406 BC-Canada

–Today for you 35 new articles about earth’s trees! (406th edition)
–Audio and Video version of Earth’s Tree News: http://forestpolicyresearch.com
–To Subscribe / unsubscribe to the world-wide email format send a blank email to:
earthtreenews-subscribe@lists.riseup.net OR earthtreenews-unsubscribe@lists.riseup

In this Issue:

BC-Canada
PNW-USA

Index:

–British Columbia: 1) Unnatural History of Stanley Park, 2) B.C. National Forest Week, 3) Leaked draft regulations show total intolerance of endangered species protection, 4) Columbia Basin Trust (CBT) is interested in your feedback, 5) Concerns about Rinfret-Island Timberlands logging plans, 6) We are nearing the end of low end commodity market in BC lumber production, 7) We must export every tree to china! 8) Export to Mongolia too!
–Canada: 9) AbitibiBowater protests continue!
–Washington: 10) Three plead guilty to stealing high-quality old-growth timber from Olympic NF
–Oregon: 11) Stop the Farley Vegetation Management Project, 12) “Scientific experiment” to heavily log most of all of Pringle Falls Experimental Forest, 13) What’s a master woodland manager? 14) Helicopter-based stream restoration, 15) Herbicide protests continue to grow!
–California: 16) Berkeley Treesitters tell there side of the story, 17) She knows firsthand what it’s like to live near SPI’s clearcutting, 18) Innovative group is using a venture capital model to save some of the world’s most endangered species, 19) Last of the PL/Maxxam treesitters hit the ground,
–Idaho: 20) Profession of logging has changed drastically
–Montana: 21) Fires at elevations and fuel types where fires didn’t used to burn, 22) 800,000 bd. ft. of timber in Lewis & Clark NF in Great Falls,
–Wyoming: 23) USFS planning to celebrate megafires, aka: Appropriate Management Response (AMR)
–Colorado: 24) Beetle killed forest to change weather patterns, 25) Beetle panic causes healthy tress to be cut down from lack of awareness of natural seasonal needle loss,
–Minnesota: 26) What’s wrong with more mature forests with less aspen and more conifers?
–Arkansas: 27) Ozark will change in future, but no one agrees on what those changes will be,
–Georgia: 28) 2 100-megawatt bio-fuel plants makes big timber worry about being squeezed out of it’s wood supply, 29) Forest Land Protection Act,
–Virginia: 30) Farms and forest are creating 500 thousand jobs in the Commonwealth,
–West Virginia: 31) Big Coal has plans to blow up Historic Blair Mountain,
–North Carolina: 32) 26,968 acres of trees have been killed by bugs in Burlington, Ocean and Monmouth counties since 2007
–Maine: 33) New Bestseller: Forest Trees of Maine
–USA: 34) Take a Child Outside Week, 35) International timber prices remain depressed because of US housing slump,

British Columbia:

1) Herons, cars, and tennis courts: it’s an almost absurd scenario, one that encapsulates the awkward relationship that Vancouverites have with the 400-plus-hectare burst of greenery so implausibly close to the city’s downtown core. And, as has been made clear in the aftermath of the punishing December 2006 windstorm that felled 10,000 of the park’s 150,000 trees and caused severe damage to 40 hectares of the forest, Stanley Park is a work in progress, continually being renegotiated and altered to fit the whims of the day. That’s the message behind a new exhibit opening September 25 and running until February 15 at the Vancouver Museum. Titled The Unnatural History of Stanley Park, the show, which is being unveiled along with 36 new interpretive panels in Stanley Park, aims to challenge preconceptions of the park as an unspoiled slice of wild B.C. “What we’re trying to do is just inform people on the peculiar relationship that we people have had over the years with Stanley Park, and the ways in which, although we worship nature there, we’ve manipulated and controlled it and messed around with it,” explains the museum’s director of collections and exhibitions, Joan Seidl, during a preliminary tour of the exhibit. “Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just, let’s be honest about it.” When the aftermath of the 2006 blowdown was displayed on television screens across the nation and beyond, residents mourned the destruction of this iconic pristine forest. An outpouring of public grief and support for the park followed, with $3.5 million in corporate and individual donations and $2 million each from the City of Vancouver, the provincial government, and the federal government raised for its restoration. Shocking as the storm was, it’s worth noting that there was nothing unnatural or unusual about it. In fact, according to Seidl, there were 19 major blowdowns in Stanley Park between 1900 and 1960. Then in 1962 Hurricane Freda levelled a 2.5-hectare tract and cleared enough space to allow the construction of the miniature railway and petting zoo. “A windstorm of this magnitude is just basically nature’s way of culling out the old stuff and bringing in new things, and that’s exactly what happened,” Houghton points out. http://www.straight.com/article-163418/stanley-park%3F%3Fs-nature-was-shaped-human-hands

