387 BC-Canada

BC-Canada

Index:

–British Columbia: 1) WFP may profit as much as $70 million for selling stolen land, 2) Increased water flows from pine beetle deaths, 3) New economics related to foraging in B.C. forests, 4) Enviros use wrong poster in posterchild campaign, 5) New effort to thrive off logging waste, 6) Faux GBR deal leads to genuine citizen action campaign to demand consultation / protection, 7) Salmon habitat restoration project,
–Canada: 8) New Russian Log export taxes accelerate Canadian export opportunities, 9) Kimberly-Clark protest to save the Boreal, 10) Renegade scientist proposes reforesting cities with medicinal trees, 11) Ten sawmills mills down to only one sawmill and it’s a mystery as to why?

Articles:

British Columbia:

1) Since the heady days of the Clayoquot Sound logging blockades, few issues on Vancouver Island have triggered such public outrage as the proposed sale of thousands of hectares of forestland on Victoria’s doorstep. That outrage only intensified last month after B.C. Auditor General John Doyle issued a blistering report criticizing the provincial government for failing to consider the public interest when granting Western Forest Products (WFP) the right to sell these lands. When news of a potential buyer surfaced last year, hundreds of woodworkers, environmentalists, First Nations and outdoor enthusiasts protested at community meetings and before elected municipal and regional councils from the provincial capitol, through Sooke, Jordan River and Otter Point. Surfers and loggers alike correctly saw that the sale would mean a proliferation of houses and roads where forests once stood, and an end to carefully developed regional growth plans that embraced sustainable development by limiting urban sprawl. The controversy goes back to January 2007, when the provincial government gave debt-ridden WFP permission to break a long-standing social contract. That social contract saw forest companies get generous tax breaks and access to public timber in exchange for bundling their private holdings into tree-farm licenses and managing both their private and public forestlands under the same set of rules. By allowing WFP to decouple its private forestlands from B.C.’s publicly managed forest resources, the province set the stage for the company to sell the lands for so-called “higher and better uses,” a move that could potentially see WFP’s shareholders reap a $70 million windfall. It now falls to newly appointed Forests Minster Pat Bell to deal with the mess left by his predecessor Rich Coleman. With an election less than a year away, Bell has little time to make it right. But make it right he can, and here’s how. http://thetyee.ca/Views/2008/08/18/FLR/

2) At Rockin’s River Resort north of Prince George, British Columbia, Horst Schulz is experiencing a consequence not often associated with the mountain pine beetle epidemic. “The flooding has gotten tremendous now that all the pine are dead,” Schulz said. “I had to take a boat to the house for about a week this year.” Schulz said high water forced him to push his campground’s opening date back an entire month this year, from May 15 to June 15. “There is an issue with hydrology,” said Jim Snetsinger, British Columbia’s chief forester. “These trees aren’t there any longer to suck up water from the ground. Where does it go?” Hydrology joins other smaller concerns such as water quality and blocked accesses in looking at the fallout from the North American West’s massive mountain pine beetle epidemic. With 33.3 million acres already impacted by the mountain pine beetle in British Columbia, Snetsinger is estimating it will be 10 to 15 years before the province’s hydro balance returns. None¬theless, Snetsinger said there are too many other factors at play to blame the type of increased runoffs Schulz experienced on the pine beetle alone. Andy Cadenhead expects similar impacts in Colorado. Of particular concern are slides and other mass soil movements that may occur when the ground is saturated with water formerly absorbed by lodgepole pine trees. “One thing that appears to be happening was while these trees were green, they were taking up an incredible amount of water,” said Cadenhead, a Steamboat Springs-based supervisory forester with the U.S. Forest Service. “We’ll see the water table essentially rise in the forest. If we get wet years, it will certainly increase our flooding potential.” Like Snetsinger, Caden¬head said flooding is a minor concern when considering the impacts of the mountain pine beetle epidemic. Another risk is falling trees, not just ones that could hit people, but also ones that could block roads and trails. “I think it’s safe to say there’s a time period of about 15 years where most of the trees are going to come down,” Cadenhead said. http://www.steamboatpilot.com/news/2008/aug/17/dead_trees_cause_many_dangers/

