Tag Archives: forests

Forests

An Old Growth Forest Grove In Cutblock 4424

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By Roy L Hales

British Columbia’s environmental community has been calling upon the provincial government to set aside plans to log in the Walbran Valley for months. The city of Victoria joined the chorus in July, passing a motion against this project. Everyone appears to have believed the Walbran was an old growth forest.  Yet on September 18th, BC  gave Teal Jones approval to start logging the first cutblock. Now, as the Surrey based logging company prepares to commence operations, the existence of an old growth forest grove in cutblock 4424 has been documented.

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Forests

The Ministry’s Answers

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By Roy L Hales

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One June 8, Sierra Club BC released their report  BC forest wake-up call.  I responded by requesting an interview with Jens Wieting, of the Sierra Club, and shooting off a list of questions to the Ministry of Forests. As I published my interview with Wieting yesterday, it seems appropriate to publish the Ministry’s answers as a Q&A today.

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Forests

BC’s Forests Produced 256 Million Tonnes of CO2

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British Columbia could be emissions free. The province’s forest cover is vast enough to absorb more carbon than we actually need to use. Unfortunately, the Ministry of Forests has not been doing a good job since the Liberal Government took power. Instead of storing carbon, BC’s forests now emit carbon. So many trees have been clear cut, infested by Mountain Pine Beetles or burned in forest fires, that BC’s forests produced 256 million tonnes of CO2 in the decade following 2003.

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Forests

Global Forest Watch Shows The Loss of US & Canadian Forests

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There have been 150,000 visits to the Global Forest Watch website since it went online Thursday and for good reason. The interactive map is an an  online forest monitoring system, created by the World Resources Institute and more than 40 partners, that allows you to examine changes in the forest cover anywhere in the World. They drew upon many databases, including Google Maps , data from the University of Maryland and satellite imagery. Global Forest Watch has already shown that the World lost 2.3 million kilometres of tree covering between 2000 and 2012. My concerns were more specific, I wanted to know if the forests in Canada and the US are presently emitting, or storing, carbon.

“We don’t have that data yet,” said Forests Communication Officer James Anderson, who then proceeded to show me some of the data the site does have.

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Forests

BC’s Forests at Risk: Logging Practices Must Change

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The health of BC’s forest cover is not good. In many parts of the province, our forests are emitting carbon, rather than absorbing it.

According to a story in the Times Colonist, “the province’s own data (shows that) net carbon dioxide emissions from forestland in 2011 were 34.9 million tons, equivalent to more than half of B.C.’s total official emissions for that year. However, only carbon emissions from deforestation and afforestation (new or replanted forests) are included in the province’s official total.”

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