by Jim Cooperman
It has been slightly more than a year since my last Watershed Sentinel update on BC’s forestry issues. Not much has changed, other than the Gordon Campbell Liberal government has now enshrined in law forestry policies that virtually hand over themanagement of our public forests to the timber corporations.
As well, government staffing has been reduced to the point that there is nearly no one left to enforce what few rules remain. The situation is further compromised by the corporate-friendly media, which rarely covers environmental criticism and protests. Below is a summary of recent developments, followed by some suggestions for how to deal with the issues.
Biodiversity protection in your dreams:
The biodiversity guidebook, a maze of compromises, half-truths and contradictions, was introduced in 1995, but implementation was stalled as old growth forests continued to be logged at unsustainable rates. Now, MAY-JUNE 2004 by Jim Cooperman nine years later, the Forest Practices Board has released a critical report that reveals only a few forest districts have the minimal biodiversity protection measures in place and that the new forestry legislation omits any requirements to protect biodiversity. As well, the province lacks any monitoring of biodiversity implementation and the government has yet to formally establish the draft Old Growth Management Areas (OGMAs) that now exist in most regions. Of most recent concern are reports from inside government that industry is lobbying that OGMAs be replaced by the nonspatial old growth designation order recently passed in Victoria. For more information, read the full report at www.bcfbp.ca
Softwood shenanigans:
Despite all the rhetoric, court cases and the BC government’s flawed market-based pricing system now underway on the coast (and coming soon to the interior), there will likely be no solution until after the US election. Many forest companies have continued to make profits despite the tariff, which is charged by the US to offset government subsidies to the forest industry (on April 30th, NAFTA issues a ruling on whether Canadian lumber imports pose a threat of injury to the US lumber industry). Also, companies likely yearn for the day the softwood dispute is solved and the over one billion dollars collected in tariff charges be returned to them (as happened in the mid-ninties). Amazingly, despite the enormous provincial debt, the government has not raised any objections to this money going into corporate coffers. Recently, US trade envoy Grant Aldonas visited BC and expressed enthusiasm for BC’s minimal attempts to create a market-based system, even though the government predicts that stumpage rates will fall likely because companies will still be able to rig the system.
Beetle mania:
As if unsustainable rates of clearcutting and last year’s fires are not enough of a problem, BC’s forests are rapidly succumbing to voracious, climate-change induced beetle populations that show no signs of slowing down now that they have made it past the Rocky Mountains. BC’s beetle boss, Bob Clark, announced last week that the Annual Allowable Cut is likely to climb from 70 million cubic metres to nearly 200 million to deal with the beetles. And typically, the province has not a clue as to how this lumber could be marketed, especially considering how bloated the world lumber markets, including the US are already. Perhaps this year’s fires may get to these beetle killed forests before the feller-bunchers.
Results will be biased under new code:
Corporate forestry’s dream legislation that virtually ends government supervision is now the law. The (de)- regulations, which guide the province’s Forest and Range Practices Act, became effective on January 31, 2004. Under this new “Results- Based Code,” companies will now be drafting new plans (every five years instead of every year) that may be devoid of any specific information. They even have the option of devising their own environmental objectives if they think the existing ones are too restrictive. The government now has extraordinary restrictions on when and how they could reject these plans and even then any action must not “unduly reduce the supply of timber.” For a more comprehensive critique, see http://www.wcel.org
Subsidization not privatization:
There was typically scant media coverage of a recent protest in Victoria opposing the Working Forest legislation, which doubles the land base devoted to industrial forestry. The government was quick to point out how protestors were off the mark in characterizing the problem as privatization. While the government is likely right in their claim that the working forest will not result in the sale of forestry lands, this legislation along with other new laws does provide forestry companies with new rights similar to and even better than private ownership. Of course the companies along with their cohorts in government are no doubt pleased that the environmentalist’s concerns can be dismissed so easily. These companies now have rights that are preferable to private ownership and to get these rights they didn’t have to pay for the land or pay land taxes. A more accurate, and likely more newsworthy, description for the government’s deregulation efforts would be subsidization. The government even admits that its goal is to reduce costs to industry.
