British Columbia Relaxes Logging Rules
7/7/97
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B.C. Relaxes Logging Rules
Mon Jul 7,1997
By William Thomas
VICTORIA, B.C., July 7, 1997 (ENS) - Environmentalists charge that a
"Jobs and Timber Accord" announced last month by the British Columbia
provincial government is "gutting" widely-publicized forest reforms.
Noting that the current annual cut of one-million cubic meters is nearly
twice the government's estimated sustainable yield of 550,000 cubic
meters, Western Canada Wilderness Committee director Joe Foy told ENS
that B.C. Premier Glen Clark "will force the companies to increase the
cut for his jobs program."
The decision to "streamline" logging regulations severely undermines
tough new measures introduced last year under a revised Forest Practices
Code (FPC). Under the latest changes, large areas of temperate
rainforest will be designated for "high-intensity" logging without
reference to FPC guidelines.
The new logging rules will protect none of the province's 743 officially
endangered plants and animals, Foy said.
Mandatory delays for cutting adjacent clearcuts have been shortened,
while visual regulations protecting wilderness corridors are also being
"relaxed." These moves could damage B.C.'s second-biggest industry -
tourism, Foy fears. Last year, tourists spent $7 billion in B.C., where
a booming tourism industry provides more jobs and revenue than logging.
Forest watchdogs also worry that continuing job cuts in the B.C.
Environment Ministry will further weaken nearly nonexistent enforcement
of logging practices here. In January, Forests Minister Dave Zirnhelt
announced a plan to shift provincial Forest Service duties - including
oversight of logging operations - to major timber licensees, such as
Macmillan Bloedel and International Forest Products (Interfor).
This is like setting the fox to oversee the chicken coop. For instance,
International Forests Products (Interfor) was cited by the Ministry of
Forests for logging beyond their allowed cutting boundaries 21 times
between 1992 and 1995. Interfor has failed to comply with the FPC on 391
occasions since June, 1995. How likely is a company in violation of
cutting regulations to report such infractions to the provincial
government?
"B.C. has been lying to the world about its forest practices," charges
environmentalist Colleen McCrory, chair of the Valhalla Wilderness
Society. "While B.C. boasts about the Forest Practices Code and its land
use plans in international circles, it is gutting those initiatives."
The province of B.C., "is virtually being run by the forest industry,"
added the winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize and a United Nations
Global 500 Award in 1992.
In a just-released Greenpeace study, "Broken Promises," B.C. economic
consultants Barbara Campbell and Michael Mascall found that taxpayers
are paying the B.C. forest industry Cdn$2.5 billion per year to "cut
public Crown forests and pocket the profits, leaving the public with a
devastated ecosystem and higher taxes."
As Joe Foy explains, "it's pay back time" to the International
Woodworkers of America, the woodworkers union which "put Premier Clark
into power."
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