Calling on the Province of BC to Follow Through on Transformative Stewardship and Industry Promises
British Columbia’s forests are among the most diverse and carbon-rich on Earth. Yet every year, British Columbia continues to log vast areas of remaining primary and old-growth forests – ecosystems that are globally rare and irreplaceable.
The results of this mismanagement are everywhere: collapsed wildlife populations, degraded watersheds, shuttered mills, and hollowed-out forestry towns. Jobs and small forestry businesses have declined alongside the forests, while profits flow to shareholders and investments leave the province.
Over five years ago, BC’s provincial government made significant commitments to transition from timber extraction to ecosystem health and a value-based forest economy. Yet little has been implemented in terms of policy changes, stewardship and industry transition.
These commitments have already been made — but not kept.
The Province of British Columbia must now breathe life back into its forests and waters and get on the right side of history — fulfilling its moral and legal obligations to biodiversity, climate stability, and future generations.
We call on the Province of British Columbia to:
- Overhaul stewardship through implementation of Old Growth Strategic Review recommendations, including implementation of an ecosystem health law.
- Direct a smaller, sustainable harvest into local, value-added producers that creates more jobs for less harvest, keeps profits and jobs in BC, and puts the control back in local hands.
- Permanently protect the last irreplaceable old-growth forests.
- Direct conservation financing so no First Nation is forced to choose between survival and stewardship.
- Invest in restoration, carbon, and nature-based economies that heal rather than deplete the land.
The petition was prepared by two independent scientists in British Columbia:
- Dr. Suzanne Simard, R.P.F., Mother Tree Network Society
- Dr. Rachel F. Holt, R.P.Bio., independent ecologist
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Why This Matters
Destroying BC’s Unique Ecosystems
The Province of British Columbia is one of the most diverse places on earth with rainforests to grasslands. The remaining primary forest and old growth forest landscapes are globally rare – supporting incredible biodiversity that no longer exists elsewhere in much of North America or Europe
These once vast original forests, including ancient forests many thousands of years old, have been logged with little thought to maintaining any other values except volume of trees extracted, and shareholder profits. Over successive generations of governments, BC has failed to protect its globally unique ecosystems contributing to Canada’s inability to meet its global commitments to climate change, biodiversity or forest degradation.
Destroying BC’s Forestry Industry
Simultaneously, forestry jobs and the distribution of mills have fallen precipitously over the last 20 years, a direct result of consolidation of tenure and large dimension lumber mills, combined with the “falldown” in timber volume that occurred as the biggest trees were logged first and harvest rates propped up. Investment in value-added has been meagre, and large companies continue to ship the highest value lumber out of province while profits leave with shareholders and are invested elsewhere.
Decades in the making: The blaring warning signs of closing mills and ecological collapse have been completely ignored by successive governments and industry alike.
Broken Promises
Recently, BC’s provincial government made significant steps towards changing the paradigm of management from a focus on timber to ecosystem health but has failed to implement these commitments.
And, BC’s provincial government also made significant commitments to transition from a volume-based industry to one focused on value and jobs. There have been individual investments, but overall policy continues to prop up large industry by refocusing on simple wood volume metrics. Industry transition can only occur if BC makes room for it.
The enactment of DRIPA is a significant step, but it must be applied fairly. Today, First Nations who want improved stewardship and protection of at-risk forests remain trapped in a daily burdensome system where there is still “no path to saying no”.
BC is globally renowned for its carbon rich ancient forests, its biodiversity, water and oceans, yet a conservation economy is not even on the provincial radar.
Abandoning stewardship will not result in stability of fiber flow – as ancient forests are clearcut and caribou populations go extinct; the social unrest will continue.
Standing Firm for BC’s Forests – Mature Policy, Sustainable Innovation, and Stewardship
Recent additional pressures from abroad are hard to resist but standing firm for the long-term vision that serves current and future generations in BC is critical. BC forest stewardship and resources policies must mature, must fill the conservation gap that exists after 30 years of conservation policies capped by the ‘without unduly impacting the timber supply” clause, and must funnel a realistic smaller sustainable volume of fiber into innovative primary and secondary manufacturing to create real jobs for the future.