402 BC-Canada

Index

–British Columbia 1) Suzuki: How much is a forest worth? 2) Loggers have to leave less waste behind? 3) Save Cathedral grove again! 4) Donate to save Valahalla mile, 5) New ways to measure how much forest they destroy, 6) Comment for Caribou, 7) Specific failings of claims to saving Caribou,

–Canada: 8) Make sure our boreal birds have a summer home to return to, 9) Save Ogoki Forest, 10) African tree workers, 11) Opportunities in the New Brunswick Forest Sector, 12) 10 inches in diameter and 198 years old, 13) Taking credit for an industry give away, 14) Forestry jobs lost in Atlantic Canada won’t come back,

Articles:

British Columbia:

1) How much is a forest worth? And how do we calculate that value? Do we simply count the trees and figure out how much we could get for them if we were to cut them down and turn them into logs, lumber, and pulp and paper? That’s been the traditional approach, but it hasn’t served us well. A forest is much more than the timber it holds. A forest provides habitat for wildlife, recreational opportunities for hikers and hunters, a place for quiet contemplation, and filtration and storage of drinking water. And because forests scrub carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in their trees and soils, they are a critical “hedge” against global warming. When we take into account all of the ecological benefits, or services, a forest provides, we have to reevaluate the way we make decisions about how we manage them. Clear-cutting an old-growth forest may provide temporary jobs and profits, as well as two-by-fours to build homes and furniture, but if it also results in the release of carbon stored in the trees and soil, thus contributing to global warming, or if it wipes out the habitat of an animal that is crucial to the natural order, then the short-term gains may not be worthwhile. Two new reports illustrate the idea of taking into account the full suite of values that a forest represents, or its “natural capital”, when making decisions about resource management. Dollars and Sense: The Economic Rationale to Protect the Spotted Owl Habitat in British Columbia and The Real Wealth of the Mackenzie Region: Assessing the Natural Capital Values of a Northern Boreal Ecosystem both argue for a more holistic approach to managing our natural ecosystems. For a long time, we’ve only considered the immediate market value of resources when making forest-use decisions. In doing so, we’ve ignored the enormous value of the ecosystem services that are critical to biodiversity, human health, and community well-being. Although it’s not easy to put a dollar value on things such as carbon sequestration and storage, water filtration, clean-water availability, and species diversity, it’s foolish to leave them out of the equation. For Dollars and Sense, researchers looked not just at the value of timber in old-growth forests in B.C. inhabited by the endangered spotted owl, but also at the value of recreational uses, nontimber forest products, and the role the forests play in storing carbon. They concluded that “in 72 of 81 scenarios, increased forest conservation yields better economic returns than does status quo logging and limited conservation.” The Mackenzie report concludes that the nonmarket value of that region is 11 times greater than the market value. The researchers estimate that the market value, based on gross domestic product, is $41.9 billion a year, while the non-market value, based on 17 ecosystem services, is $483.8 billion. http://www.straight.com/article-162143/will-saving-bc-forest-save-us-money

2) Logging companies are going to be required to leave less waste behind to help build a new bioenergy industry in B.C., Forests Minister Pat Bell said Tuesday. But Bell said Victoria is looking at incentives, not heavy-handed rules, in this latest remaking of regulations for the troubled B.C. forest sector. The province is drafting new regulations that will remove many of the barriers to using the whole log, and once that is done, Bell said he expects companies to leave less waste. He said government, as landlord, is going to have to be involved in ensuring more value is extracted from the forests than is the case today. The motive, he said, is to develop a new bioenergy industry that will transform the way wood is used. The minister’s comments come after the province’s own fiscal update shows revenues from the industry are expected to plunge 36 per cent this year. In  an address at the University of B.C.’s Clean Energy Research Centre, Bell compared the move to full log utilization with the transformation that hit the Interior industry 50 years ago when sawmill waste was used to provide fibre for a newly emerging pulp industry. “We are going to set the right framework to make sure that economics drive that decision and achieve that decision,” Bell said in a later interview. Bell said one of the ways the province can create a better framework is to change the way it charges stumpage on Crown timber. Now, companies are charged the full stumpage rate on any logs they bring out that may be of lesser quality than initially projected. As a result, companies avoid the risk of being billed too much by leaving any questionable wood behind. “Once the tree hits the ground we should be utilizing every single piece of the tree we can use within the economics of it. The damage has been done, the tree’s on the ground, let’s utilize it, so that speaks to a different way of charging.” http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?id=c5657d14-42e3-48bc-a0d6-f85759b650ae

