There were two opposing logging protests in Campbell River, last Thursday.
The two logging protests
According to Quadra Island resident Rod Burns, by the time they reached MLA Michele Babchuk’s office there would have been close to 30 people protesting in support of old growth forests. This group assembled at the Logger Mike statue. Burns was among the half a dozen, or so, that crossed over from Quadra Island. There were Campbell River residents, as well as people from Comox, Courtenay and possibly someone from Cortes Island.
Burns said, “When we got through the [Tyee] parking lot, I looked over to my right and, oh my goodness, there was a contingent of approximately 100 forest workers, partners, a few dogs, and three logging trucks.”
He found the presence of five placard toting City Counsellors among them – Charlie Cornfield, Kermit Dahl, Colleen Evans, Ron Kerr and Sean Smyth – disconcerting.
“I though council would be trying to be neutral, and hearing all sides of the issue, but this is definitely not the case. Council definitely did not want to hear the old growth retention people,” he said.
The two groups proceeded to the joint offices of MLA Michele Babchuk and MP Rachel Blaney.
Coming out to support the Forest Industry
“We’re having a forestry support rally for Campbell River, coming out to support the forest industry, our families and our communities,“ Carl Sweet, a Campbell River resident and Director of the BC Forestry Alliance, told the Campbell River Mirror.
He pointed back to the pro-industry contingent, “There is a sign down there that says forestry feeds my family. It built Campbell River. Campbell River will cease to exist as we know it today, without forestry.”
“We’re not against logging, we’re against current forestry practises, because forests feed many families,” responded Burns.
The Science based facts about Forestry
BC’s Old Growth Forests: A last stand for Biodiversity, Karen Price et al, Veridian Ecological, April 2020, p 7 (quoted on page 37 of the Strategic Review)
Recommendation 6 from the Old Growth Strategic Review (which the BC Government promises to implement, though not immediately), p 55
“I think we need to look at the science based facts about forestry. We talk about the last of the old growth, but there are over 13 million hectares of old growth in British Columbia. British Columbia has 63% of the total protected forest in Canada. We’re not ‘deforestation’, we practise forestry here in British Columbia,” said Sweet.
This is partially true.
The BC government’s forest inventory definitions currently states there are 13.7 million hectares of “old growth,” BUT the province’s Old-Growth Strategic Review adds that 80% of this “consists of relatively small trees growing on lower productivity sites.”
According to one of the studies quoted in that Review, “sites with the potential to grow very large trees cover less than 3% of the province. Old forests on these sites have dwindled considerably due to intense harvest so that only 2.7% of this 3% is currently old.”
These are the forests that the sixth recommendation of the Strategic Review refers to, when it states, “Until a new strategy is implemented, defer development in old forests where ecosystems are at very high and near-term risk of irreversible biodiversity loss.”
These are not isolated studies.
from the Old Growth Strategic Review, p 6
The Ministry of Forest’s 1992 Old Growth Strategy for British Columbia stated, “In parts of the province, meanwhile, opportunities to reserve representative samples of old growth are dwindling rapidly.”
Twenty years later, a BC Forest Practises report (2012) mentioned “significant gaps in the governments oversight of old growth.”
Screenshot from An Audit of Biodiversity in BC: Assessing the Effectiveness of Key Tools, Office of the Auditor General of British Columbia, Feb 2013, p 10
The Auditor General’s office wrote (2013), “Government does not know whether its actions are resulting in the conservation of biodiversity.”
It is true that environmentalists have been warning that the forests that most of us think as old growth, the giants that used to live for hundreds of years, are threatened.
In 2019 a Ministry of Forests spokesperson emailed Cortes Currents, “The actual harvest age of stands can vary from less than 50 years, on the most productive sites on the Coast, to 140 years or more in the Interior … On Vancouver Island, 50% of the harvest in the past 5 years has come from old growth defined as stands that are older than 250 years.”
No place at the table
Charlie Forrester, of the BC Forestry Association, described the old growth protesters as “environmental terrorists” who should have no place at the table.
He was among the dozens of loggers, friends and family who showed up at an old growth logging protest in Mesachie Lake (roughly an hours drive east of Fairy Creek) two weeks ago.
“We’re out here promoting logging and loggers and defending the logging industry in British Columbia, which at the present time is under assault from environmentalists. We’re here to represent the facts and truths about logging, not misinformation and lies, which is coming from the environmental side,” he told a reporter from the Maple Ridge News at that time.
Logging old growth
On Thursday, Forrester told the Mirror, “You can’t have second growth without old growth. Ultimately loggers don’t want to log every last stand, or every last tree of old growth. We are into sustainable logging and logging old growth is part of that.”
Deferring logging in Old Growth Areas.
Rich Hagensen from the Campbell River chapter of the Council of Canadians, explained, “We’re calling on the provincial government to immediately defer logging in all high productivity and old growth areas, as recommended by the Old Growth Strategic Review.”
A similar motion went before the Capital Regional District, where the Pacheedaht Nation stated the Fairy Creek blockade was in their territory and jurisdiction.
The Strathcona Regional District Board will be discussing a motion to “endorse the recommendations of the Old Growth Strategic Review Panel” at their meeting this Wednesday (June 16, 2021).
‘Councillor Cornfield’s motion’
Screenshot from City of Campbell River Regular Council Meeting of April 26, 2021, the motion appear to have been in response to Nanaimo passing a resolution encouraging the BC Government to move forward with Recommendation 6 (below)
Cornfield told the Campbell River City Council that these resolutions are based on ‘disinformation, misinformation and outright lies.’
He proposed a resolution, which the city of Campbell River immediately adopted, that includes words like :
“ … Whereas the viability of the forest sector is currently threatened by the actions of anti-logging organizations, local governments (mainly Nanaimo), and reporting by Media. Now therefore be it resolved that City Council immediately provide an elevated direct response of support for Forest operations based on fact and science …”
BC promised to implement all 14 recommendations
The Government of BC has repeatedly promised to implement all of the recommendations of the Old Growth Strategic Review.
Most recently, when announcing the province’s agreement to defer old growth logging at Fairy Creek, Premier John Horgan said, “We’ve made it abundantly clear since we were first sworn in and the steps we’ve taken since the Old Growth report [Old Growth Strategic Review] by foresters Gorley and Merkel, we will implement all of the recommendations contained therein…”
He also said, “you can’t turn on a dime when you are talking about an industry that has been the foundation of BC’s economy.”
Some believe that if you wait for another three or four years, it may be too late.
Finding middle ground?
At Thursday’s protest, Rod Burns and Carl Sweet agreed they might be able to find some middle ground.
Burns suggests that maybe it’s time for the two sides in Campbell River to have a town hall meeting in which both sides can share their perspectives.
Links of Interest:
- (Gov of BC) A NEW FUTURE FOR OLD FORESTS A Strategic Review of How British Columbia Manages for Old Forests Within its Ancient Ecosystems
- (Veridian Ecological) BC’s Old Growth Forests: A last stand for Biodiversity
- (Cortes Currents) Campbell River opposes implementing the Old Growth Strategic Review
- (Cortes Currents) BC deferring old growth logging in Fairy Creek
- (Cortes Currents) Articles about, or mentioning, Recommendation 6
- (Auditor General of BC) An Audit of Biodiversity in BC: Assessing the Effectiveness of Key Tools
- (Forests Practises Board) Conserving Old Growth Forests in BC
- (Gov of BC) Old Growth Forests
- (Cortes Currents) Articles about, or mentioning, Recommendation 6
- (Cortes Currents) Articles about, or mentioning, old growth forests
All photos 0f June 10 protests courtesy Tasja MacGregor.
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