392 BC-Canada

–British Columbia: 1) Sunshine Coast Sensitive Ecosystems Inventory, 2) Natives will have more clout over forestry, 3) Fighting over the ruins of Weyco’s land, 4) Old timers build and restore trails, 5) B.C. Supreme Court upholds fibre-supply agreement, 6) We’ve been separated by corporate spin,
–Canada: 7) RAN gives timber industry half of all that remains of Boreal forest, 8) An apologist PR organization losing members, 9) K-C is featuring Wall*E on Kleenex boxes, 10) Trees as chemical factories, 11) 104 year-old forester dies! 12) Trees In Trust,

Articles:

British Columbia:

1) The Sunshine Coast Sensitive Ecosystems Inventory (SEI) was undertaken to identify rare and fragile terrestrial ecosystems along the coastal lowlands of British Columbia from Howe Sound to Desolation Sound and the adjacent islands in the Strait of Georgia. The SEI is a “flagging” tool that identifies sensitive ecosystems and provides scientific information to governments and others trying to maintain biodiversity in the region. The Sunshine Coast Sensitive Ecosystems Inventory (SEI) identifies rare and fragile terrestrial ecosystems along the coastal lowlands of British Columbia. The study area includes Howe Sound to Desolation Sound and the adjacent islands in the Strait of Georgia. The Sunshine Coast forms the eastern component of the Georgia Basin Ecosystem, an ecological system unique in Canada. Landscape fragmentation, invasion of alien species, and loss to development has severely compromised much of the biodiversity of the western Georgia Basin and southern islands in the Strait of Georgia. The Sunshine Coast, with its small population and limited urban development, provides the last opportunity in the Georgia Basin to conserve viable representation of the diverse ecosystems and species which occur here. The SEI is a “flagging” tool that identifies sensitive ecosystems and provides scientific information to local governments and others who are trying to maintain biodiversity in the region. http://a100.gov.bc.ca/pub/acat/public/viewReport.do?reportId=3758

2) Natives will have significantly more clout over forestry in British Columbia after a court ruling that found the provincial government renewed licences granting the right to log in public forests in northern B.C. without meaningful consultation or adequate accommodation of aboriginal interests. The B.C. Forestry Ministry failed to acknowledge the distinctive political features of the Gitanyow First Nation’s aboriginal society when issuing the licences, Madam Justice Kathryn Neilson stated in one of her final rulings as a B.C. Supreme Court judge. (Judge Neilson was appointed to the B.C. Court of Appeal earlier this year.) The Forestry Ministry also failed to recognize the aboriginal right to expect the forest would not disappear while disputes over their claim to ownership of the land continue, Judge Nielson stated in a 43-page ruling distributed this week. The judge has asked for further submissions before ruling on the consequences of her decision. Natives in B.C. have unresolved land claims to almost the entire province. The current court ruling dealt with six 15-year licences issued in February, 2007, that granted the right to log in the Kispiox and Nass regions of the northwestern part of the province in exchange for complying with government forest-management objectives and paying stumpage fees. Judge Neilson stated that issuing the licences was the first step in permitting the removal of a claimed resource in limited supply. The annual allowable cut in the area would be about one million cubic metres of timber, the equivalent of about one million telephone poles. The licences covered almost half of the 16,800 square kilometres of territory claimed by the Gitanyow as their traditional lands. The Gitanyow, with a population of about 700 people, have been in treaty negotiations since 1980, but the process stalled in 1996, Judge Neilson stated. “Nevertheless, there is no question that substantial logging and road building have occurred on those lands and that these activities have had a significant impact on the sustainability of timber resources and on other aspects of Gitanyow tradition and culture.” http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080828.wbctree28/BNStory/National/home

