Volume harvested, 1900 to 2015

Can this be split into coast and interior (most of the harvest not regulated by AAC would probably be coast)?

Another fabulous, foundational chart, David. I particularly like the private land number, which has previously been pretty hidden from the public. I'm assuming most of the private cut is the E&N Railway lands? Taking the numbers back to 1900 helps us avoid "baseline creep" or sliding baselines.

Do you have data for hectares cut? If not, is there a factor for converting this to hectares, so we can track land degradation?

Old growth might have yielded 1500-1800 CuM/ha, whereas 2nd growth is currently logged at minimum 400 CuM/ha. Say 400-600. Unfortunately, to do a calculation, one would need to know the Primary/Secondary split for each decade. I can do a rough calculation, but did anyone track hectares cut back to 1900? I would love to have a source for that data I could publish in a peer reviewed paper.  Thanks again.

This chart was produced by the Ministry of Environment in 2015. We are presenting it here in graphic form but don't have the original data. Yes, most (but not all) of the private land would be the E&N land grant.

We do have a record of the area of public land cut, but only back to 1970.

There are historical inventories and surveys of forests around the province from which one can get an idea of the state of the forest in different parts of BC back to 1912 (thanks David Leversee!). But I haven't seen anything that tracked the area logged in BC before the 60s.

Trying to impose an average volume per unit of area on that graph would likely produce untrustworthy, if not meaningless, data.

On 2/28/2023 at 12:44 AM, Martin Watts said:

Can this be split into coast and interior (most of the harvest not regulated by AAC would probably be coast)?

We don't have the original data from which this was created Martin. But a graph back to about 2005 of Coast differentiated from Interior would be interesting and is possible. People living on the Coast may not know that Interior forests have provided the lion's share of the logging industry's spoils for the past few decades. We will work on that.

As you know, there was no cut regulation on public land until 1949, so that early "not regulated" included both private and public land throughout BC. I suspect it took several years after 1949 before the cut on all public land was regulated. Anyone know the history of the AAC?

On 3/13/2023 at 11:35 PM, David Broadland said:

This chart was produced by the Ministry of Environment in 2015. We are presenting it here in graphic form but don't have the original data. Yes, most (but not all) of the private land would be the E&N land grant.

We do have a record of the area of public land cut, but only back to 1970.

There are historical inventories and surveys of forests around the province from which one can get an idea of the state of the forest in different parts of BC back to 1912 (thanks David Leversee!). But I haven't seen anything that tracked the area logged in BC before the 60s.

Trying to impose an average volume per unit of area on that graph would likely produce untrustworthy, if not meaningless, data.

Hi Dave - most of the Old Growth was running 1500 - 1800 Cu M/ha, or more, in the early days. (The minimum legal density for cutting second growth is now 400 Cu M/ha, I believe, by the way). If they cut 10,000 cubic metres in 1932, say, would that not be reasonable to assume it came from between 5556 and 6667 hectares of land?

I think the assumptions that they were mostly cutting primary forest, and that they were clearcutting, are reasonable. The number would of course be ballpark, but surely that is better than absolute nothing. In fact, a ballpark number would be a challenge for them to do the math, which I believe they should.

Is there some middle ground between "meaningless" and "not super accurate"? +- 20% accuracy? Surveys are often accompanied by disclaimers to accuracy.  Perhaps it could be stated as "somewhere between..."

I'm concerned that we let them get away with not counting the number of hectares degraded from 1900-1970. The public interest is not served by us not having even a ballpark number for hectares impacted. Have you any better ideas for getting this number?

I guess another question is where did Michelle get her figures for disturbed land in the chart she made (attached). Maybe the data is in there.  Thanks..  

Hi Ben,

It would take a much more nuanced approach than you are suggesting to understand what has been lost. As you know, primary forest on the Coast has considerably more volume/hectare than primary forest in much of the Interior. And in any landscape, there are wide variations in natural productivity.

Your method would not capture the impact of logging has had causing or making forest fires worse, either, and that loss has been great.