3) A wonderful old growth forest around a magical lake that is close enough for the general public to visit, which they have been doing for decades.  Island Timberlands will log it soon if you don’t help stop the destruction.  Please check it out, view the slides, take a tour. Labour Day Lake is surrounded by some of the last old growth forest that has not yet been logged in Cathedral Grove.   The forested Lake and its waterfalls create the pristine and abundant water supply for the entire Cathedral Grove Watershed, which is also an officially designated drinking watershed, supplying drinking water to the Town of Qualicum Beach and the community of Dashwood. The quantity and quality of our drinking water for the fast growing communities need to be protected for future planned growth and not be squandered for private profit,” Tanner continues.  A good business plan for our Provincial Government would be to protect this important public interest by protecting the headwaters and all remaining oldgrowth in the world-famous Cathedral Grove watershed. Early settlers and communities have been working since the mid 1800’s to protect Cathedral Grove.  Now the is time to protect what is left. Here’s a link for the Moorecroft Video on youtube  http://www.youtube.com/user/moorecroftcamp please forward this link to your contact lists with the message below or one in your own words requesting that supporters take action. The youtube channel is called Moorecroftcamp (all one word) and can be searched for by typing in those key words on youtube. Feel free to embed the video on your website. This video outlines the case to save Camp Moorecroft and reject the proposal to divide and sell the property. If you agree with this video send an email to Peggy Jensen chair of the Nanaimo Comox Presbytery at tuminister@telus.net and Doug Goodwin the President of the BC Conference of the United Church at dgoodwin@bc.united-church.ca and tell them what you think of the proposal to divide and sell Moorecroft. Please CC your email to Carol Bieber, the chair of the Moorecroft Camp Society at jandcbieber@shaw.ca and Gail Adrienne of the NAnaimo Area Land Trust at gail@nalt.bc.ca

4) Conservation groups are joining forces to raise $1.5 million to purchase more than 60 hectares of private land known as the Valhalla Mile. The land is an environmentally rich stretch of Slocan Lake within the boundaries of Valhalla Provincial Park. The initiative is the latest example of non-profit organizations and environmental groups acquiring ecologically important private lands that fall outside the province’s network of parks and protected areas that spans more than 14 per cent of the B.C. land base. The Valhalla property contains mixed forest and 1.7 kilometres — slightly more than a mile — of undeveloped shoreline, and is an important corridor for species such as grizzly and black bears, wolverines, cougars and mule deer. Ancient first nations pictographs are located just north of the property, and the shoreline was a Sinixt fishing and gathering site. Neither the B.C. government nor conservation groups had the money to buy the Valhalla Mile when the 49,893-hectare park was created in the Selkirk Mountains of the West Kootenays in 1983. The Land Conservancy of B.C. has now acquired a purchase option from the Slocan Valley landowner, Burkhard Franz, and is working with the Valhalla Foundation for Ecology & Social Justice to raise $1.5 million by December. Valhalla Foundation director Wayne McCrory said in an interview from the community of Hills, northwest of Nelson, that buying the land and folding it into the park will ensure the land is spared from development and protected for recreation and environmental purposes. “It would be a developer’s dream, wide open for subdivision, summer homes, lodges,” he warned. http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=ee1a636a-0755-4f3a-9cc4-6bf60aff2e53