3) Government and First Nations sparred Tuesday over whether sale of Weyerhaeuser Co.’s timberlands will result in local economic benefits. Whispering Pines Chief Mike LeBourdais, promised forest tenure in his traditional territory, sees the resource and the jobs it represents headed to the Cariboo. LeBourdais expressed frustration Tuesday after learning that government approval is imminent in the sale of the former Weyerhaeuser TFL 35 as well as another timber licence to West Fraser Timber and Interfor. At stake is about 750,000 cubic metres of timber annually. His band has been meeting recently with the provincial government, including Minister of Forests and Range Pat Bell, in hopes of obtaining some form of forest tenure. LeBourdais said Bell has promised tenure is forthcoming. “I don’t know if the minister takes us seriously,” LeBourdais said. “And what do we have to do to be taken seriously?” But Bell, in Kamloops Tuesday on holiday, responded in a telephone interview that Lebourdais is crying foul too early. “I’ve not made a decision yet. It’s a statutory decision I need to make. I’m a little surprised Mike is saying that. I’ve met with him on this and on other issues in the past couple of months.” Bell said the decision is not imminent and he is confident economic benefits will remain in Kamloops. The band’s economic development plans include the purchase of a pallet mill and a chip mill, but they need a long-term timber/fibre supply to make the operations viable. LeBourdais has been seeking a 15- to 20-year supply amounting to 400,000 cubic metres. Bell said he cannot detail confidential discussions but he called First Nations proposals “very interesting and quite promising for Kamloops to create a diversified business.” He expects to meet this week with Lebourdais. If the TFL sales goes ahead without any concessions, the resources will be bound for West Fraser mills in Chasm and 100 Mile House, Lebourdais figured. “I’m at a loss as to why we’re going to ship jobs out of Kamloops by just giving the timber licence to West Fraser,” Lebourdais said. “This transfer will not benefit Kamloops at all.” Whispering Pines has nothing to lose as it ponders legal action or direct action, he added. “We can file a legal injunction or put up a road block, I guess.” http://www.kamloopsnews.ca/

4) Two ferries and 135 kilometres northwest of Vancouver, the Upper Sunshine Coast is as close as it gets in Canada to retiree heaven. Mountains draped in lush hemlock and cedar tumble toward the sandy beaches of the Georgia Strait. There are three golf courses, miles of hiking and canoe routes, and, as the name suggests, more hours of sunshine than anywhere else on the BC coast. But that wasn’t enough for Tony Matthews back in 1987. The Powell River resident, who a couple of years earlier had leaped at an offer of early retirement from the town’s downsizing pulp mill, got bored trekking the same trails, and began clearing a four-kilometre path through dense bush to his favourite fishing lake. When he needed help building a footbridge over a stream, he called on three retired buddies. Among them was a powerhouse named Roger Taylor, who had been master carpenter at the mill for forty-five years. Every Thursday morning, the four friends gathered for coffee at the Edgehill, an old-time store/diner on the outskirts of town that serves home-cooked breakfasts alongside shelves stocked with basic groceries. Then they headed into the bush to craft the bridge from downed cedars that littered the forest floor like pick-up sticks. By the time they finished, they had developed such a love for outdoor work that they began forging new trails in the nearby Duck Lake area. The squad now has twenty active members, all over sixty-five. Most worked in the mill at one time, but there are also teachers, engineers, tradesmen, and a doctor among their ranks. They are a loosely structured posse: no leader, no rules. The group still meets, rain or shine, every Thursday morning for coffee at the same diner before heading into the forest. They also gather Fridays for breakfast, and get together annually to choose up to twenty projects for the coming year. “We call ourselves an ‘active social club,’” says the eighty-seven-year-old Taylor. “We’re as healthy as hell.” The current project is rebuilding a section of the 180-kilometre Sunshine Coast Trail, eradicated in a recent clear-cut of a woodlot on the Sliammon reserve, north of town. By 9 a.m., the squad has split into groups, each with a different task. Almost all the building materials come from the forest floor; other supplies have been donated by the BC Forest Service; and logging company Weyerhaeuser has kicked in some cash. http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2008.09-field-notes-bomb-that-brush-margo-pfeiff-life-after-retirement/

