Clearwater Valley

Protecting the Clearwater Valley would help mountain caribou recovery

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IF WE CAN’T maintain a viable mountain caribou herd in a vast protected area like Wells Gray Provincial Park, then what hope is there of doing so elsewhere?

That’s my question for Canfor, the corporate giant now ramping up to “salvage log” hundreds of hectares of mature and old-growth forest near the southern and western boundaries of Wells Gray, two hours north of Kamloops.

Clearcut logging in the Clearwater Valley will inevitably create winter forage favourable to deer and moose. As these animals increase in numbers, so will their main predators, cougars and especially wolves. This is hardly good news for the mountain caribou that make their home in the park’s high-elevation old-growth forests a few kilometres distant.

Government biologists are well aware that past logging just outside the park is largely to blame for a recent collapse of the south Wells Gray herd. Ten years ago this herd numbered about 325 animals. Today only about 200 are left, down by about one-third.

Clearcut logging exposes the mountain caribou to levels of predation they did not evolve with and are unable to adapt to. Compounding the problem is a low reproductive rate, a mature cow caribou giving birth to only one calf every two years. Clearly it doesn’t take much to tip these animals toward extinction.

The flow of cause and effect could hardly be more straightforward: clearcuts support more moose and deer, more moose and deer support more top predators, more top predators roam in greater numbers into nearby protected areas, and then mountain caribou decline. Or to simplify, the more adjacent clearcuts we create, the more rapidly the mountain caribou disappears.

Clearly this is not the time to lobby the B.C. government for management decisions certain to bolster predator populations in Wells Gray area. Canfor’s Vavenby planner Dave Dobi acknowledged as much at a public meeting about a year ago, but is proceeding with his plans nonetheless. At the same meeting he also made clear his company’s intention eventually to log the entire Clearwater Valley. Whatever timber Canfor has a legal right to log, it will log.

Such a statement is hard to reconcile with sentiments recently expressed by Canfor CEO and president Don Kayne, who in a letter to the Vancouver Sun asserted that Canfor “will not support actions that impact parks or critical habitat for species at risk”. One can’t help feeling that Kayne would be appalled if he knew what his Vavenby planner was up. To be implicated in the decline of a nationally threatened animal like the mountain caribou surely can’t be good for business.

In 2002, the mountain caribou was designated as nationally threatened. Its global range lies almost exclusively within British Columbia. Decisions being made in B.C. today will have long-term implications for its future viability. Already the province’s southern herds are blinking out—sustained entirely by predator culls and other costly, dubiously effective forms of life support.

Best science identifies Wells Gray Park as one of only two regions where the mountain caribou might reasonably be expected to persist into the long term, in a human-dominated world. (The other area is the Hart Ranges in the far north of the range.) This makes it imperative that the Wells Gray herd receive special attention now, before it’s too late.

This returns me to my opening question: If we can’t maintain a viable mountain caribou herd in a vast wilderness park like Wells Gray, then what hope is there of doing so elsewhere?

In its Mountain Caribou Recovery Implementation Plan, announced in 2008, the B.C. government placed 2.2 million hectares of prime high-elevation winter caribou habitat off limits to logging. Clearly this isn’t working; it’s not enough. For recovery to take place, we also need to refrain from creating additional pressure from predators by logging at lower elevations just outside their key habitat. Areas like the Clearwater Valley.

The Wells Gray World Heritage Committee (WHC) recently challenged the B.C. government to help make Wells Gray Park ecologically self-sustaining by adjusting its boundaries southward. This has been done twice in the past: once in the mid ’50s, and again in the mid ’90s.

The habitat needs of mountain caribou played a major role in both decisions. Protecting a small area adjacent to the park would be a huge step to recovery for the Wells Gray herd.

As an interim measure, WHC is also calling upon B.C. minister of environment Terry Lake to establish a moratorium on industrial logging in the Clearwater Valley. For more information, or to help, please visit the WHC website.
 

