tree trunks in a forest

Climate questions about Mosaic harvest plans

By Barry Saxifrage

To: Colin Koszman, Land Use Forester at Mosaic
From: Barry Saxifrage, resident of Cortes Island
Re: Mosaic’s harvest plans on Cortes Island (Feb 8, 2022).

Thank you for your Zoom presentation and flyer emailed to the Cortes Island community. I have some questions about the climate emissions from your planned harvesting. Each question has a brief discussion below it. An extended discussion with additional supporting data is at the end.

Data from BC Provincial Inventory Reports (PIR). All lines are 10-year running averages. That means each int is the average of that year and the nine years leading up to it. Green and red line & bars show the net CO2 absorbed (green) or emitted (red) by B.C.’s managed forest lands. Brown line and bars show the CO2 emitted each year by wood harvested from these forests plus slash left behind or burned. CHART by Barry Saxifrage at VisualCarbon.org & National Observer.com – Feb 2022.

Q1 — How much CO2 will be emitted by the Mosaic harvest?

With climate impacts worsening here in B.C. and worldwide, the public needs clarity and transparency on the emissions that could result from significant projects, like this. For harvesting trees, emissions need to include potential CO2 from the harvested wood products (HWP) and slash.

I haven’t seen any CO2 numbers from Mosaic, so I’m starting the discussion with my own ballpark estimate of 6,000 to 8,000 tonnes of CO2 per year (tCO2/year). That’s based on ~1 tCO2 per cubic meter of wood harvested (see extended discussion later for details). This would be the single largest source of climate emissions that I’m aware of on our island — at roughly 6 to 8 tCO2 per year per resident. I’m hoping Mosaic will be transparent on this issue and share with the public the CO2 calculations and assumptions you are using.

Q2 — How is Mosaic planning to mitigate these thousands of tonnes of CO2?

According to government data, B.C.’s managed forest lands are no longer net absorbers of CO2. Even worse, they’ve become large net CO2 emitters. For example, over the last decade the forest emitted nearly 400 MtCO2 more than was absorbed. And that is before accounting for harvested wood — which emitted another 450 MtCO2. B.C.’s managed forest isn’t replacing the wood/carbon being harvested from it. (See extended discussion for details).

Harvesting more than is growing back is not “climate neutral” or “sustainable.” Because B.C.’s managed forest is hemorrhaging CO2 even before logging, the wood harvested from it — including Mosaic’s planned harvest on Cortes — is increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. I’m hoping Mosaic will explain how they plan to mitigate all the HWP and slash CO2 their harvest will be adding on top of what our managed forest is already emitting.

Q3 — What is Mosaic’s plan to cover the rising risk of carbon-replacement failure?

To be climate-safe & sustainable, the seedlings planted after logging must replace the carbon that the mature forest would have contained. The risk of replacement failures is increasing as climate change intensifies.

Natural Resources Canada’s State of Canada’s Forests 2020 report says “projected climate change is expected to be 10 to 100 times faster than the ability of forests adapt.” It goes on to say that “while well-established adult trees can often withstand increased stress, seedlings are highly vulnerable.”

Mosaic plans to harvest the more climate-resilient mature trees and try to replace them with more climate-vulnerable seedlings. Nobody is certain anymore what kinds of seedlings will survive and thrive well enough to provide carbon replacement. And it can take decades to find out if the seedling choices Mosaic is going to make will fail or not. At that point — in a more climate-destabilized and net-zero-required future — the cost to remediate any Mosaic carbon-replacement failure is potentially high.

Will Mosaic post a carbon-bond to cover any remediation costs if their seedling guesses fail to thrive and restore enough carbon? Bonding is a
common practice in many industries to ensure future remediation costs don’t fall on the public. Or does Mosaic have another way they are ensuring sustainable replacement of the trees/carbon they’re plan to remove?

Thank you for your time and consideration of these climate and sustainability questions. I look forward to hearing Mosaic’s responses.