For example, on Quadra Island, between 1880 and 1925, unregulated logging left a legacy of high fire hazard. There were fires in 1919, 1921, 1922, 1924 and 1925. The 1925 fire burned 15,908 hectares of 27,000-hectare Quadra Island, whether it had been previously logged or not. The 1925 fire was caused by surveyors drying out clothing near a fire. The image below, from a 1930 forest inventory shows a view of Main Lake after the fire, which is now at the heart of Main Lake Provincial Park.

In 1938, a fire burned practically everything on the lowlands from northwest of Campbell River to Browns River near Courtenay. My grandfather, who worked as head cook in a Bloedell-Stewart logging camp near Campbell River at the time, told me many stories about that fire. He said it was started by a crew working in "the bush".

Here's a more modern example, a fire started by a crew working near Trent River on Vancouver Island in 2004. The photo was taken by BC Wildfire Service.

I don't think it would be a particularly useful exercise to estimate, based on the simple numerical range you are suggesting, how much of BC's primary forest has been lost. A Last Stand for Biodiversity has already done that, using better information. The hard truth is: the vast majority of the highly productive, commercially desirable primary forest is gone.

Far better to focus on an area of interest near where you live and look for remaining primary forest using satellite imagery and then confirm it by ground-truthing. Draw lines on a map around what you find, publicize that and then settle in for a long battle to defend it.

On Quadra Island we have been mapping old primary forest for the past 5 years and have now begun to interact with logging companies whose plans include areas we have identified as primary forest.

Conservation North is working on this kind of mapping for the entire province, and their Seeing Red Map is a great start and will help those of us working at a local level to find and defend remaining primary forest. I understand that they will be releasing an updated version of their map soon. We will get it on the EA site when it is available.

On the Discovery Islands, we are taking the approach mentioned above, which involves actually going out into the woods and confirming on the ground the existence of primary forest. You can see the Discovery Islands Forest Conservation Project's map-in-progress of primary forest here. 

On 3/19/2023 at 11:36 AM, David Broadland said:

Hi Ben,

It would take a much more nuanced approach than you are suggesting to understand what has been lost. As you know, primary forest on the Coast has considerably more volume/hectare than primary forest in much of the Interior. And in any landscape, there are wide variations in natural productivity.

Your method would not capture the impact of logging has had causing or making forest fires worse, either, and that loss has been great.

For example, on Quadra Island, between 1880 and 1925, unregulated logging left a legacy of high fire hazard. There were fires in 1919, 1921, 1922, 1924 and 1925. The 1925 fire burned 15,908 hectares of 27,000-hectare Quadra Island, whether it had been previously logged or not. The 1925 fire was caused by surveyors drying out clothing near a fire. The image below, from a 1930 forest inventory shows a view of Main Lake after the fire, which is now at the heart of Main Lake Provincial Park.

In 1938, a fire burned practically everything on the lowlands from northwest of Campbell River to Browns River near Courtenay. My grandfather, who worked as head cook in a Bloedell-Stewart logging camp near Campbell River at the time, told me many stories about that fire. He said it was started by a crew working in "the bush".

Here's a more modern example, a fire started by a crew working near Trent River on Vancouver Island in 2004. The photo was taken by BC Wildfire Service.

 

 

I don't think it would be a particularly useful exercise to estimate, based on the simple numerical range you are suggesting, how much of BC's primary forest has been lost. A Last Stand for Biodiversity has already done that, using better information. The hard truth is: the vast majority of the highly productive, commercially desirable primary forest is gone.

Far better to focus on an area of interest near where you live and look for remaining primary forest using satellite imagery and then confirm it by ground-truthing. Draw lines on a map around what you find, publicize that and then settle in for a long battle to defend it.

On Quadra Island we have been mapping old primary forest for the past 5 years and have now begun to interact with logging companies whose plans include areas we have identified as primary forest.

Conservation North is working on this kind of mapping for the entire province, and their Seeing Red Map is a great start and will help those of us working at a local level to find and defend remaining primary forest. I understand that they will be releasing an updated version of their map soon. We will get it on the EA site when it is available.

On the Discovery Islands, we are taking the approach mentioned above, which involves actually going out into the woods and confirming on the ground the existence of primary forest. You can see the Discovery Islands Forest Conservation Project's map-in-progress of primary forest here. 

Thanks David...