348 BC-Canada

–In BC One of the finest writers in the forest protection movement had his recent narration on the destruction of East Creek reprinted (1).The petition drive to get minister Coleman thrown out is up to 2,200. (2) Rich Coleman always seems to find something good to talk about when it comes to representing big timber at government hearings (3). One writer speaks of how painful it is to see Coleman act this way (4). In BC’s interior ancient forest there’s word about a film that tells the story of those who have helped to save their forests. (5). On the Pine Beetle Front Dr. Suzuki yet again warns about Beetles and carbon emissions, as well as how clearcutting creates future Beetle outbreaks (6). There always lot of forest articles about doomsday predictions. This one is about Beetle/logger induced erosion and flood (7). In southern interior of BC there is a Joint Feasibilty study thatcanuse your support in creating a Wild Okanoganen (8). A new 100-page report called “The Community” Forest Trojan Horse, has been made available. It’s about the debacle of conflicting interest over forest resources on the Sunshine coast (9). The Democrats have introduced the “Wildlife Protection Act 2008” (10)

–In greater Canada scientists have found how most new nitrogen enters the forest via cyanobacteria living on the shoots of feather mosses (11). Near the TransCanada Trail on Sumas Mountain neighbors are banding together to protect some very old trees from logging (12) The rapidly declining forest industry says it’s not the cost of oil, or the housing market bust, it’s really the Endangered Species protections that are ultimately going to destroy the industry (13)

British Columbia:

1) I just spent two weeks in one of the last ancient rainforests on Vancouver Island, west of Port Alice. After passing over the last mountain ridge, where a bulldozer had plowed a tunnel through 10 feet of snow, we descended into the East Creek valley, which has been pristine since the last ice age 10,000 years ago. In the past few years LeMare Lake Logging has blasted over this mountain ridge and felled most of the old growth forest in the upper watershed of East Creek. Massive stumps from ancient Cypress (Yellow Cedar), Mountain Hemlock, Pacific Red Cedar, and Balsam Fir trees are all that remain in clear-cuts devoid of life. Thin strips of trees separate the roads from the main water tributaries. We watched as more trees were being felled. Hundreds of truckloads of logs lie on the sides of the roads, waiting for the snow to melt so they can be hauled to the boom yards for shipping. The public has been led to believe that logging is kept away from the watershed of creeks, but that is not the case. Western Forest Products will be moving in to replace LeMare Lake Logging in the next couple of months and they will destroy the lower valley. As far as the BC Ministry of Forests is concerned this is a done deal with no public process for approval. http://islandlens.blogspot.com/2008/05/old-growth-logging-increases-with.html

2) NDP forests critic Bob Simpson filed a 2,200-name petition in the legislature Tuesday on behalf of the group seeking the minister’s resignation. Simpson said the WFP decision came after a similar one in 2004 allowing Weyerhaeuser Co. to remove its private lands from a tree farm licence in the Port Alberni region. That move, he said, left the resource town surrounded by private lands, throwing its timber-based economy into disarray. “That should have been a lesson learned,” Simpson said. A Vancouver Island first nation took the province to court over Port Alberni issue, claiming the government had not lived up to its obligation to consult with them, and won. The court ruled that the forest minister could have prevented the land from being taken out of the tree farm licence and failed in his duty to consult. However, since the lands had already been sold to a new owner, the decision was not reversed. http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?id=138b939e-9f48-470d-bacc-8fe5494ff5da

3) Rich Coleman: This is the government that attracted $3 billion in capital investment because of the changes that were made in the forest sector. This is the government that made the changes that were necessary to put our market in a position to compete in world markets long term. When the downturn in the forest industry turns around, this will be the jurisdiction in North America and the world that will be able to compete better than anybody else because of those changes. D. Routley: The minister obviously isn’t prepared to take his responsibility for the failings of the softwood lumber agreement, but softwood is not the only failed forest policy of this government. For weeks we’ve pointed to situations where mills are closing. All they need is fibre, but this minister’s policies won’t allow that. In a review of TimberWest by Citadel Securities, they say the following: “The company does not log but contracts out its harvesting. It does not mill, having closed both its sawmills. What it is doing is preparing to become a full-time real estate seller and developer. “To its credit, it has deceived no one as to its intentions, but one wonders how long the Minister of Forests can accord the rights and privileges of a forest company to one that does so little forestry.” So what’s it going to be — continued log exports? Mills starved of fibre, not able to address markets that they have? Or will the minister step up today and reverse these policies? Hon. R. Coleman: We have tenure in British Columbia. We actually do get fibre to our mills and we’ll continue to do so. D. Routley: It’s unfortunate that, again, we have complete denial from the minister. We are losing jobs that we don’t need to lose. Mills that have markets are closing because they don’t have fibre, and yet that’s the answer from the minister. http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_central/lakecowichangazette/news/19273944.html