3) Foraging in B.C. forests is suddenly something to be reckoned with. It’s graduated to the post-secondary level. One of the projects undertaken by The Centre for Non-Timber Resources at Royal Roads University in Victoria is Buy B.C. Wild, which has sponsorship from the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, Thrifty Foods, VanCity and Service Canada. “We realized there were a lot of wild products coming out of our forests and there was a need for wildcrafters and businesses to have a collective voice to showcase their wonderful products and services,” says Holly Caine, coordinator of Buy B.C. Wild. A website directory listing 150 purveyors of wild food, herbs and craft material from B.C. forests showcases the non-logging side of our forests. (See www.buybcwild.com) Some of the businesses selling edible products made from wild foraged plants are listed below. “What we’re trying to promote are the people who access the resources in our communities and provide local products,” says Caine. While Vancouver Island’s timberlands are mainly private, in the rest of the province, about 70 per cent is Crown land, she says. “One of the really important things to the centre, as the sector emerges are policies regarding sustainability and guidelines on how to forage and we’d like to see money go back into the communities,” she says. Currently, the best source of information on where and how to forage is district forest offices. “You need to contact them to let them know of your intentions. People also have to be aware of first nations cultural use of medicinal plants. A harvesting area might have been used for centuries and they have cultural and heritage rights to that area.” On Vancouver Island, she says, “everybody knows how wonderful and nutritional our native plants are. Our blueberries are amazingly nutritious with phytonutrients.” http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/arts/story.html?id=e29fc2f6-c90d-4994-a7dc-dc1908be245a

4) There was extensive international news coverage of the “Save the Clayoquot” rally in Tofino on Aug. 2, with many reports suggesting another war over old-growth logging was brewing in the West Coast wilderness. But now it appears the location of a clearcut depicted in a photograph at the rally used by Adrienne Carr, deputy leader of the Green party, wasn’t taken in Clayoquot Sound at all. The clearcut is located in an active logging area managed by Interfor, and is located five kilometres north of the UNESCO biosphere reserve boundary. “We’re not clearcutting and Miss Carr can get all the pictures she wants, but she needs to be true on where those pictures are — that’s not in our territory,” said Joe Tom, chief councillor of the Hesquiaht First Nation yesterday. Carr said yesterday she’d been told by the Friends of Clayoquot Sound before the rally that the photo was taken within the sound and Hesquiaht territory. She feels badly about the misrepresentation “because I pride myself on accuracy. “I went ahead and used that as an example of the kind of logging that we don’t want to see happening in a biosphere reserve.” The flap over the photo is the latest exchange that pits environmentalists on one side, and First Nations and the Coulson Group of Companies — who are working together on logging in the Hesquiaht Point Creek watershed — on the other. The environmentalists had threatened to take action if old-growth trees were cut. Despite the error, Carr said she can’t assume that clearcut logging isn’t happening in Clayoquot. “There just may not be photos available of logging in that region by Coulson. I’m not prepared to say that’s not happening. The First Nations are logging the area to help get its people out of poverty, said Tom.A truce was called two weeks ago so both sides could discuss issues, but no meetings have taken place, said Tom. “We’ve offered two meetings and we’ve had a number of different excuses,” he said. http://forestaction.wordpress.com/2008/08/16/green-party-duped-over-clayoquot-clearcut/

5) WILLIAMS LAKE — In the forested heart of British Columbia, Geoff Wagner is walking through huge piles of woody debris, the kind of stuff once considered trash by an industry that turns less than half of every tree it cuts into 2x4s. But no longer. Today, those piles are a vision of a future in which forests not only build houses but light streets, and in which forest companies are no longer simple hewers of wood but rather power players. It is already happening under plant manager Wagner’s watch, as Edmonton-based power producer Epcor Power LP transforms chipped bark and railway ties into a constant stream of electricity powering this part of central B.C. Soon, it will be happening elsewhere as the West’s biggest forest companies race to build new facilities that will turn wasted wood into cash. B.C. Hydro estimates companies could produce 470 megawatts of power this way, or about 10 per cent of the province’s annual energy production. Forest companies say this could be just the beginning, as B.C. serves as the pilot for a model of forest power that could be replicated across the country. It is, however, Wagner’s plant that is in many ways the pilot for B.C. The largest biomass power plant on the continent, the Williams Lake facility produces 66 megawatts of electricity — enough to power 65,000 homes — from a steady stream of chipped wood burning in a 1,000-degree Celsius inferno. http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=7ee06695-228d-41e9-914b-343b1b6
650d5