Link to online article: https://www.straight.com/news/351556/trevor-goward-protecting-clearwater-valley-would-help-mountain-caribou-recovery

San Juan Spruce tree and the Red Creek Fir - some of the Canada's largest trees found right nearby!

AFA Slideshow Presentation this Friday at UVic! FREE PIZZA!

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Join the UVic Ancient Forest Committee and Ken Wu of the Ancient Forest Alliance for a spectacular slideshow on the ecology, wildlife, biggest trees, and politics surrounding BC’s old-growth forests including at Echo Lake east of Vancouver, and the Upper Walbran Valley, Avatar Grove, Mossy Maple Grove (Fangorn Forest), and Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island.

3:30 pm – Clearhue Building a202 UVic

Find out how YOU can help to ensure the protection of our ancient forests and a sustainable second-growth forest industry.
An yes …. stuff yourself with pizza as well!

Invite your friends on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/237142573089266/

Today Conservationists call for Action on BC Forests at Legislature Opening

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For Immediate Release
February 12, 2013

Today Ancient Forest Alliance to Unfurl Giant “Hands Off the Old-Growth” Banner During BC Legislature’s Opening Ceremonies – Calls for Action on BC’s Forests from BC Liberals and NDP

Today from 12:45 to 1:30 pm at the BC Legislative Buildings, a group of Ancient Forest Alliance supporters will unfurl a giant 10 meter long banner that reads “Hands Off the Old-Growth” during the opening ceremonies.  The BC Legislative Assembly will sit for its last session before a provincial election is held just over three months from now, on May 14, 2013.

The Ancient Forest Alliance (www.AncientForestAlliance.org) is calling on the BC Liberal government and the NDP Opposition to:

  • Commit to a new Provincial Old-Growth Plan to protect BC’s endangered old-growth forests. Old-growth forests are vital to sustain endangered species, tourism, the climate, clean water, wild salmon, and many First Nations cultures.
  • To ensure sustainable, value-added forestry in second-growth stands which now constitute the vast majority of the forest lands in southern BC.  The BC Liberal government is allowing a massive exodus of raw, unprocessed logs from BC to foreign mills in China, the US, and Japan, allowing the liquidation of BC’s forest resource while doing little to support investment in coastal second-growth mills and value-added facilities.
  • To halt the BC Liberal government’s sneaky plans to introduce a bill this legislative sitting to allow the expansion of Tree Farm Licences. Expanding Tree Farm Licences would confer increased private property-like rights for logging companies by granting them exclusive access to vast areas of public forest lands. Currently most logging licences are “volume-based” (ie. no specific areas given to companies, only an amount or volume of wood they can cut). See: https://blogs.theprovince.com/2013/01/27/ben-parfitt-sneaky-liberals-are-planning-a-b-c-forest-giveaway/

“During their last three months the BC Liberals can choose a legacy as the government that finally ended BC’s ‘War in the Woods,’ or acted as the ‘Despoilers of Beautiful British Columbia’ until the very end,” stated Ken Wu, executive director of the Ancient Forest Alliance. “Either way, we will ensure that they have a legacy, depending on what they do now – commit to protecting our ancient forests and to ending raw log exports, or continue to keep their heads in the sand by insisting that old-growth forests are not endangered and that raw log exports are a necessary evil.”

“For the NDP, they must remember their history in the 1990’s, when they continually battled environmentalists over old-growth forests,” Wu stated. “They need to significantly break from the disastrous status quo and adopt a truly new and courageous vision for a sustainable forest industry. Specifically, they must follow through and develop Adrian Dix’s promise during his 2011 bid to become NDP leader that if elected he would ‘Develop a long term strategy for old growth forests in the province, including protection of specific areas that are facing immediate logging plans’”. See:  [Original article no longer available]

The Ancient Forest Alliance is planning to significantly ramp-up its grassroots mobilization campaign to inform the public on the stance of the political parties about BC’s old-growth forests and forestry jobs in the months leading up to the May provincial election.

