Forestry

Dec. 23, 2021

RCMP raids at Wet’suwet’en and Fairy Creek, and the silence of the federal party, are resurfacing old divisions among Canada’s New Democrats

Frustration is mounting among left-wing members of Canada’s New Democratic Party, who feel the party has lost its way.

In recent weeks members have publicly quit, others have circulated petitions and some have shared stories of what they perceive to be dirty tricks from a party leadership determined to ostracize them.

Dec. 16, 2021

VICTORIA — The British Columbia government says it is finalizing plans with First Nations that have indicated support for plans to defer logging in certain old-growth forests, while it continues talks with nations that need more time to decide.

VICTORIA — The British Columbia government says it is finalizing plans with First Nations that have indicated support for plans to defer logging in certain old-growth forests, while it continues talks with nations that need more time to decide.

Dec. 17, 2021

With much of BC Timber Sales' old-growth logging on pause, the Province could direct the publicly-owned agency to focus its logging program on second-growth forests using ecosystem-based management.

Background

Dec. 14, 2021

First our warming climate caused the winters to be milder, and then the pine beetles were able to survive over the winter, and then the pine forests were overwhelmed by the beetles, and then the province let the foresters harvest the pine trees to salvage the crop, and then the wildfires came and burnt through the debris fuel, and then the atmospheric rivers dropped months’ worth of rain in a few hours, and then there were no trees to hold back the water, and then the creeks and rivers overflowed, and then the town of Merritt was evacuated to Kelowna and Kamloops.

Editor: Note the date of this piece.  So there were warnings.

May 10, 2012

Rapid runoff, scoured silt from B.C. Interior pose threats downstream.

The Fraser River is at risk of much more frequent and devastating floods because of the rapid pace of logging in the B.C. Interior to salvage vast stands of beetle-killed timber, according to a UBC researcher.

Dec. 6, 2021

Rachel Holt was part of a technical panel that mapped old growth

A Nelson ecologist who served as part of a provincial government panel that mapped B.C.’s remaining old growth forest is concerned about the way the government has implemented the panel’s work.

The Old Growth Technical Advisory Panel identified and mapped 2.6 million hectares of at-risk old growth forest.

Dec. 2, 2021

As more old-growth trees topple and forest industry jobs plummet, an obscure government subsidy scheme fuels the collapse

For more than 15 years, the BC government has rewarded logging companies with millions of additional old-growth trees to chop down thanks to an obscure “credit” program that allows companies to log bonus trees that don’t count toward their licensed logging limits.

Nov. 24, 2021

Nearly every one of the last 20 forest ministers, going back 35 years, has stood up at one point or another and indignantly denied that forestry is a sunset industry.

The fact they felt the need in the first place means the impression was out there. More and more, it looks like that impression was and is correct.

November 25, 2021

Deferrals and changes to logging legislation is coming. But the activists aren’t leaving