5) B.C. Supreme Court upheld a fibre-supply agreement for the Mackenzie pulp mill Thursday and approved a purchase agreement with Edmonton-based Worthington Properties, clearing the way for a start-up of the mill in the economically troubled town. The resource town of Mackenzie, population 4,700, has been hit hard by the forest sector downturn. Besides losing the pulp mill, the town has had a paper mill and three sawmills close within the past year. Details of the purchase agreement reveal that the fibre-supply agreement, which obligates Canfor to provide 200,000 tonnes of wood chips a year to the pulp mill, is worth more than the pulp mill itself. If PricewaterhouseCoopers exercises an option not to transfer the licence, the $20-million purchase price for the pulp mill is reduced by $13.5 million to $6.5 million. If Worthington chooses an option not to accept it, the purchase price is reduced to $7.5 million, giving the fibre-supply agreement a value of $12.5 million. “The reality is: Without the fibre-supply agreement, the mill is not worth very much in the current environment,” Sandrelli said. Canfor owns a sawmill adjacent to the pulp mill and the two operations thrived from the symbiotic relationship during better times in the forest industry. A conveyor belt transferred the wood chips, residue from the sawmilling process, to the adjacent pulp mill. However, the collapse of lumber prices prompted Canfor to shut the sawmill down. It argued in court that its consent is required for the fibre-supply agreement to be transferred to a new owner. Justice Brenner rejected that argument, saying details in the agreement don’t support Canfor’s view. http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?id=1212d8c0-d1f9-4d3a-9710-4589a651dcaa

6) Today we live in a world where local residents from different walks of life may have very similar convictions about the fact that multinational corporations are destroying our world, but we are separated by the spin created by those very same corporations. Government and big business continue to pit the workingman against environmentalists, First Nations, and the general public, while they run away with the cash. Together we need to create the future for our communities, island, province, country, and planet. We can’t leave it up to greed. We must unite to demand an end to corporate control of our forests. While the 24-year old, with 5 years falling experience, cut away the huckleberry bushes and small saplings, the older faller talked with me about the reality of his industry. He blamed the downturn in forestry on the greed of those same corporations who continue to flip Tree Farm Licenses with the help of government to turn a profit. He was outraged by land deals being made by Western Forest Products and TimberWest that are to turning timberland into real estate. His thoughts were that the land belongs to the people of this province and it should be illegal for multinational investment corporations, backed by banks, to sell it out from under the public for profit. First the young faller determined the lean of the tree, then he cut out a wedge of wood with an undercut, and then he moved to the other side of the tree for the back-cut. With the help of a wedge he tipped over the 4-foot-in-diameter Western Hemlock, pulled out the chainsaw, and walked back 10 feet where he watched the tall tree crash to the ground with a thundering boom. Then he cut down 3 more trees. Two giant Sitka Spruce trees towered over us but it would take these men most of the day to clear the smaller trees in the area before tackling them. The rest of the day would take a novel to describe in detail. On the way down to sea level I drove past several excavators building new roads and a blasting crew preparing their drilling machine. At the log dump I watched a massive log boom of prime old-growth cedar logs being loaded onto a barge, which can hold 16,000 cubic meters of wood. Two giant towers dropped gargantuan claws into the water and pulled up massive bundles of logs while sidewinder tugs pushed more wood into their range. That evening, in the loggers’ bunk house, as I gathered signatures on release forms for my film entitled “Such Great Heights”, the men were very intrigued by my production. The Hoe-Chuck operator, sitting on his cot beside a laptop computer, copied down my website: http://www.islandboundmedia.ca promising to check up on me right away. rcboyce@shaw.ca

Canada:

7) Rainforest Action Network (RAN) of San Francisco has long been one of America’s leading rainforest campaign organizations. Yet in July their campaign to protect Ontario, Canada’s boreal forests doomed half this vital global ecological system to industrial destruction. In return, RAN and other proponents received vague promises of protections
over a decade from now, but no protected area boundaries or protection plans. Canada’s boreal forests are home to hundreds of sensitive species of animals including polar bears, caribou and wolverines. Boreal forests are some of the world’s largest carbon storehouses, with holdings equal to decades of global emissions from fossil fuels, while continually absorbing new emissions. The boreal region is also the world’s largest reservoir of clean fresh water. “Just how much longer do you think environmentalists can
strike deals that give up half of large wilderness ecosystems to industrial development for vague promises of protection? Simply, more ecologically attuned folks know no more natural habitats can be lost and expect to survive climate change,” explains Ecological Internet’s President, Dr. Glen Barry. Neither RAN, WWF or even Greenpeace realize that there is no longer any acceptable reason to industrially destroy or diminish an intact natural ecosystem — not if falsely FSC certified, not to briefly alleviate poverty, and not because indigenous people are in favor. The state of the Earth is so grim, and the needs to protect and restore natural ecosystem so large, that only sufficient campaigns seeking to end industrial cutting and burning are worthwhile any longer. The rest is greenwash. It is unknown if 50 percent protection — of unknown strength and placement — will be enough to fully sustain Ontario’s biodiversity and ecosystem services. Future protections will likely center on the sparsely populated and largely unthreatened northern boreal, while with its promotion and endorsement of the vague plan, RAN has greenwashed intensified
forestry and mining in the already heavily fragmented southern boreal. “The only meaningful forest protection is to work to keep all ancient primary forests standing, and to meet needs for forest products from secondary forests regenerating into old-growth. There is no chance of achieving global ecological sustainability until ecological destruction ends, what remains is fully protected, and restoration begins,” explains Dr.
Barry. http://www.ecoearth.info/shared/subscribe/