75% of Vancouver Island’s original, productive old-growth forests have already been logged, including 90% of the valley bottoms where the largest trees grow. Of 2.3 million hectares of productive (ie. moderate to fast growth rates, with large trees) old-growth forests originally on Vancouver Island, 1.7 million hectares have already been logged (ie. about 600,000 hectares remain). See “before and after” maps at: https://16.52.162.165/ancient-forests/before-after-old-growth-maps/

See spectacular photos of Vancouver Island’s biggest trees and biggest stumps at:  https://16.52.162.165/photos-media/ (Note: Media are free to reprint any photos, credit to “TJ Watt” if possible)

Ancient Forest Alliance

Environmentalists look to insert Great Bear Rainforest into B.C. election agenda

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VICTORIA — An environmental coalition will Thursday attempt to push protection of the Great Bear Rainforest onto the already crowded election agenda, issuing open letters to B.C.’s main political leaders, calling for more immediate action.

“The people of British Columbia want the Great Bear Rainforest agreements completed,” said letters sent by the coalition to Premier Christy Clark and New Democratic Party leader Adrian Dix.

“We are asking your party to include the completion of the Great Bear Rainforest Agreements in your platform and priorities for the first 100 days after the election.”

The letters were written by the Rainforest Solutions Project, who have been working for years with the forest industry to implement an agreement to protect a massive temperate rainforest on B.C.’s coast. The letters come on the seven-year anniversary of that agreement, signed in 2006 by then-premier Gordon Campbell.

Negotiations have been unfolding since, with land use orders signed by government in 2009 to go from 50 per cent protection of old growth in the area to 70 per cent by March 31, 2014.

Last month, the environmental coalition behind today’s letters — comprising ForestEthics Solutions, Greenpeace and the Sierra Club — expressed significant frustration, saying the forest industry has not been moving quickly enough.

“We have worked with logging companies on finding solutions how to increase conservation but it’s incredibly difficult,” Jens Wieting, a campaigner for Sierra Club BC, said in an interview Wednesday.

“What we would like to see is the government do what government’s are there for, which is to solve problems,” he added, calling on government to push for a solution.

A major block in negotiations is balancing the target of preserving 70 per cent of the rainforest’s old growth with an agreement to allow an annual timber harvest of 2.7 million cubic metres of logs.

On Wednesday, Minister of Forests Steve Thomson said he believes the parties are on track to meet the 2014 deadline, and said he saw no reason to commit to an earlier timeline.

“I think setting a specific timeline beyond what we’ve agreed to currently will set some expectations we may not be able to achieve.”

The call for more immediate action comes as several other special interest groups are also hoping to get their issues on the agenda for the election in May.

Within just the last week, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has called on government to raise and reform taxes, the Climate Justice Project has sought to draw attention to the issue of climate change, and the Canadian Bar Association has called for a major overhaul to improve the province’s justice system.

Wieting acknowledged his organization is entering a crowded field, but said a poll commissioned by the coalition proves the Great Bear Rainforest is an issue that resonates across the province.

Conducted by Justason Market Intelligence between January 25 to February 1, that poll found 68 per cent of people fell it important that “the BC government fulfil all elements of (the Great Bear Rainforest Agreement) before the upcoming provincial election in May.”

“We know that whoever is in the next government will be faced with very difficult questions,” he said. “This one should be a clear ‘yes’ because British Columbians care about this; people around the world care about it.”

The poll has a four percentage point margin of error, 95 per cent of the time.

Rick Jeffrey, president of the Coastal Forest Products Association and chief industry negotiator, said a deal is “doable”, and that he does not think the issue should be pushed onto the campaign trail.

“We’re working very hard and diligently with the coast forest initiative companies and Rainforest Solutions Project on a solution set,” he said.

“We think there’s a high degree of likelihood we’re going to achieve success, and once we achieve that success we’ll present the plan to government and we’ll encourage government to implement the plan.”

