed mine near Williams Lake in 2010. The rest of the time, the review process is merely used to tweak proposals to mitigate their environmental damage, not stop them altogether.

“This isn’t a system that’s set up to operate with a red light and a green light,” May said Wednesday from Ottawa.
She maintains there is really only one reason the Conservatives are intent on “gutting” the Fisheries and Canadian Environmental Assessment acts: “It’s all about fast-tracking oilsands projects that link to supertankers.”

The broader consequences will be disastrous and should alarm any Canadian, regardless of political persuasion, who cherishes the great outdoors, she says. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is intent on stripping Canada of environmental safeguards that have been around for generations.

We can assume the prime minister has a different take. And maybe he’s right. It’s a matter of perspective and priority.

But the thing is, the farther you get from Ottawa (or Victoria, for that matter), with the sound of ideological warfare fading with every step, it’s hard to think of the Canadian wilderness as being over-regulated.

Mismanaged, perhaps, and more troubled than a Hollywood marriage – but even when rules exist, they’re enforced so sporadically that sometimes they might as well not exist at all. No wonder David Suzuki is always scowling.

When the Conservatives talk of “balancing environmental and economic realities,” it’s easy to imagine a voice bouncing back from Echo Bay saying, “That would be a good idea.”

Read more: https://www.timescolonist.com/technology/Harper+changes+rules+environment/6305828/story.html

B.C. Forests Minister Steve Thomson has overruled recommendations from his own advisory board on log exports dozens of times in the past three months, electing to send millions of dollars worth of raw logs to Asia rather than local mills.

The minister’s decisions effectively put logging profits ahead of jobs in B.C. mills, says a forestry executive whose bid for coastal logs was approved by the minister’s Timber Export Advisory Committee but quashed by the minister.
Mr. Thomson said he has rejected his committee’s advice, citing an arcane policy debate about freight costs. But the result is that workers at a Teal-Jones Group sawmill in Surrey are facing down time this week because of a shortage of fibre, while buyers in China, Japan and South Korea are purchasing B.C. logs in record volumes at premium prices that B.C. mills can’t afford.

“There is room for exports, but I think the significant increase in exports is going to ensure nobody can put up another mill in B.C.,” said Hanif Karmally, chief financial officer for the Teal-Jones Group.

Teal-Jones, which owns a string of forestry operations across the province, found that the committee started approving its domestic timber bids in December – after a year that saw a 50-per-cent increase in the volume of logs being shipped overseas.

But the minister’s office disagreed with the committee’s new-found reluctance to declare as “surplus” those logs that were being sought by local mills. Throughout December and January, the ministry spiked 86 recommendations by the advisory board that would have kept roughly 70,000 cubic metres of wood in B.C. mills. By February, the ministry simply stopped sending the applications to the committee at all, directly rejecting another 47 local offers for 35,000 cubic metres of wood.

The wood is being sold to Asian mills at about double the domestic price.

The minister’s decisions were raised in the legislature on Tuesday, just hours after Premier Christy Clark held a press conference to tout the success of her jobs plan.

NDP Opposition Leader Adrian Dix blasted her government for putting mill jobs at risk. “They specifically intervened to stop jobs from being created in British Columbia,” Mr. Dix later told reporters.

Ms. Clark was not in the legislature on Tuesday. Instead, she attended an event at Seaspan Shipyards to mark the six-month anniversary of her jobs plan.

“That’s the problem when you have a communications exercise dressed up as a jobs plan,” Mr. Dix said. “That’s the reason, ultimately, that the government is in such trouble.”

Mr. Thomson told reporters he rejected the advice of his committee because his government is in the midst of a policy review on raw log exports and the committee appeared to be changing policy on its own by pushing more wood to local mills.

“They are an advisory committee … but given the fact that there was a shift in policy advice, we administered the policy as it had previously been administered.”

He said his government needs to find the “appropriate balance” to ensure harvesting jobs are maintained as well as processing jobs. He is set to visit the Teal-Jones operations next week. “The Teal-Jones boys know we are looking at this policy, what we are telling them is that it is under review.”

He said the question of surplus timber is wrapped up in the larger review of raw-log exports that is under way.

In January, Ms. Clark promised a conference of truck loggers that the review would not shut the door on raw-log exports. “I can assure you that on log exports, my government is taking a common-sense approach,” the Premier said at that time.

Read more in the Globe and Mail:  https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/bc-politics/minister-costing-logging-jobs-critics-say/article2368563/

When photographer Frances Litman realized she was considered one of the biggest donors to local environmental charities, she was surprised.

“It made me laugh because I’m an artist,” she said. “I thought, if I’m considered a good donor, this is pretty sad.”

Through research, she says, she learned that environmental charities receive less than four per cent of all charitable giving in Canada – compared with the medical charities that receive more than 80 per cent.

“I thought, this is insanity,” she said. “I thought I was alone in this thought, but what I realized was that all of my artist friends felt the same way. So I said, ‘Why don’t we creatively unite?’ ”

The movement will take the shape of a new festival, appropriately held April 20 to 22 during Earth Week. Creatively United for the Planet, a three-day, all-ages event, will mix entertainment with opportunities to support green charities.

“It’s a way to bring the environmental charities to a fun event,” said Litman.

Several artists have donated their time to the volunteer-run festival, including Ann Mortifee, Robert Bateman, the Soul Shakers, flutist Paul Horn, the Gettin’ Higher Choir and conservation photographer Garth Lenz.

Events kick off April 20 with an all-ages Mardi Gras-themed dance party. Costumes are optional.

There will be sessions on how to make your house green, growing young gardeners and more.

Other events include creative events for kids, opportunities to learn about various animals, a fashion show, a John Lennon tribute concert and a student art auction.

Events will be held both indoors and outdoors at St. Matthias Hall.

Funds raised through the event will benefit the Sierra Club of B.C., the Western Wilderness Committee, the Dogwood Initiative, Ancient Forest Alliance, the Garry Oak Ecosystems Recovery Team, the B.C. Land Conservancy/TLC, Wild Arc, RAVEN (Respecting Aboriginal Values and Environmental Needs), Oases Conservation Society, Peace Valley Environment Association, Child and Nature Alliance, Habitat for Humanity Victoria and YES B.C.

“These charities, now more than ever, need our support if we are going to maintain the lifestyle that we want,” said Litman.

“We have to start taking it on ourselves to give more support to the people who are fighting for this.”

Local environmental charities will be present to build awareness and answer questions. A CRD information booth will also have information about regional sustainable initiatives.

Litman said not to expect a “tree hugger” event.

“This isn’t hippie; this is hip,” she said.

She also promises a “good news” festival. “It’s not about scaring people,” she said. “It’s about, OK, let’s all join together and have a great time over this three-day event.”

Read more: https://www.timescolonist.com/news/todays-paper/Artists+unite+protect+planet/6256946/story.html