“Perceptions,” by Gerry Warner

Op-Ed Commentary

Showing how desperate and Machiavellian he really is, B.C. Premier John Horgan announced a new old growth forest panel Thursday to succeed the original old growth panel announced more than a year ago that angered almost everyone in B.C. and pleased no one.

Nevertheless, some environmentalists are calling the premier’s announcement a “glimmer of hope,” while others are calling it a “fire sale” on the rapidly dwindling old growth timber stands in the province.

“The technical panel is a very welcome positive step forward,” said Andrea Inness of the Ancient Forest Alliance. “It really gives me a glimmer of hope the province is going to listen to science around the state of old growth forests.”

However, new mapping shows a huge increase in old growth logging in the year after the original Old Growth Strategic Report was issued, says Wilderness Committee National Campaign Director Torrance Coste in a blistering denunciation of Horgan’s new old growth panel.

“Logging corporations are targeting the most at-risk forests, and the B.C. government is doing absolutely nothing to stop them,” says Coste. “By committing to the paradigm shift the panel called for and stating old-growth is worth more standing, Premier John Horgan has basically announced a get-it-while-you-can fire sale on the most important old-growth forests, and logging companies appear to be grabbing all they can.”

In making its claim, the Wilderness Committee used publicly available data to map old growth cut-block approvals after the initial report was issued. The mapping indicates logging was approved on 84,669 hectares of land, up from 59,228 hectares in the previous 12-month period, an increase of 43%.

“The Old-growth Strategic Review was launched because there is a problem in this province. And in the year since it was completed Horgan’s government has made that problem worse,” says Coste. “Horgan promised British Columbia a paradigm shift, but all he’s delivered is more destruction of irreplaceable old-growth forests.”

Meanwhile protests against the government’s handling of the old growth issue continue almost daily around the province, including in the premier’s own riding where close to 200 demonstrators have been arrested at Fairy Creek on Vancouver Island where iconic old growth trees as ancient as 1,500 years continue to fall after a court order saying the logging was legal.

Forests Minister Katrine Conroy told a news conference the new panel will use the best science available to identify “at risk” old growth stands and prioritize them for deferral. But several environmental groups claim the province grossly exaggerated the old-growth it said was protected in the first report and fear the same will happen in the second.

Inness says she hopes the panel’s input will rectify the government’s claim to have protected 200,000 hectares of old-growth. “I still have concerns, because we continue to see the province use misleading figures around the state of old-growth forests and what they’ve done so far.”

In an interview with The Narwhal, Garry Merkel, a Tahltan First Nation member, Kimberley area resident and one of the authors of the first old growth report, says old growth protection has never been taken seriously by the government. “B.C. did an old-growth strategy 25 years ago. There were a huge number of really good recommendations. If we had implemented them, we would not be in the situation we’re in right now.”

Merkel, a registered professional forester, says it’s time for a “paradigm shift” in B.C. forest practises from concentrating almost entirely on fibre for industry to other values such as biodiversity and ecosystem management. But Merkel, who has been appointed to sit on the new panel, raising the hopes of environmentalists, doesn’t sound optimistic that change will come quickly.  “I don’t think that we’re going to get through this for a while, if ever . . . That’s just what the realism side of me says.”

The government sat on its first report for more than a year and did nothing. Now they’ve appointed a second panel to write another report. Why should we believe “something” will come out of it? In such circumstances, could one be faulted for thinking the mantra will remain the same?

Talk and log. And do nothing to save our iconic old growth.

– Gerry Warner is a retired journalist, who tries awfully hard to be optimistic but often fails.

Article Share