5) For the first time, the allowable annual cut for the tree farm licence that takes in fragile areas of Clayoquot Sound has been set by the area which can be logged, rather than in cubic metres of wood to be cut. “We wanted to try some new approaches to help the general public have a clearer understanding on how an allowable annual cut is done,” deputy chief forester Craig Sutherland said yesterday. The same system was first tried in an adjacent tree farm licence in 2004, and the two Clayoquot TFLs are the only in B.C. working under the area system. In TFL 54, which covers 49,298 hectares near Ucluelet and Tofino, a cut of 320 hectares will be allowed for each of the next five years, Sutherland said. That is probably slightly more timber than was allowed in the previous AAC, which has allowed 75,000 cubic metres to be cut each year since 2000, but it is difficult to compare volume to area, Sutherland said. Cutting in Clayoquot Sound is controlled by the Scientific Panel for Sustainable Forest Practices, which mandates partial cutting rather than traditional clearcutting, Sutherland said. In many areas that means leaving 70 per cent of the trees behind, he said. The licence to log in TFL 54 is held by Ma-Mook Natural Resources Ltd., a partnership of the Ahousaht, Hesquiaht, Tla-o-Quiaht, Toquaht and Ucluelet First Nations and Coulson Forest Products Ltd. Recently, groups such as the Friends of Clayoquot Sound protested Ma-Mook plans to log the previously untouched Hesquiat Point Creek, and talks are being held between the company and environmentalists to try and find a compromise. http://forestaction.wordpress.com/2008/09/06/allowable-tree-cut-set-by-area-not-volume/

6) In October of 2007, after years of pressure from citizens like you, the BC government committed to “follow the science” and protect caribou habitat.  Now, less than a year later, snowmobiling in caribou habitat threatens the recovery of this endangered species. The BC government is about to decide which habitat areas will be closed to snowmobiling, and government officials need to hear from you. Please, take a moment to write a comment, and make your voice heard. Here are some main points you may want to include in your letter: 1) Internal government recommendations would leave some critical habitat open to snowmobiling.  These areas–including habitat around Revelstoke and in the Central Selkirks–need to be closed as recommended by biologists. 2) The BC government must honour their commitment to science-based recovery. 3) We are all in this together.  Snowmobile clubs are partners in the recovery process, and they need to support the science as well.  Snowmobiles have plenty of space, riders don’t need to encroach upon endangered species habitat. — To ensure your letter makes the greatest possible impact, keep your letter short–between 100 – 250 words, tell your story and why caribou habitat protection matters to you, and always be polite. http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/281/t/2411/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=25428

7) Logging companies, snowmobile clubs, heli-ski operations and a coalition of ten environmental groups had negotiated the plan. But in reality, the issues that would make a life-or-death difference to the mountain caribou have not been determined: where would the protection be located? The Government and its “partners” assured the public that the location of the areas to be protected would be available in March. Today, nearly one year since the plan was announced, and five months after the location of the protected areas was due to be finalized, no plan has yet been approved. This makes approximately five years that BC has been working on a plan to save the mountain caribou.  All the while, logging has been destroying the habitat of this rare and endangered caribou. However, “stakeholder” input on the draft Government Actions Regulation Orders were completed on August 20. “The plan that is coming is an extinction plan for the mountain caribou,” says VWW’s plan reviewer, Craig Pettitt. “From the beginning, the government had said that the plan could protect no more than 1% of the Timber Harvesting Land Base (THLB). This was a farce, because the mountain caribou is already threatened with extinction because of the current level of logging and roads. Continuing to log 99% of the Timber Harvesting Land Base will obviously kill them. But the caribou are not even getting 1%. Only 76,904 hectares, or .67% of the THLB were allocated by government.” The province’s most fragile caribou herds will not receive a significant amount of new protection. The plan concentrates the majority of protection in two planning units:  the Cariboo and the Central Selkirks. This was an opportunity to make significant improvement in these critical areas. “So far we have been severely disappointed in the Central Selkirk planning area,” says Pettitt. http://pacificfreepress.com/content/view/3026/1/

Canada:

8) Autumn is here, and billions of migratory birds that spent the summer breeding season in Canada’s Boreal Forest are now winging their way south to wintering grounds throughout North, Central and South America.  Join our allies at Save Our Boreal Birds to make sure our boreal birds have a summer home to return to in the future! This campaign is a joint effort by like-minded conservation groups to let Canada’s government know that we must protect the Boreal Forest to keep our continent’s bird populations healthy.  Join over 50,000 signers from more than 60 countries in this vital petition to Canadian leaders! http://www.saveourborealbirds.org/