Endangered forest-dependent species:
The future looks bleak for BC’s forest- dependent species and the ecosystems they inhabit. On the coast, the establishment of Wildlife Habitat Areas (WHAs) for marbled murrelets is already constrained by the rule that WHAs can only impact the timber supply by one percent. In the lower mainland, logging of remaining spotted owl habitat continues with the blessing of the provincial government, while the federal government sees no need to utilize its Species at Risk Act. Fewer than 1,900 mountain caribou now remain in BC, while logging continues to eat up critical habitat and ever-expanding motorized recreation impacts many of the herds. Now the government is in the process of revising the Kootenay land use plan to allow even more logging of the old growth forest habitat needed to ensure the survival of the remaining caribou. See www.mountaincaribou.org for more information.
Profits before jobs and communities:
There is no room anymore for the small outfit in BC’s forests. Under the Campbell Liberals, big is beautiful and value-added opportunities are no longer achievable. BC Timber Sales has replaced the small business program and only large sales are available, which has put horseloggers out to pasture and other small operators out of business. Meanwhile, now that:
• forest licences are no longer linked to mills;
• the five-percent take-back when tenures are sold is gone;
• and tenure sell-off is allowed without government oversight; corporate mergers and take-overs are increasing and fewer companies control greater amounts of forestlands. Canfor’s recent absorption of Slocan gives it control of nineteen percent of the provincial cut. Smaller mills are being shut down as mega-mills where fewer workers are needed take over most of the production.
All is not lost, yet:
These are tough times to be a sustainable forestry advocate in this province. While many activists soundly criticized the union-friendly NDP government even though it doubled the park land base and tried to improve forestry practices, they were ill prepared to deal with the Campbell government’s complete assault on environmental values and its virtual handover of public forests to the corporations.
At this point in time, the only opportunity left to maintain some semblance of environmental protection of non-timber forest values is to maintain vigilance of the existing, however insufficient, land use plans and work to ensure that implementation continues, including full establishment of all old growth management areas. Since forest companies now have the keys to the forests, it will be necessary to hold back nausea and maintain communication with them to monitor their plans and push for changes if and when wildlife, watersheds and recreational opportunities are threatened. As traditional forms of protest become increasingly ineffective, the best way to deal with the growing number of problems is to support those groups (such as Forest Ethics, www.forestethics.org) that work on market campaigns and provide them with information about specific concerns. To keep up-to-date on current issues see www.BCFacts.org and to learn about sustainable alternatives and solutions to the softwood quagmire see www.forestsolutions.ca
The only real clout remaining for BC activists is to raise awareness provincially and internationally of how BC’s forestry policies further subsidize corporations at the expense of workers, communities, and the environment.
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Thanks to Mark Haddock and Candace Batycki for their reviews and suggestions Clearcut photos, D. Broten; Logs, E. Strijbos
Jim Cooperman was editor of the BC Environmental Report and the BCEN Forest Caucus coordinator for a decade. He lives above Shuswap Lake and is the president of the Shuswap Environmental Action Society. He can be contacted at jcoop@direct.ca or www.seas.ca
FSC Only Credible Forest Certification
BC First Nations, environmental groups and forest workers have declared that the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) logo is the only credible certification mark for sustainable forest management. FSC recognizes Aboriginal Title and resource governance rights, and supports local wood processing. It is currently the only brand recognized by sustainable building and design groups. FSC certified lumber is now produced and available in BC. Similar conclusions were reached by FERN, the European forest campaign group, in Footprints in the Forest, available at www.fern.org
—Union of BC Indian Chiefs, Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Canada, Greenpeace and West Coast Environmental Law Association, April 2004
Biodiversity Protections Gone
A Forest Practices Board study released in mid-March confirms that BC has failed to implement promised protections for biodiversity. The Board found that the province’s biodiversity strategy, which was supposed to protect important habitat for endangered and other species outside of parks, was thoroughly implemented in only a small percentage of the province and that the fate of the strategy under the new Forest and Range Practices Act is unclear. “The situation is even worse, because the Province has actually regulated new obstacles to protecting biodiversity through the new Government Actions Regulation,” said Jessica Clogg of West Coast Environmental Law. The Government Actions Regulation prohibits the government from taking a long list of actions related to protecting wildlife, forests and water if they would “unduly reduce the supply of timber from Br it ish Colu mbia’s forests.”
—WCEL press release, March 2004