2) B.C. National Forest Week starts today and runs through the 28th. Provincial Minister of Forests and Range, Pat Bell says it is time to look to the future, “Maybe it looks a little different than the forest industry that I remember as a kid and the forest industry that I worked in the 1990s.” Bell remains optimistic the pulp and dimensional lumber sectors will continue to play a key role in the provincial economy but there will be change “It is also about new products and new services that we can provide to the public – whether it is energy, pellets, biofuels or new high-value building products.” Bell has set four key objectives that he wants to move forward. 1) maximizing the growth opportunity of forests. more emphasis on silviculture than on harvesting. 2) maximizing value from our forests. “I want a forest industry that fully utilizes every single part of the tree when we cut it down. We must use all components for maximum economic benefit to society and to create jobs throughout urban and rural British Columbia. 3) using more wood in large commercial and institutional buildings. “There is an opportunity to expand the use of wood products across the broader construction sector.” 4) The Chinese marketplace is very important to the growth of our industry. “This year, we will ship nearly one billion board feet of lumber into the Chinese market. That is a record and really starts to establish a long-term relationship with an immense potential market for our products.” Bell says his objectives will help grow forestry. http://www.opinion250.com/blog/view/10669/1/national+forest+week+starts+today

3) Draft regulations leaked today are proof that the Campbell government doesn’t care about protecting species at risk in British Columbia, New Democrat environment critic Shane Simpson said today. “These draft regulations are an embarrassment,” said Simpson, the MLA for Vancouver-Hastings. They miss the point completely, utterly failing to take the action needed to protect species at risk. It shows just how out of touch the Campbell government really is on this issue.” The environmental groups Western Canada Wilderness Committee and Ecojustice received a briefing document outlining aspects the Campbell government’ long awaited species at risk regulations. That document shows that only 38 species and 57 plants, out of more than 1300 that have been identified as at risk, will receive limited protection. Further, the regulations fail to recognize habitat protection as a key piece to the puzzle. “How can this government expect to protect species at risk when they ignore the role habitat protection plays in the effort?” said Simpson. “This legislation is weak – merely lip service. “The Campbell government has been promising tough action on protecting species at risk,” said Simpson. “Clearly, all they are really committed to is watered down regulations that will accomplish little.” Simpson said that last spring he introduced a private members bill, the Wildlife Protection Act. “My bill is comprehensive and would provide real protection based on science, while ensuring balance for other essential habitat uses when warranted. It provides a template for the Campbell government to move on, but they just are not interested.” Simpson added that it is vital to legislate species-at-risk protection – not just regulate. He noted that BC is one of only two provinces in Canada that don’t have legal protection for species-at-risk. “The Premier may claim to be green, but weak regulations like these shows the Campbell government really has no interest in doing what is right for our environment,” said Simpson. http://www.wildernesscommittee.org/

4) Columbia Basin Trust (CBT) is interested in your feedback on the draft social and environment strategic plans, which identify three-year goals and objectives aimed at addressing social and environment issues in the Columbia Basin region. To ensure the plans are consistent with Basin priorities, CBT engaged with a number of organizations and individuals within the Basin and with our advisory committees, examined our previous work, and reviewed recent studies on the Basin region. These plans will continue to evolve, as CBT regularly reviews the progress on planned activities and modifies them as opportunities arise. While the plans will assist us with managing our operations and budgeting, we also hope they will generate a greater understanding about CBT’s direction and commitment to addressing social and environmental issues in the Basin. Click on the links below to review the plans and then fill out the short survey online or download a printable copy of the survey and mail, email or fax it to us. Both surveys close on October 31, 2008. http://www.cbt.org/feedback/