8) It’s rich to see Scott Jackson and the Ontario Forest Industries Association (OFIA) call Greenpeace a “special interest group. ” Greenpeace’s 2.5 million members in dozens of countries represent a much broader base of concern about Canadian forests than the OFIA, a lobby group for a handful of companies. But what can you expect from an apologist PR organization that is losing members? Jackson is not up to date on the latest, peer-reviewed science on the boreal forest that clearly contradicts his claims. The science shows logging intact areas of Canada’s boreal forest reduces carbon stocks and reduces the forest’s ability to resist and recover from climate change impacts like forest fires and insect outbreaks — impacts that are getting more severe and frequent and increasing carbon emissions from Ontario’s forests. The logical conclusion of his argument is: We should not preserve intact forest ecosystems; we should clearcut them all. He would replace functioning old-growth forests providing habitat for threatened species like woodland caribou with large clearcuts filled with tiny seedlings — half of which will die before they reach five years of age. Not a great way to fight climate change. If Ontario’s forest industry, and dinosaur members such as AbitibiBowater and Buchanan Forest Products, were practising sustainable forestry, why are so many mills closing? Sure it’s market conditions, but it’s also rising fuel costs because the big old trees are nowhere near the mills any more as the forest has become more and more fragmented. Jackson and the OFIA need to stop defending outdated practices and start rethinking the way forestry is done. And that includes conserving large areas of intact forest. Only then can Ontario’s forest sector be made truly sustainable for communities, for the environment and for companies. http://www.thesudburystar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1174485

9) Disney/Pixar’s new animated film Wall*E is set in a distant future when the Earth is barren of all life forms and humans have survived only by leaving the wasted planet to live in outer space. The sole inhabitant of planet Earth in this doomsday scenario is Wall*E, a lovable but lonely robot that has been tasked with cleaning up the mess us humans left behind. If you’ve seen the movie, you probably got the same thrill out of its environmental theme as us here at Greenpeace. Meanwhile, the movie’s smashing success at the box office is a clear indicator that its message resonates with Americans’ concerns for the future. That’s why it’s perplexing to see that K-C is featuring Wall*E on boxes of Kleenex. If you look on the bottom of these boxes, you’ll see a little recycled symbol that says: “This box is made from 100% recycled paper.” What you won’t see on the bottom of that box is a message telling you that the tissues inside it are made from centuries-old trees that were cut from forests that had been around for as much as 10,000 years – until K-C came along with its clearcutting practices, that is. Nor will the box tell you that K-C refuses to use any recycled material in Kleenex even though doing so would save huge areas of ancient forests. For the past few years, Greenpeace has been running the Kleercut campaign to pressure K-C to stop devastating ancient forests. Naturally, we couldn’t let K-C’s blatant attempt to use Wall*E as a means of greenwashing Kleenex’s image go by without comment. So we commissioned celebrated political cartoonist Mark Fiore to create an animated movie of our own. http://verbosemorose.blogspot.com/2008/08/kleenex-is-all-bad.html