4) It’s painful to watch Forest Minister Rich Coleman bluster in the legislature. And it’s surprising. In their second term, the Liberals have avoided getting hung up on ideological positions that leave them looking uncaring or inept. Not on this issue. There’s a disaster going on in the forest industry and the communities that depend on it. Mills are closing across the province, many of them permanently. That Bruce Springsteen lyric – “These jobs are going boys, and they ain’t coming back” – is sadly apt. The industry has shed about 13,000 jobs in the last year. In the same period, the economy has added about 70,000 jobs, so there are opportunities. But the people being booted out of the forest industry aren’t necessarily at the front of the line to get those jobs. And the plunge from an income of $60,000 a year to $25,000 is difficult. Consider Mackenzie, a beautiful town of some 4,500 people, about two hours north of Prince George. In January, AbitibiBowater closed two sawmills and a paper mill. Those closures threw 325 people out of work. Now the Pope and Talbot pulp mill has closed shut. Another 260 people with no idea when, or where, or if, they would work again. In less than six months, 585 good, well-paid jobs were gone – about 20 per cent of the town’s workforce. http://www.lillooetnews.net/madison%5CWQuestion.nsf/0/FEFA6801DCABD99688257456007AB8E2?OpenDocument

5) We now have in the office (Williams Lake) the film BLOCK 486, by award winning filmmaker Richard J. Olak. The film gives a unique perspective into one community’s struggle to preserve the area as a park, and another’s effort to keep the only mill in town runing. Part documentary, part journey, Block 486 poses fundamental questions about BC’s logging industry. The film was donated to our Society by Barb Coupe, who recently attended a workshop in Prince George on these Interior Old Growth forests. For more infor visit http://www.ancientcedar.ca

6)”The government’s response to the outbreak has been to intensify clear-cut logging of infested stands of trees to slow the spread of the beetle and to quickly send to market any lumber that still holds economic value. But according to Canadian scientist and media personality David Suzuki, “The hyper-pace, scale and intensity of clearcutting threatens to exacerbate greenhouse gas emissions from infested stands.” Furthermore, Suzuki fears that this approach may also lead to more destructive outbreaks by creating even-aged stands of lodge-pole pine, which, as they mature, are preferentially targeted by the beetle.” — Dr. Faisal Moola, Director of Science David Suzuki Foundation http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0805/full/climate.2008.35.html

7) Pine-beetle damage will do more than let us see into our neighbours’ windows once the trees are gone. Experts predict the loss of more than 80 per cent of the Okanagan’s pine stands could trigger a doomsday scenario in the next decade. The devastation will induce more flooding, forest fires, water-borne illnesses and give invasive species a greater foothold than at any time in the last century. Urban foresters have concentrated mostly on the esthetic changes that pine beetles have wrought on our landscape. Scientists warn the Okanagan is in for a sea change of biblical proportions — one that puts our homes and health at risk. Never in recorded history has the mountain pine beetle, indigenous to British Columbia, ravaged so much terrain in the province. Nearly 14 million hectares of lodgepole pine have been infested — an area more than four times the size of Vancouver Island. The tiny pest has already killed three million trees in the Kamloops area — about 95 per cent of the city’s pines. It’s munching southeast to the Okanagan’s doorstep, preparing to attack in big swarms this summer. Huge tracts of land near Vernon, on the plateaus surrounding the valley and above Westside Road in Kelowna are now dotted with red, dead trees. Foresters predict major beetle flights to the valley bottom by August. The Okanagan was lucky last year. Prevailing winds and frequent changes in weather held off massive attacks in the Okanagan. Still, crews in Kelowna removed four times as many infested ponderosa pines from Mission Creek Regional Park last summer as the year before. “I expect over the next two years we’ll lose a very significant amount,” said Cathy MacKenzie, forest health operator for the regional district’s parks division. Saying goodbye to millions of pines across the valley — 600,000 within Kelowna alone — is one thing. More troubling, says engineer Don Dobson, is the impact on watersheds at high elevations. Dobson, who specializes in hydrology, has lectured groups about the pine beetle’s ripple effect on our water supply, flooding danger, wildlife and forest fires. –Westside Weekly May 28, 2008