Extended discussion on CO2 from B.C. managed forest and harvested wood

BACKGROUND BASICS — The carbon in harvested wood products (HWP) will get emitted as CO2 when the wood is burned or rots after end of use. The amount of CO2 emitted per cubic meter of wood varies by species. I’ve seen doug-fir listed at ~800kgCO2 per cubic meter. Additional CO2 gets emitted per cubic meter by the slash, disturbed soils, and other logging impacts from harvesting it. Both B.C. and
Canada track and report CO2 emitted by wood harvested in their inventory reports.

Any CO2 that remains in the air has the same climate impact whether it came from wood, fossil fuels, or any other carbon source. To be “carbon neutral”/”net zero” the amount of emitted CO2 must be physically removed from the air and stored away.

BC FOREST CARBON BALANCE (CHART 2) — Decades ago, under our formerly stable climate, B.C.’s managed forest lands provided a free CO2-removal service by taking in more CO2 via new growth than got emitted from decay and wildfire. The logging industry used this net CO2-removal to label their B.C. harvested wood as “carbon neutral”. Unfortunately for our forest and all of us, the forest’s carbon sink has
steadily and relentlessly declined in recent decades. That’s shown by the plunging green and red line my chart #2 (data: B.C.’s Provincial Inventory Report (BCPIR))
• During the 1990s, the forest absorbed an average of 84 MtCO2 per year.
That was more than emitted by harvested wood products.
• During the 2000s, the carbon sink collapsed to an average of just 25
MtCO2 per year. That offset only half the harvested wood CO2.
• During the 2010s, the forest flipped to become a big carbon source,
emitting an average of 39 MtCO2 per year. We’ve been logging a forest
that isn’t replacing the wood/carbon being harvested from it.

CUMULATIVE CO2 SINCE 2005 (CHART 3) — My chart #3 uses the BCPIR data to show the cumulative CO2 impact since 2005. This includes CO2 emitted by both the forest and harvested wood. I choose the year 2005 because it is Canada’s baseline year for reducing emissions.
• B.C.’s forest emitted 240 MtCO2 since 2005. The cumulative total is shown by the green and red line.
• B.C. harvested wood emitted another 600 MtCO2. HWP CO2 is shown by the lower brown line. The upper line includes 60 MtCO2 from slash.
• Combined –> 840 MtCO2 emitted since 2005. B.C.’s forest and harvested wood together emitted 840 MtCO2 into the atmosphere since 2005.

MATURE TREES VS SEEDLINGS — National Resources Canada’s State of Canada’s Forests 2020 report (SCF20) says: “scientists predict that increasing temperatures and changes in weather patterns associated with climate change will drastically affect Canada’s forests in the near future. With the rate of projected climate change expected to be 10 to 100 times faster than the ability of forests adapt naturally.” The
report goes on to say that “while well-established adult trees can often withstand increased stress, seedlings are highly vulnerable.”

SUSTAINABLE IN THE NEW REALITY — The SCF20 report goes on to say the total wood volume in Canada’s forests has declined by three billion cubic meters since 1990. That missing tree volume stored around two-and-a-half billion tonnes worth of CO2. That CO2 is ending up in the atmosphere instead of being stored in the forest.

B.C.’s and Canada’s managed forests are not the same as they were decades ago. The government data shows that the forests are struggling. They aren’t replacing the wood being harvested from them. Their total carbon stocks are declining. And they’ve started pouring CO2 into the air in a threatening climate feedback loop.

Harvesting fish faster than a fishery can recover isn’t sustainable. Neither is harvesting wood faster than our forest can replace it. Worse, over-harvesting wood adds the threat of rising greenhouse gas levels — destabilizing our climate and acidifying our oceans and lakes. For wood harvesting to be climate-safe and sustainable, harvest plans must address the reality that our managed forest lands aren’t replacing harvested wood and have started emitting CO2.