© Environment News Service (ENS) 2001
September 5, 2001

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada, September 5, 2001 (ENS) - A decision by the British Columbia Ministry of Forests to allow logging in one of the last stretches of forest known to be inhabited by Northern spotted owls will be immediately challenged in court.

Sierra Legal Defence Fund announced today that it will file for a judicial review in B.C. Supreme Court on behalf of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee following word late Tuesday that the ministry has approved logging over objections from provincial environment officials.

The ministry's decision follows an injunction granted by the court to the Western Canada Wilderness Committee in June that brought a temporary halt to logging in Siwash Creek in the Fraser River Canyon. The area is known to contain some of B.C.'s last spotted owls.

The injunction required the ministry to appoint Cindy Stern, district manager with the ministry's South Island District, to reassess the logging plans of Cattermole Timber and determine whether they posed a threat to the owls.

Stern gave the green light to a limited resumption of logging. She has ruled that logging cannot occur in one of the contentious areas in Siwash Creek, but has allowed logging in other parts of the disputed area.

In making her decision, Stern considered submissions from the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, the Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection, the Chilliwack forest district and Cattermole Timber of Chilliwack.

As directed by the courts, her decision was based solely on the section of the provincial Forest Practices Code that relates to the spotted owl.

The district manager can approve the logging plans if "satisfied that the forest resources of the area will be adequately managed and conserved," the code states. The spotted owls are defined as a resource under the code.

Cattermole proposes to log part of the area in question using narrow strips, and removing 33 percent of the trees concentrated around these narrow strips, as opposed to even distribution of logging across the cutblock.

Both Stern and the Wilderness Committee consider this a new and untested logging method, and the Ministry of Water, Land, and Air Protection noted its reservations about permitting this method to be used.

It is that decision which will be challenged in court.

"It's crazy for this district manager to recommend that spotted owl habitat in the Siwash Creek area can be 'maintained or enhanced' by logging when everyone knows that it's logging that's made this species one of the most endangered in Canada," says Joe Foy, Wilderness Committee campaign director.

"Clearly, this government doesn't give a hoot about what it's own environment officials say, which is that logging poses a grave threat to the last of B.C.'s spotted owls," Foy said.

"The situation is far worse than we knew in our original court application. If anything our evidence is even stronger," says Sierra Legal lawyer, Devon Page. "First, provincial environment officials have released a preliminary trend analysis showing a precipitous decline in spotted owl numbers. Second, a respected committee of scientists from across Canada has placed the spotted owl at the top of their endangered species list."

The ministry says Stern's decision is consistent with the legislation and with the province’s Spotted Owl Management Plan. The goal of the plan is "to achieve a reasonable level of probability that owl populations will stabilize, and possibly improve, over the long term without significant short-term impacts on timber supply and forestry employment."The decision reflects what the ministry calls "a cautious approach to development outside of protected areas, to minimize the risk that owl habitat will be reduced."

But attorney Page takes exception to that determination. "Stern's approval flies in the face of advice from the provincial government's own environment officials, misinterprets provincial laws, and fails to apply the proper precautions needed to save this gravely endangered species," he says.

The spotted owl was designated as an endangered species in Canada in 1986 by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada. In 1995 the British Columbia government announced a broad strategy to develop a plan to manage spotted owls in the province using the Protected Area Strategy, the Forest Practices Code and other land-use and resource management initiatives. In 1997 the provincial government accepted the Spotted Owl Management Plan. Error: Unable to read footer file.