8) Right now the BC and federal governments are undertaking a joint feasibility study to look at the possibility of creating a new national park reserve in the desert, grasslands, and Ponderosa pine forests of the South Okanagan and Similkameen Valleys in southern BC. To be located near the towns of Osoyoos, Oliver, and Keremeos, this proposal is currently Canada’s greatest conservation opportunity. A decision on whether the park will go ahead is expected to occur late this year or in 2009. A new South Okanagan – Similkameen National Park would be a park of superlatives. The national park would: 1) Protect Canada’s only “pocket desert”, one of Canada’s top four most endangered habitats; 2) Protect more species at risk than any Canadian; 3) national park. One-third of BC’s species at risk live in the region, including canyon wrens, badgers, white-headed woodpeckers, tiger salamanders, spotted bats, sage thrashers, and Great Basin spadefoots; 4) Protect a greater diversity of ecosystem types than any Canadian national park, ranging from “pocket desert” with rattlesnakes and cacti in the valley bottoms, to alpine tundra with mountain goats on the mountaintops. 5) Be a major economic boon for local citizens and the BC economy by protecting and enhancing tourism and many recreational opportunities. A national park in the region would produce $72 million in investments, 832 full time equivalent jobs, $56.3 million in incomes, $120 million in expenditures, and $39.9 million in government tax revenues over ten years, according to a 2006 report by the South Okanagan – Similkameen National Park Steering Committee; 6) Bring in greater funding and expertise for wildfire management; 7) Protect the native landscapes and local environmental values for First Nations, local residents, and the people of Canada in an area under intense urban sprawl and development pressures. — Right now an opposition movement is rallying to stop the national park based on concerns about hunting opportunities, grazing rights, and First Nations rights. However, the park also has very strong local and national support, with over 6000 Okanagan residents signing a petition http://www.okanaganpetition.org in favour of the national park and 19,000 people in total signing from across Canada. WRITE and PHONE NOW so we don’t lose this opportunity! BC Environment Minister Barry Penner: barry.penner.mla@leg.bc.ca

9 ) In a recently released 100-page report by the B.C. Tap Water Alliance (May 20, 2008), “The Community” Forest Trojan Horse, case history details the controversies surrounding the Sunshine Coast community forest since 2003. The report describes both the provincial government’s Ministry of Forests and the forest industry’s brazen efforts to include two of the Sunshine Coast Regional District’s drinking watersheds in the community forest tenure against the wishes of “the community”. The report also investigates the questionable backgrounds of a number of directors on the community forest board, its operations manager Kevin Davie (the provincial Association’s vice-president) and the District of Sechelt’s Mayor Cam Reid. For about forty years, the Regional District and its residents have steadfastly struggled with the provincial government calling for protection of Crown and private lands in the Chapman Creek and Gray Creek Watershed Reserves. After the unambiguous results of a 1998 Sunshine Coast regional referendum to end logging in these Reserves, and the subsequent development of a watershed protection Accord between the Regional District and the Sechelt Indian Government from 2002 to 2005, the B.C. Liberal government’s Minister of Forests and Range nevertheless included the controversial watersheds in the community forest tenure. In March, 2008, some three years after the Sechelt Indian Band withdrew as a community forest partner, the Band notified the B.C. Liberal government that the two Watershed Reserves were under Interim Protection measures and requested the Reserves be immediately removed from the community forest. As a result, Agriculture and Lands Minister Pat Bell (in charge of First Nations negotiations) notified the community forest directors that the two community watersheds were being axed from the community forest tenure. “The motivations and actions of the District of Sechelt, community forest directors, and the provincial government have been deplorable. They have cast a huge shadow over the Association and the vital concept of “community” forestry”, said Will Koop, author of the report, and Coordinator of the B.C. Tap Water Alliance. http://www.alternatives.com/bctwa

10) New Democrats will introduce the “Wildlife Protection Act 2008” today, important stand alone legislation to protect B.C.’s environmental heritage after the Campbell government failed to deliver on expectations they would finally address the 1300 species at risk in B.C.. “The Campbell government wasted their opportunity to do more around the protection of B.C.’s ecosystems. Their legislation totally failed to address the issues and was a big disappointment to many organizations with a keen interest in stewarding B.C.’s environment for future generations,” said Simpson, MLA for Vancouver-Hastings, referring to the Campbell government’s recent Bill 29, the Environmental (Species and Public Protection) Statutes Amendment Act, 2008. A coalition of key environmental groups raised issues with the direction the Campbell government took on the wildlife amendments, saying the changes put “wildlife protection in last place.” The coalition included the Sierra Club, the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, David Suzuki Foundation, Eco-justice Canada (formerly Sierra Legal), UVIC Environmental Law Clinic, Western Canada Wilderness Committee, Wildsight and the BCGEU. The purpose of legislation to be introduced today is to identify species at risk based on the best available scientific information including information obtained from community knowledge and aboriginal traditional knowledge, to protect species that are at risk and their habitats, and to work towards the recovery of species that are at risk. The Act also promotes stewardship activities to assist in the protection and recovery of species that are at risk. British Columbia is Canada’s richest province, biologically hosting 76 per cent of Canada’s bird species, 70 per cent of its freshwater fish species, and 60 per cent of its conifer species. Karin Heimlich, 250-889-6308 http://bcndpcaucus.ca

