Prince George, BC – Northern BCers are unimpressed by the government’s announcement on old growth forests last week. The province announced nine general locations where they will temporarily defer logging of old growth.
“None of the temporary area deferrals are in our endangered northern rainforests. In other words, they seem to have completely ignored the science,” explains Jenn Matthews of Conservation North, a group demanding legal protection for these globally unique northern rainforests, which stretch from Wells Gray to the Peace River break.
Both a scientific report published in June and a new report commissioned by the BC government and prepared by an independent panel of two foresters (‘the panel report’) support the view that BC’s most endangered old growth forests (i.e. those with less than 10% of their area covered in old forest) must be protected now to avoid irreversible damage and biodiversity collapse in this unique ecosystem.
According to Conservation North’s Michelle Connolly: “BC has failed to meet a basic and straightforward recommendation by scientists and their own appointed panel, which is to stop harvesting the rarest old growth forests immediately.”
Most of the areas identified for deferral are not at immediate (or in fact at any) risk at all. “If the 350,000 ha around the rest of the province was actually protecting highly ‘at risk’ areas then we would not feel so bad about being excluded up here in the north. But that’s not the case ,” explained Sean O’Rourke. Referring to a map published in the BC government’s press release and pointing out the huge void of protection in the interior, “Not only did they ignore what the science says, but our at-risk old growth forests got a big goose egg,” he said,
For example, the areas deferred in the southern interior – Stockdale and Crystalline creeks – have both been ‘off-limits’ to harvest for about a decade and so are not at risk. In Clayoquot sound, most of the area identified is already off-limits as a result of the FSC certification there. Making these areas officially protected in some form is a good thing – but this does not deal with the immediate threat to high-risk old growth in BC.
Despite being classified a ‘red zone’ for ecological risk by scientists, BC’s central interior was not included in the Province’s limited selection of area deferrals. For example, the beloved Anzac valley, in the news recently because of negative impacts stemming from industrial logging and pipeline construction, is one of the BC’s most endangered old growth forest landscapes. Also in trouble are cedar-hemlock forests of the Upper Fraser River, commonly referred to as part of the inland temperate rainforest.
The panel report stresses that a transition to more responsible logging can improve local economies and be sustainable in the long-term. Conservation North agrees with this assessment and is pushing for a rapid transition to managing and harvesting already-converted landscapes and staying away from primary (old growth) forests. “We need to look at the future of our community, not just the bottom line of forestry corporations,” explained Jenn Matthews. “Once the old growth is gone, we will have to transition to using second-growth forests anyway, so why not make that transition now while some fraction of these important places are left?”