Logging Ordered in Heart of Canada's Temperate Rainforest
(c) Environment News Service (ENS) 2000
October 16, 2000
VICTORIA, British Columbia, Canada, October 16, 2000 (ENS) - Tourism groups are concerned and environmental groups are angry that British Columbia's chief forester has ordered logging in scenic areas on the province's north coast.
Larry Pedersen announced last Friday that the allowable annual cut for the North Coast timber supply area would include part of the Inside Passage. Also known as the Marine Highway, the Inside Passage is a naturally sheltered sea route extending for more than 1,600 kilometers (1,000) miles from Seattle, Washington northwest to Skagway, Alaska.
In between is British Columbia and one of the largest tracts of coastal temperate rainforest, dubbed the Great Bear Rainforest by environmental groups after the rare white Kermode Bear that lives there. The region is a huge draw for tourism to the province, particularly for the burgeoning cruise ship industry between Vancouver, B.C. and Alaska.
The new allowable annual cut specifies that 154,000 cubic meters of the North Coast's total 573,624 cubic meters come from the Inside Passage and an area north of the Nass River.
Pedersen said that over the last 15 to 20 years, these areas had seen little harvesting, but they make up nearly 30 percent of the harvesting land base.
"I've taken this action to make sure other parts of the timber supply area do not face increased harvesting pressures," said Pedersen. "While I know this will present administrative and planning challenges, I also believe it will provide an opportunity to see if these stands are economical to harvest over several market cycles."
About 90 percent of B.C.'s commercial timber production is carried out on Crown land owned by the government of British Columbia. Of the province's 90 million hectares of Crown land, about 49 million hectares are forested. About half of this area is managed for commercial timber production in timber supply areas and tree farm licences.
Every five years, an allowable annual cut is determined for each of the province's 37 timber supply areas and 34 tree farm licences. The last review was in 1995.
It is Pedersen's job to make an independent professional judgment based on information ranging from technical forestry reports and public input to the B.C. government's social and economic goals.
Cheri Burda, forestry strategist for the David Suzuki Foundation, is not impressed with Pedersen's judgment for the North Coast. "These forests form the heart of the largest tracts of coastal temperate rainforest left on the planet, and the provincial government has just set policy to allow clearcutting to continue," said Burda.
"This decision to maintain business as usual in Canada's disappearing old growth rainforests indicates the government is not heeding growing public opposition to clearcutting old growth forests, nor are they responding to the changing marketplace that increasingly refuses to purchase wood from endangered old growth forests."
As recently as August, Lowe's Companies, Inc., the world's second largest home improvement retailer, joined a growing list of firms boycotting wood products from B.C.'s North Coast.
Burda said the government had missed an opportunity to embrace sustainable logging practices and contravened the wishes of North Coast First Nations.
In June, the native First Nations of the North Coast called for a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien and B.C. Premier Ujjal Dosanjh to begin working towards sustainable stewardship and responsible management of their ancestral lands.
The North Coast timber supply area covers about 1.9 million hectares. The last timber supply review in 1995 maintained the allowable annual cut at 600,000 cubic meters.
The new allowable annual cut of 573,624 cubic meters, effective January 1, 2001, takes into account the permanent transfer of lands to the native people under the Nisga'a Treaty. In May, about 61,000 hectares were removed from the North Coast timber supply area to form part of the land claims settlement struck between the B.C. government and Nisga'a First Nations.
In response to the transfer, the allowable annual cut was reduced by 25,600 cubic meters to 574,400 cubic meters on May 12. A further 776 cubic meters was allocated to woodlot licences, which are administered separately and issued to local residents for small scale forestry.
Pedersen said that 16 percent of the North Coast's forested area is available for timber harvesting and more than 80 percent of the forest outside the harvesting area is old growth forest.
"This allowable annual cut provides for all forest management goals while meeting the government's socio-economic objectives," said Pedersen.
Environmental groups like the Vancouver based Western Canada Wilderness Committee argue that the area slated for logging is the richest forest left, with the greatest biodiversity and wildlife and recreation values.
The area represents prime grizzly and Kermode Bear habitats, says the committee, while the valley bottom forests maintain pristine rivers essential to the long term survival of salmon and B.C.'s increasingly lucrative ecotourism industry.
Paige MacFarlane of B.C.'s Ministry of Small Business, Tourism and Culture said the department is concerned about the potential affect on tourism in the area, but could not comment further.