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by Ken Wu
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Left: Giant Red
Cedars felled by Timber West. Both in the Upper Walbram Valley,
BC.
Right: Big Lonely Doug
(Douglas Fir) - Slated for logging by Timber West in the Upper
Castle Grove.
Photos: Western
Canada, Wilderness Committee
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The "Working Forest"
The government of British Columbia is poised to institute perhaps
the most sweeping anti-environmental forestry legislation in the province’s
history. The BC Liberals want to "create a Working Forest land base
to provide greater stability for working families". What is this ‘Working
Forest’? Don’t our wild, old-growth forests already work?
The Working Forest is basically an ‘Anti-Forest Protection’ or ‘Anti-Parks
Act’. It would create timber target zones that would provide a guarantee
to logging companies that whenever a commercially valuable forest
becomes protected, an equivalent area of protected forest, such as
in our provincial parks, must be opened up to logging. The Working
Forest Timber Targets would encompass at least 23 million hectares,
that is, all of BC’s commercially valuable public forests outside
of our existing parks, which protects less than three million hectares
or 8% of BC’s productive forests.
Forests might become protected for good reasons: for the creation of provincial parks, the protection of drinking watershed reserves, the protection of endangered species habitat, wildlife and fish habitat protection (such as Ungulate Winter Ranges), for scenic corridors and viewscapes for the tourism industry or First Nations land settlements. Yet, there could be ‘no net loss’ in the availability of these forests for private logging companies,
If opening up our provincial parks to logging proves too unpopular, the logging companies would then be in a position to claim increased financial compensation from the BC taxpayer for their ‘lost’ timber supply - a supply that is actually owned by the BC public. Either way, the disincentives for new protected areas would be so great that we simply would not protect any more productive, low-elevation forests, including most of Clayoquot Sound, Upper Walbran Valley, Elaho Valley, Lillooet Forest District, Slocan Valley... you name it. Any unprotected, commercially valuable forest on public lands, we could kiss them all good-bye.
Corporate Rights over Public Lands
Around 95% of BC is public (Crown) land. Legally, the public and First Nations own these lands and the trees. The logging licenses, or tenures, granted to the forestry companies only give them the right to access our public forestlands for logging, not ownership of the land or resources. Companies only own the trees after they have been cut down and a stumpage fee has been paid to the government. Therefore, the Working Forest would provide logging corporations with compensation for public timber that they do not even own (they haven’t paid for it) as if timber was taken from the companies’ private lands. That is, the Working Forest initiative confers private, corporate rights over public lands.
Yet, BC citizens, who own these lands, receive no compensation from these companies when they dirty our drinking water, destroy scenery and recreational opportunities, and eliminate the fish and wildlife habitats. First Nations people who have never legally ceded these lands receive no compensation for the taking of their resources by the logging companies. There is also no provision to ensure that if a protected area is downsized or eliminated for logging or mining interests, as the BC Liberals are considering to do to our new South Chilcotin Protected Area, that an equivalent area of wilderness must be protected.
Campbell concerned about working families?
In their election platform, the BC Liberals tried to disguise this proposed corporate land grab as a way to "provide greater stability for working families." Yet, the Working Forest does nothing to address the main causes of instability and job loss in the forestry industry, such as the increasing export of raw logs, the high-grade overcutting of valley bottoms, mechanization in the mills and in the woods, the non-diverse, low value-added pulp and lumber orientation of the BC logging industry (making it susceptible to cyclical commodity price fluctuations), the tenure stranglehold of a few large companies that creates this non-diversified wood products industry, and the Softwood Lumber tariffs imposed by the US.
Enacted by Spring?
The BC Liberals are planning to revise the Land Act in the legislature between February and May. These revisions will empower the provincial executive , Premier Campbell and his cabinet, to implement the Working Forest whenever they want, without any necessary public scrutiny, debate, or even prior notice.
The Working Forest will have two parts to it. Firstly, land-use zoning objectives that define the purpose of the Working Forest (i.e. timber production), and secondly ‘timber targets’ that will specify where and how much land the inviolate Working Forest will encompass.
Within a few weeks or months, unless there is the greatest public outcry, the revisions to the Land Act will go through that will set the stage for the logging industry’s Last Great Barbeque of BC’s natural beauty. Get ready for the fight for BC’s forests.
Now, more than ever, your help is needed. What can you do?
Write to Premier Campbell and your MLA. If possible, write on behalf of your business. Campbell can be reached at the Legislative Buildings, Victoria, BC V8V 1X4.
Inform and organise your community group, church, union, or business association to express its position to the government.
Donate to or volunteer with the Western
Canada Wilderness Committee. We’ll need several thousand dollars
to effectively match the massive public relations clout of the BC
government and the logging industry. Contact us at 250-388-9292, wc2vic@island.net,
or WCWC Victoria, 651 Johnson St., Victoria, BC V8W 1M7.
Visit the activist section for more
information.
Ken Wu is Executive Director of the Western
Canada Wilderness Committee in Victoria.
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