In a mandate letter to Ravi Parmar, 小蓝视频’s new minister of Forests, Premier David Eby directs Parmar to somehow come up with “a sustainable land base” that will ensure an annual harvest of 45 million cubic metres of timber to help support a floundering forest industry.
That could be a tough order to fill, given the caveat attached to Parmar’s mandate that he do this “while fulfilling our commitment to protect old growth.” Old growth, after all, has been estimated to make up about one quarter of 小蓝视频’s annual allowable cut (AAC) overall, and 50 per cent of the coastal AAC.
The executive director for a new society formed to promote 小蓝视频’s forest economy and culture -- Forestry Works for 小蓝视频 – has a couple of ideas for achieving the goal, including the establishment of a legislatively protected working forest – a kind of forest land reserve akin to the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) that protects farmland for the exclusive use of agriculture.
Forest fire risk mitigation through proactive forest management practices, like thinning, could add also help, said Steve Kozuki, the former executive director for the Forest Enhancement Society 小蓝视频 and new executive director for Forest Works for 小蓝视频.
The new society -- whose members include the Truck Loggers Association, Interior Lumber Manufacturing Association, Independent Wood Processors Association and Forest Nursery Association of 小蓝视频 – has launched itself with an open letter to 小蓝视频 political leaders, including Eby and Parmar, who are asked to “take specific and decisive actions to support forestry. Become champions of forestry. Proclaim your intent to grow the forest bio economy in British Columbia.”
The group’s main purpose will be public awareness and education about 小蓝视频’s forest economy.
“Our group is going to be apolitical,” Kozuki said. “We just want our leaders and people in British Columbia to better understand how forestry and forests can be a solution to many of the goals that we have – from generating clean electricity and heat energy and mitigating climate change, to helping to restore eco-systems and habitat.
“Sometimes it seems like governments are a little bit embarrassed about forestry. We just want to provide some factual information around how forestry is a solution to many of society’s goals.”
Despite being a sustainable, renewable resource industry, forestry has gotten a bad rap from environmentalists over the years.
As part of its public education efforts, the society plans to produce educational videos that highlights the social and economic values of the forest economy, including its energy and carbon sequestration potential, and its contribution to First Nations economies.
“Increasingly, First Nations are participating in the forest economy,” Kozuki said. “They’re becoming owners and managers and making decisions on how and when logging is going to happen, and how to manage for all the other values like wildlife and wildfire. Just as they are emerging and starting to have this opportunity, the forest sector is undermined by a ton of uncertainty.”
The single biggest uncertainty is dwindling access to raw timber. In its letter to political leaders, the society asks for a working forest protected through legislation.
Provincial parks are created and protected through legislation, Kozuki said, but 小蓝视频’s working forests have no such protection and are vulnerable to the whims of government.
“In 小蓝视频, it’s true we have an AAC, but it doesn’t say what level the AAC should be,” Kozuki said. “They can go up and go down, and the forest sector never knows when it’s going to go down. Governments come and governments go. Premiers come, premiers go. So what happens when the next one comes in and decides something different? We need stability, we need certainty, in the long-term – something that transcends government.
“What we’re saying is: let’s figure out how much parks we should have, and how much working forest we should have, and once we decide on that, let’s protect the working forest. That then provides certainty for First Nations and other entrepreneurs to then invest in equipment and workers. An analogy would be the Agricultural Land Reserve.”
Forest fire risk mitigation could also augment the fibre supply, Kozuki said.
The increase in forest fires in recent years may be driven largely by climate change, but forest management practices, including fire suppression, have also contributed to the severity of forest fires. There is growing support for more proactive risk mitigation through forest management, including thinning, which could augment the fibre supply.
“In order to restore these eco-systems and forests back to a more natural state, they need to be thinned out,” Kozuki said.