6) Bella Bella – The Vickers family traveled to the threatened Ingram-Mooto watershed in Heiltsuk traditional territory on Friday, July 25, 2008. During this time, they erected signs in the Ingram-Mooto that demand the halt of any road building and logging plans. “The lack of consultation has left us no choice now as a family to make a move, “- Heiltsuk Vickers family statement. “It’s a tough call, we as a community should be benefiting from this operation.” Located just 52km north of Bella Bella, Ingram-Mooto is in Spiller Inlet, known to the Heiltsuk as ‘Glditas Daqvu’. We respectfully ask that our community be consulted on the economic benefit to our Nation. Will there be a long-term benefit to the Heiltsuk, or just a few short-term jobs? We would also like assurances that the logging and road building will not damage other local resources. “The short-term benefits vs. long-term damage to the land. The fact that First Nations have to follow EBM guidelines and Industry carries on business as usual. The high-grading of Cedar is devastating to us as Heiltsuk.”- Don Vickers, elder/fisherman. “As a Heiltsuk family, we are tired of not being told what is happening in our traditional territories! There are many of us. We deserve an opportunity to have a say on the impacts on behalf of future generations. I cannot again stress the importance of Cedar and Wild salmon to our survival, as a Nation.”- Mary Vickers http://forestaction.wordpress.com/2008/08/15/heiltsuk-vickers-family-takes-stand-for-threatened
-ingram-mooto-watershed/

7) UCLUELET — For the 13th season in a row, the Central Westcoast Forest Society is leading a team of partners in a salmon habitat restoration project. Since its inception in 1995, the non-profit society and its partners have restored over 78 kilometres of stream, rehabilitated 66 hectares of riparian habitat, stabilized 48 hectares of landslide area, and deactivated 247 kilometres of forestry road. The areas, on the Kennedy Flats between Ucluelet and Tofino, include sections of Pacific Rim National Park Reserve. This season, the continued restoration focus is on Lost Shoe Creek. This includes riparian and stream maintenance, stream restoration, and a smolt fence (operated by the Thornton Creek Salmon Enhancement Society) for monitoring the number of salmon heading for ocean habitat. Lost Shoe Creek exits though Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, and while this area is now in the park, this was not always so. It wasn’t until 1972 that Macmillan Bloedel Ltd. donated areas of its logging tenure to the park, but not before the Lost Shoe Creek area was extensively logged. “We were worried about a restoration program even starting this year,” said Warren Warttig, secretary treasurer for the Central Westcoast Forest Society. “But Mamook-Coulsons stepped up to the plate with their Forest Investment Account funding and while Iisaak has supported us in the past, they were unable to help this season”. “The issue with FIA funding is that it can only be invested on provincial crown land, which does now allow for continuation of restoration within the park,” said Don McMillan, president of the CWFS. “Thankfully our application to BC Transmission Corporation came through with a grant for $10,000. This has allowed for this year’s program to proceed on lower Lost Shoe and help Parks Canada with their ecological integrity mandate.” http://www.westcoaster.ca/modules/AMS/article.php?storyid=4776

Canada:

8) A looming Russian tax on log exports could push markets for North American wood products into the most dramatic supply-side shock since the northern spotted owl crisis of the 1990s, a report by Vancouver consultant Russ Taylor forecasts. And that has some coastal loggers saying it could open up new opportunities for the beleaguered sector.”Russia is a huge exporter of logs. A restriction in the amount of logs coming out of Russia will create demand elsewhere, so it could be an extremely positive thing,” said Dave Lewis, executive director of the B.C. Truck Loggers Association. “But we still have to be able to access [potential markets],” he said, referring to restrictions on B.C. log exports. Taylor, president of the International Wood Markets Group, said in a monthly research report that the Russians are on track to raise the export tax on raw logs from its current rate of 25 per cent to 80 per cent effective Jan. 1, 2009. That’s going to squeeze European, Chinese and Japanese log supplies, sending a ripple effect into North America’s currently depressed log and lumber markets.Already, Chinese delegations are sending out feelers to B.C. in their search for supply to replace Russian exports, should the tax go into effect as proposed, forest company TimberWest Forest reported last week. Russia is the world’s largest exporter of raw logs, supplying 40 per cent of the world’s softwood logs. Taylor said the shock of such a price increase on Russian logs is not well understood within North American wood products markets because most Russian sales are to China, Finland and Japan. But in today’s global economy, a disruption in one supply chain has worldwide repercussions. http://www.amazon.com/Spell-Sensuous-Perception-Language-More-Than-Human/dp/0679776397