9) “The logs originate from the Ogoki Forest, the single most ecologically valuable area left in Ontario’s southern Boreal Forest and the site of growing controversy. These new photos as well as recent government correspondence reveal that Kimberly-Clark is currently purchasing huge quantities of pulp made primarily from whole, old-growth trees from intact areas of Canada’s Boreal Forest.” Treehugger reports that Kimberly-Clark has previously claimed that the pulp they use is only the stuff left over from the lumber process. Ogoki Forest, according to the report, wasn’t logged industrially until 1998, making it one of the continent’s most pristine habitats for wildlife. The pulp from Ogoki Forest is reportedly converted into paper products at Terrace Bay in northern Ontario, Canada. That’s not the only place the paper giant has gotten into trouble. Early this year, Kimberly-Clark’s Everett mill agreed to pay $125,000 to deal with smoke and diesel pollution in this city. The payout is part of deal for Kimberly-Clark to settle a $235,000 penalty the state Department of Ecology issued over smoke emissions during a fire that smoldered for months last year. http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20080916/BLOG15/809169989

10) In a fiercely-lit canteen, dozens of forestry workers in oilskin jackets are swallowing eggs and ham. It is a typical work-camp meal in northern Canada. Yet these workers are not typical – most hail from Africa. The loggers are employed by a forestry management company, Amenagement Myr, which is based in a town called Dolbeau-Mistassini, 300km (186 miles) north-west of Quebec City. The company has hired some locals, but none are around. They have all left the camp to spend a long weekend with their families in nearby towns and villages. The Africans who work here do not take weekends off. Montreal, where they have left wives and children behind, is not a weekend destination. Driving there takes almost seven hours. Raymond Bertrand Neabo, 28, worked for a French bank in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, after graduating from university there. After moving to Canada in 2006, he found that prospective employers deemed his business administration degree useless. So he started a second degree from scratch. For him, logging is a well-paying summer job that has, however, forced him to leave his pregnant wife behind in Montreal. “It’s very hard work,” he said in French. “You cannot get used to it. It’s like winter.” Amenagement Myr initially hired a man from Ivory Coast in the late 1990s. The word quickly spread in the African community that there was money to be made in the bush. Now, the majority of the camp’s 90 employees are African-born. Another local forest management company, Foresterie DLM, also primarily employs African immigrants. After moving to Montreal, Thomas Shase, a 25-year-old Nigerian, first started working in telemarketing, phoning resentful people who sometimes told him to “go back to Africa”. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7600245.stm

11) The recent release of the long-awaited Erdle report on Forest Diversity and Wood Supply and the Roberts Woodbridge report on Investment Opportunities in the New Brunswick Forest Sector provide a wide array of options for consideration that will shape the public forest over the next century. The Erdle report provides a detailed analysis of the outcomes of various forest management alternatives including increasing/decreasing conservation areas, increasing/decreasing planting, increasing/decreasing clear-cut areas, increasing/decreasing herbicide use and the effects these actions have on wood supply, job creation and royalties to government among other things. The report presents 8 options for government to consider but provides no recommendations as to which option is better than any other. The Roberts Woodbridge report outlines the future opportunities for New Brunswick in the manufacturing of forest products. It ranks various product options that New Brunswick should consider when looking at investment opportunities. The report is based on some far-reaching assumptions as to the future of lumber demands and prices and the development of the bio-fuel and bio-products sector. Some of the scenarios and opportunities presented in these two reports are new while others have been proposed in previous reports such as the 2002 Jaakko-Poyry report. New Brunswickers should take this opportunity to tell government how they want their public forest managed and become engaged just as they did during the French immersion consultations. People should not be threatened from voicing their opinions and expressing their values for the forest by inferences that forestry in New Brunswick will become “little more than a cottage industry” if we decide to protect some more area or do things a little different from what we do now. For woodlot owners these reports represent a turning point for the future of our public forests. A decision by government to move forward must include a balanced approach for all players. Too much time and energy has been wasted and too many skilled people have left. http://kingscorecord.canadaeast.com/newswithaview/article/415805