Read more: https://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Environmentalists+look+insert+Great+Bear+Rainforest+into+election+agenda/7929901/story.html#ixzz2KMtiaRa6

Letters: B.C. forests, Steve Thomson, Ben Parfitt, Bob Simpson…

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Minister’s account is ‘pure fiction’ 

In response to Ben Parfitt’s op-ed about the B.C. Liberals’ intention to introduce legislation to rollover replaceable volume-based timber licenses to area-based tenures, the forests minister claims as a “fact” that the legislation stems from a recommendation from the special committee on timber supply that toured B.C. last summer.

That is pure fiction.

According to a leaked cabinet document, the “rollover” of volume-based licenses to area-based tenures was recommended to cabinet in April as an option to enable the rebuilding of the Burns Lake sawmill — a month before the committee was formed and five months before it made its recommendations public.

The committee did not “in fact” recommend the conversion of volume-based licenses to area-based tenures. Rather, it gave significant and thoughtful cautionary recommendations “if conversion to more area-based tenures is desirable.” The committee found there is still no consensus on the relative merits of area-based tenures and significant concern about the potential privatization of our largest public asset.

The minister also gave Hampton Affiliates a “letter of intent” in September committing to the conversion of this U.S. company’s volume licenses to area-based tenures — a full month before he publicly released a response to the committee’s recommendations.

The fact is: the Liberals were on the rollover path long before any public process.

Enabling legislation will not guarantee in law any defined public process in the rollover decisions. It is used to give politicians “flexibility” to take actions without the constraints of law or guiding regulations. Used inappropriately, it can be a very “sneaky” instrument indeed.

We must oppose giving politicians the unfettered right to radically alter forest tenures or to privatize our public forests. I certainly intend to do that in this upcoming session. It would be nice to know if the NDP will join me in this fight.

Bob Simpson, MLA, Cariboo North

 

Prove me wrong

Forests Minister Steve Thomson takes issue with the “highly speculative” nature of my recent op-ed in which I suggest that the provincial government intends to grant cabinet open-ended powers to give forest companies de facto control of public forestlands.

He does not quibble with the fact that legislation is, in fact, coming, but says that government will be open and accountable by “ensuring” that the public is consulted.

But will public consultation be enshrined in law? That’s the question. If Mr. Thomson wishes to end speculation that the interests of First Nations, communities and other stakeholders could be circumvented in the upcoming bill, he should simply publish the contemplated legislation. I would consider it a public service and a small price to pay to be proven wrong.

Ben Parfitt, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Link to online article: https://blogs.theprovince.com/2013/01/30/letters-b-c-forests-steve-thomson-ben-parfitt-bob-simpson-post-office-sun-media-protesters-public-sector-pensions/

Mountain Caribou

Mountain Caribou Alert: Call to Action!

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The threatened Mountain Caribou – kin to Santa’s reindeer – is about to become even more threatened if forestry giant Canadian Forest Products is allowed to log in the Upper Clearwater Valley adjacent to Wells Gray Provincial Park.

A pending proposal by Canfor to salvage log beetle-killed Lodgepole Pine near Wells Gray would not only kibosh any spontaneous recovery the park’s resident Mountain Caribou might have in store, it would also further stress a herd already in serious decline.

That’s the message recently sent in a letter to Mr. Terry Lake, B.C. Minister of Environment and MLA for the North Thompson, by the Wells Gray World Heritage Committee (WGWHC), a group dedicated to furthering the candidacy of British Columbia’s fourth largest wilderness park for designation as a World Heritage Site.

Write YOUR letter today and help make that important difference!

Please visit the Wells Gray World Heritage website to read the full details of the situation and see great photos and maps of the area.

Click the Action! tab for a sample letter to Terry Lake, B.C.’s Minister of Environment and MLA for Kamloops-North Thompson and Steve Thomson, B.C.’s Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations.

Thank you!!