Canada:

11) In pristine boreal ecosystems, most new nitrogen enters the forest through cyanobacteria living on the shoots of feather mosses, which grows in dense cushions on the forest floor. These bacteria convert nitrogen from the atmosphere to a form that can be used by other living organisms, a process referred to as “nitrogen-fixation.” The researchers showed that this natural fertilization process appears to be partially controlled by trees and shrubs that sit above the feather mosses. In the summer of 2006, the researchers placed small tubes, called resin lysimeters, in the moss layer to catch nitrogen deposited on the feather moss carpets from the above canopy and then monitored nitrogen fixation rates in the mosses. The studies revealed that when high levels of nitrogen were deposited on the moss cushion from above, a condition typical of young forests, nitrogen fixation was extremely low. In older, low-productivity forests, very little nitrogen was deposited on the moss cushion, resulting in extremely high nitrogen fixation rates. Nitrogen fixation is an energy demanding process. Thus, when mosses are exposed to high concentrations of bioavailable nitrogen, the cyanobacteria will consume this resident nitrogen rather than expending energy on fixing new nitrogen. Thus the nitrogen content of canopy throughfall acts as a regulator of newly fixed nitrogen into these boreal forests. For this same reason, elevated nitrogen deposition from pollution likely reduces moss nitrogen fixation rates. The moss would initially buffer the forest against the effect of nitrogen added as pollution or fertilizer; however, chronic elevated nitrogen inputs would ultimately eliminate this natural source of forest fertility. The feather moss-cyanobacterial association provides a unique model system in which to study nitrogen feedback mechanisms. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080529141435.htm

12) Some neighbours and local advocates are trying to protect a stand of long-standing trees from being logged within a small area adjacent to the TransCanada Trail on Sumas Mountain. The trees, estimated to be around 140 to 160 years old, are “survivors” and should be “cherished and protected,” said John Ratzlaff, 81, a long-time resident on Sumas Mountain. “This rare stand of trees has managed to stay strong and sturdy over the last hundred years,” said Ratzlaff. “They have survived the heat of forest fires and the threat of local logging and they deserve to be preserved.” On April 22 a group of about 10 people, including Ratzlaff, a couple representatives from the TransCanada Trail and the Central Valley Naturalists, joined together to see the trees and throw around some ideas for the logging area. “I would like to see the area protected as park land and it would be great to have it connected somehow to the TransCanada Trail, so it can be made accessible to the public,” said Ratzlaff. As a boy, Ratzlaff use to hike through the Sumas Mountain area regularly and has many fond memories of the giant Douglas firs and Western red cedars. “I would hate to see them be cut down. I want them to be there for the future generations to come.” Ratzlaff and others are just embarking on the beginning stages of discussion. “There is no real urgency, but we will all get together again to go over more,” said Rick Biller, owner of Kelle Brothers, who has a license to log Woodlot 45 – an area of around 400 hectares, which contains the area of trees in question. Lots were originally proposed for logging in that area this year, but due to local concerns he deferred them, said Biller, who also attended the April 22 meeting at the forest site. http://www.canada.com/abbotsfordtimes/news/story.html?id=3aa273ff-d83f-47ce-9e7a-4e5fb410e74a

13) The Ontario Forest Industry Association says the new Endangered Species Act (ESA) puts in motion a crippling process that will bring the forestry industry to its knees. The new ESA is a triumph of forward-looking legislation. Exemptions will only serve to undermine this achievement – a step backwards for all of us. The high Canadian dollar has eroded the profitability of exports, the newsprint market has been shrinking steadily as people use the Internet more, and the cost of transporting wood from forests to distant mills has skyrocketed. Observing the ESA can instead be viewed as an opportunity. The industry association can show true leadership by promoting environmentally responsible forest products, given the growing demand for paper with the highest possible recycled content and for FSC-certified wood, instead of sticking with a business-as-usual approach. Moreover, as signatories to the Kyoto accord and to the Convention on Biological Diversity, we have obligations to protect our wildlife that extend beyond provincial borders. Our boreal forest covers about 750,000 square kilometres of this province and only 5 per cent of it is currently protected. It plays a vital role for the wildlife that depends on it and as a defence against climate change. http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/431934