10) Diana Be¬resford- Kroeger pointed to a towering wafer ash tree near her home. The tree is a chemical factory, she ex¬plained, and its products are part of a sophisticated survival strategy. The flowers contain terpene oils, which re¬pel mammals that might feed on them. But the ash needs to attract pollinators, and so it has a powerful lactone fra¬grance that appeals to large butterflies and honeybees. The chemicals in the wafer ash, in turn, she said, provide protection for the butterflies from birds, making them taste bitter. Many similar unseen chemical rela¬tionships are going on in the world around us. “These are at the heart of connectivity in nature,” she said. Beresford-Kroeger, 63, is a native of Ireland who has bachelor’s degrees in medical biochemistry and botany, and has worked as a Ph.D.-level researcher at the University of Ottawa school of medicine, where she published several papers on the chemistry of artificial blood. She calls herself a renegade sci¬entist, however, because she tries to bring together aboriginal healing, Western medicine and botany to advo¬cate an unusual role for trees. She favours what she terms a bio¬plan, reforesting cities and rural areas with trees according to the medicinal, environmental, nutritional, pesticidal and herbicidal properties she claims for them, which she calls ecofunctions. Wafer ash, for example, could be used in organic farming, she said, planted in hedgerows to attract butterflies away from crops. Black walnut and honey lo¬custs could be planted along roads to absorb pollutants, she said. “Her ideas are a rare, if not entirely new approach to natural history,” said Edward O. Wilson, a Harvard biologist who wrote the foreword for her 2003 book, Arboretum America” (Universi¬ty of Michigan Press). “The science of selecting trees for different uses around the world has not been well studied.” Miriam Rothschild, the British natu¬ralist who died in 2005, wrote glowingly of Beresford-Kroeger’s idea of bioplan¬ning and called it “one answer to Silent Spring” because it uses natural chem¬icals rather than synthetic ones. http://thechronicleherald.ca/Science/9008117.html

11) Mr. Creighton, a forester, passionate environmentalist and woodlot owner who served as the deputy minister for the provincial Lands and Forests Department for two decades, died Sunday at his Halifax home. He was 104. “We’ve lost our forestry god-father, our forestry guru who set a great example,” remembered Don Cameron, a forester with the provincial Natural Resources Department who met Mr. Creighton 20 years ago. “He implemented programs and set up things here that were way ahead of their time. Many of them are still in place. “It always amazed me — his continuing interest and passion for forestry.” Mr. Creighton graduated from Dalhousie University in 1926 and later from the University of New Brunswick, where he studied forestry. He went on to study forestry in Germany until he returned home in 1934, bringing many new ideas with him. In 1948, he took on the role of deputy minister for what was then known as the Lands and Forests Department. He kept the job until 1969, working under seven ministers. “You can imagine during that time, the politics were very strong,” Mr. Cameron said. “Usually, when a government changed hands, at least half of the people within a department were fired. . . . He survived that because he was so valuable. He didn’t pull any punches. He was not afraid to speak his mind and people valued that. . . . They realized his objectives were pure.” Mr. Cameron said Mr. Creighton was committed to the idea of forest sustainability and would speak to other woodlot owners about how it could and should be done. And in his role as deputy minister, he made profound differences. The province owes its forest fire-protection system — where lookouts man towers throughout the province in the summer — to him. He also pushed the government to establish game sanctuaries and to buy huge tracts of privately owned land, Mr. Cameron said. He also served as the president of the Canadian Institute of Forestry and was an active member of the organization for more than 75 years. Mr. Cameron said Mr. Creighton was never afraid to step up to a podium, take the microphone or answer questions from anyone — professional forester, woodlot owner or child. http://thechronicleherald.ca/Front/1074016.html

12) Ontario Nature is teaming with Trees In Trust, a web-based environmental fundraising organization, to encourage people to invest in the future of our native forests. A new online donation system allows donors to buy a piece of the forest as a gift, memorial or carbon offset. This approach to forest conservation makes the most of online public awareness campaigns and fundraising and top-of-mind environmental concerns. In exchange for an online donation (made at www.treesintrust.com), Trees In Trust provides a mapped piece of forest and a dedication certificate instantly, via the web. The donor’s dedication is then placed against a specific plot of land and held in his or her name in perpetuity. Ontario Nature uses the funds to steward the land and acquire additional parcels of land of similar quality. So far, Trees In Trust has partnerships with conservation organizations in three provinces including Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Ontario, and aims to expand by partnering with land trusts in every province. Three of Ontario Nature’s reserves are now on the Trees in Trust site: Altberg Wildlife Sanctuary Nature Reserve in Kawartha Lakes, Kinghurst Forest Nature Reserve south of Owen Sound and Cawthra Mulock Nature Reserve in York Region. This efficient fundraising system allows conservation organizations like Ontario Nature to acquire more endangered forest and to concentrate on conservation and protection rather than spending time handling payments, producing maps and printing certificates. Charitable tax receipts are issued for dedications of one-sixth acre and above. For more information, please visit the Trees In Trust website at http://www.treesintrust.com http://www.flamboroughreview.com/news/article/199923