12) Four Canadian boys (for a change) spent a week at Power Bay. They were measuring trees in permanent sample plots along the shoreline of McInnes Lake. In this northern climate, the trees have a different growing pattern compared to boreal forests further south. In some plots they cut trees and take sections back for laboratory analysis. One sample tree was 10 inches in diameter and 198 years old. This research will show the growth rates for trees here. Perhaps sometime in the distant future a company may want to harvest trees here. First there needs to be research, negotiations with the native people, land use planning, road systems, protected areas and a need for the timber. The users on the land today (including us) are not too keen on change. It is so great to have such a huge junk of the boreal forest left as is. One big question is whether to let wild fires burn as they would in nature or to use fire suppression to put them out and keep the timber for logging. The boreal forest needs to be renewed in one of these ways. Another question is whether the trees grow quickly enough to sustain a renewable resource. http://viking-island.blogspot.com/2008/09/forestry-boys-at-power-bay.html

13) “Audacious” goal: 1.5 billion acres of Canadian boreal kept partly wild, partly sustainably developed, despite pressures from uranium, gold and diamond mining and oil and gas booms. What’s boreal? The planet’s largest land-based carbon storehouse; Canada’s boreal is the world’s largest remaining undeveloped forest. Boreal, or great northern forest, circles the northern tier of the globe, from Sweden to North America. How’d you get into this work? I was a stringer for my hometown newspaper, and I stumbled on a hazardous-waste-dump story. The editor spiked it in favor of a story on a massage parlor that had just opened up. He said, “Kid, sex sells; nobody wants to read about that damned environmental stuff.” I thought, “I’m in the wrong business. I’m going to law school and figure out how to bust people like this.“ I was hired 10 years ago by the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Environment Group to do forest conservation. We decided to make the boreal a priority because, of these three, it’s the only one in a country with a tradition of conservation, so the most likely to be protected on a scale to preserve the ecosystem and yet allow people to benefit from the natural resources… Is the boreal too far away for most Americans to connect with? You can get in your car to northern British Columbia and be there in a day and a half. By the time you get to Prince George, you’d be on the edge of the boreal. Why a Seattle headquarters? Pew’s based in Philly, and there’s no boreal here. There’s an enormous, slow, quiet movement of conservation groups to the Northwest. Not just regional but international efforts. It’s easier to travel to Asia, the Far North, even South America than from the East Coast, which is so congested … Plus, funny enough, people really wanted to come to Seattle for meetings. You’ve knit together a coalition of some industry and environmental groups, First Nations, birders, scientists. Interesting bedfellows? We’re a little post-boomer in our approach. It’s not “spotted owl vs. timber.” It’s “let’s work together, how can you benefit from green credentials and credibility?” You’re not against trapping? I’m a hunter. I have caribou in my freezer right now. ttp://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2004356030&zsection_id=2004078393&slug=footkallick20&date=20080420

14) SUSSEX – Forestry’s future has been on the minds of many here with the release of an Atlantic Provinces Economic Council report which broke the news that forestry jobs already lost in Atlantic Canada likely won’t come back. That report and two provincial task force reports on the forestry sector and its future prospects have been released. The message is that the current downturn in the forestry sector reflects a transition rather than a demise, and by making some major changes, the industry can retain a foothold in the region’s economy. “It all comes down to a sustainable wood supply,” said Keith. “We’re optimistic we’ll be able to continue operations.” The mill now depends on wood from private woodlots for about 70 per cent of its wood. It produces lumber, mainly for American markets, as well as wood chips sent to the Saint John pulp and paper mill to produce higher-value materials such as paper and tissue products. The Southern New Brunswick Forest Products Marketing Board represents about 6,000 of the 40,000 woodlot owners in the province, explained board chair John Sabine. Poor wood prices have led to a marked decline in wood harvested in this region since 2005, when producers shipped 266,000 cord. He estimates 500 to 600 forestry jobs have been lost, in this region alone, since then. http://kingscorecord.canadaeast.com/front/article/408789