9) Environmental activists are currently reading a damning report about forest destruction in Canada’s Boreal Forest to Kimberley-Clark employees at their area office. The activists, who are floating in a boat in a lake at the center of the Kleenex-makers office complex and using a bullhorn to make sure they are heard, are part of an international campaign to force Kimberly-Clark to stop purchasing pulp from destructive logging operations and to increase its use of recycled materials for its disposable products such as Kleenex and Cottonelle. “Greenpeace demands that Kimberly-Clark stop wiping away our treasured, ancient forests to make disposable products like tissue and toilet paper,” said Lindsey Allen, Greenpeace forest campaigner. “Greenpeace is here to directly communicate with Kimberly-Clark employees so they can encourage their company’s leadership to stop using endangered forests such as the Boreal to make products that are used once and then thrown away.” Greenpeace is particularly interested in communicating with Ken Strassner, Kimberley-Clark’s Vice President of Global Environment, Safety, Regulatory and Scientific Affairs, who works out of the Roswell office. Strassner no doubt knows of the recent Greenpeace report that shows how Kimberly-Clark devastated Ontario’s Kenogami Forest while promoting itself as a socially responsible environmental leader. The report, “Cut and Run: Kimberly-Clark’s Legacy of Environmental Devastation,” uses government information, independent audits, public records, and satellite mapping to document Kimberly-Clark’s management and logging of the Kenogami Forest near Thunder Bay, Ontario. It details how, in just 70 years, the Kenogami Forest has been turned from a vast expanse of healthy, near-pristine forest to a severely damaged landscape rife with social and environmental problems–largely to make products that are used once and then thrown away. http://yubanet.com/enviro/Activists-Set-Sail-at-Kimberly-Clark-Roswell-Office.php

10) Ms. 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 scientist, however, because she tries to bring together aboriginal healing, Western medicine and botany to advocate an unusual role for trees. She favors what she terms a bioplan, 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 locusts 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” (University of Michigan Press). “The science of selecting trees for different uses around the world has not been well studied.” Miriam Rothschild, the British naturalist who died in 2005, wrote glowingly of Ms. Beresford-Kroeger’s idea of bioplanning and called it “one answer to ‘Silent Spring’ ” because it uses natural chemicals rather than synthetic ones. But some of Ms. Beresford-Kroeger’s claims for the health effects of trees reach far outside the mainstream. Although some compounds found in trees do have medicinal properties and are the subject of research and treatment, she jumps beyond the evidence to say they also affect human health in their natural forms. The black walnut, for example, contains limonene, which is found in citrus fruit and elsewhere and has been shown to have anticancer effects in some studies of laboratory animals. Ms. Beresford-Kroeger has suggested, without evidence, that limonene inhaled in aerosol form by humans will help prevent cancer. “She holds fast to the notion that if you are in the aura of a black walnut tree there’s a healing effect,” Mr. Lemkay said. “It needs more science to be able to say that.”http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/science/12prof.html

11) There’s a mystery going on in the north. Three years ago, the Buchanan group of forestry companies had 10 mills operating, and was Ontario’s largest lumber-producing organization. Now, due to the downturn in lumber markets, it has one mill operating at only half capacity, and it is supplying that mill from old-growth trees in the 10,876-square-kilometre Ogoki Forest, 250 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay. Cutting this old growth means destroying habitat for woodland caribou. Why, does the Ontario government tolerate this? Why doesn’t it require Buchanan to log in one of the other areas where it has a licence to cut – in an area where the forest is second growth, and habitat for caribou was largely destroyed a long time ago? Cutting in the old-growth is more desirable for Buchanan, because the farther north you go, the more uniform is the spruce forest. There aren’t as many of the unwanted, low-grade hardwood trees that slow down cutting of the spruce. The Ogoki Forest is the farthest north of any area in Ontario where logging is allowed. Queen’s Park would be perfectly justified in telling Buchanan to cut elsewhere because it has been formally alerted to the threat posed to caribou. An Independent Forest Audit, completed two years ago, said “… the Ministry (of Natural Resources) must provide strong objective evidence that the projected decline in habitat (in the Ogoki Forest) will not further endanger caribou. “The audit team recommends that the ministry conduct an objective assessment of the viability of the caribou population in the forest, and that the results of the assessment be incorporated into subsequent forest management plans.” No objective assessment was done, and nothing was incorporated into the months-old current plan. The audit on the Ogoki says that caribou habitat will be reduced by 57 per cent by the time all the old-growth is cut, and logging of second growth is slated to begin. Logging roads alone will reduce habitat by at least 6 per cent. Aside from the audit report, research suggests caribou don’t return to areas that have been clear-cut, even after second-growth trees have matured. There seems to be a pattern that points to the government bending over backward to accommodate Buchanan: It has ignored the audit recommendation to prove caribou won’t be further endangered by logging in the Ogoki. It approved a new forest management plan that ignores the impact on caribou. It isn’t monitoring caribou movements adequately. It has provided subsidies to build logging roads into the Ogoki. http://www.thestar.com/News/Ideas/article/475067