5) Rinfret-Island Timberlands has no immediate plans to log the land it owns around the Port Clements gun range, general manager of forestry and planning Bill Waugh told the village council last Monday night (Sept. 15). “We’re not in a big hurry,” Mr. Waugh said. “We haven’t got any definitive plans.” Island Timberlands owns the range, which it leases to the rod and gun club, as well as the 80 to 100 acres of land surrounding it. Council members told Mr. Waugh they were concerned about the impact of logging on the gun range, the potential for blowdown in the area, and how any logging will look from the side of the road as visitors drive out to the Golden Spruce trail and Juskatla. Mr. Waugh told council that even though it’s private land, there are still some regulations that apply to logging it. The company does not have to harvest the trees all at once, he added. In his experience, he said, trees from around gun ranges can be full of lead and troublesome to harvest. Island Timberlands has decided that some of its other properties, like those on southern Vancouver Island, have a higher value as real estate rather than forest land. He asked council members if they thought the Port land could ever be developed for housing. “I guess you never say never,” responded mayor Cory Delves. The land is outside of the Port municipal boundaries, he added. Mr. Waugh said he would bring Port’s concerns back to Island Timberlands head office in Nanaimo, and said he would let council know as he got closer to making logging plans. http://www.qciobserver.com/Article.aspx?Id=3476

6) One industry expert puts it this way, “I believe that we are nearing the end of the low end commodity market in our lumber production, just as the American Running shoe market discovered that they could manufacture running shoes off shore and sell them cheaper, so is the lumber industry “. The government ,he says, is reluctant to move in because they need the stumpage money, there is some employment in the Silvaculture section, there is employment in the harvesting and transport of the raw logs and above all that there are no tariffs to face. So they send the raw logs to say for example China where labour costs are cheap. The random 2×4’s are manufactured at far less cost and they arrive back in Canada at less than half of what it costs us to produce that same dimension lumber. In Prince Rupert ship loads of raw logs are being exported to China from that port. They are being shipped by the First Nations people from the region who are either buying or harvesting the raw logs loading them on ships and sending them off to the markets. They face no restriction in shipping raw logs and while in the southern half of the province where logs are being cut and shipped into the USA as a means of getting around the Lumber agreement the cost of finishing that lumber is more in line with the BC costs making it less of a commercial opportunity, not so with China say the experts. http://www.opinion250.com/blog/view/10726/3/raw+log+exports..+the+way+of+the+future

7) This year for the first time we will sell about one billion board feet (BBF) of lumber into China. This compares to under .5 BBF in 2007 and just .2 BBF in 2006.To put this into perspective we shipped about 10 BBF to the US in 2007. Also, Japan’s housing starts jumped 19 per cent over the same month one year ago to 97,212 units, the first such increase in 13 months. This figure must be qualified because in July 2007 new home starts plunged by 23 per cent (the biggest July drop in 14 years) after new building standards were imposed. As in recent months, wood framed unit construction shot up significantly, by 21 per cent from one year ago to 45,335, which accounted for 47 per cent of total July starts. July building permits were also up, by 55 per cent from one year ago, and 5.5 per cent from June. http://foresttalk.com/index.php/2008/09/22/b-c-minister-says-forest-industry-is-rec

8) British Columbian wood products and building expertise are helping Mongolia alleviate an urban housing crisis, Forests and Range Minister Pat Bell said today as two B.C.-designed demonstration homes officially opened in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar. “Rapid urbanization is creating a housing shortage in Mongolia, and a real need for safe and permanent housing,” said Bell. “B.C.’s expertise in wood-frame construction offers Mongolia an affordable, energy- efficient housing solution and continues to create new international marketing opportunities for B.C. wood products.” Under an agreement signed last year between the Province and Mongolian government, the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) helped Mongolia update its residential wood-frame construction building code to Canadian standards and provided training and technical support. The two demonstration homes were built from B.C. wood products and showcase how the new building standards can be applied to local needs. The homes will be used to promote residential wood-frame housing and for training in construction and related trades. More than 1,000 potential home buyers have already toured the homes in the weeks leading up to the official opening. http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/pab/media