Evergreen Alliance Staff
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Journalism: The over-exploitation of BC forests
Library: Destruction of wildlife habitat and loss of biodiversity
Journalism: Loss of forest-related employment
Journalism: The need to expedite final treaties with First Nations
Journalism: Loss of primary forest
Journalism: Loss of carbon sequestration capacity
Other notable forest-related writing and reports
Noteworthy writing and reports from the forest-industrial complex
Forest News
Library: The over-exploitation of BC forests
Library: Loss of primary forest
Library: Loss of the hydrological functions of forests
Make conservation of the hydrological function of forests a higher priority than timber extraction
Library: Loss of forest-related employment
Library: The need to expedite final treaties with First Nations
Transition from clearcut logging to selection logging
Library: Increase in forest fire hazard
Journalism: End public subsidization of BC's forest industry
Library: End public subsidization of BC's forest industry
Library: The need to reform BC forest legislation
Journalism: The need to reform BC forest legislation
Library: Creating a new vision for BC forests
Forest industry public subsidy calculator
Manufacturing and processing facilities
Forest Trends
Investigations
Community Forest Mapping Projects
Area-based calculations of carbon released from clearcut logging
Journalism: The increase in forest carbon emissions
Library: Increase in forest carbon emissions
To protect biodiversity, transition away from clearcut logging
Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance
Library: Loss of future employment resulting from exporting raw logs
Mapping old forest on Vancouver Island
Mapping old forest in Omineca Natural Resource Region
Mapping old forest in Skeena Natural Resource Region
Mapping old forest in Northeastern Natural Resource Region
Mapping old forest in Cariboo Natural Resource Region
Mapping old forest in South Coast Natural Resource Region
Mapping old forest in Thompson-Okanagan Natural Resource Region
Mapping old forest in Kootenay-Boundary Natural Resource Region
Forest Conservation Organizations
Mapping old forest on Haida Gwaii
Mapping old forest on the central coast
Library: Ecologically damaging practices
Journalism: Ecologically damaging practices
Critical Issues
Analysis
Comment
Listed species: Cascades Natural Resource District
Listed species: 100 Mile House Natural Resource District
Listed species: Campbell River Natural Resource District
Listed species: Cariboo-Chilcotin Natural Resource District
Listed species: Chilliwack River Natural Resource District
Listed species: Fort Nelson Natural Resource District
Listed species: Haida Gwaii Natural Resource District
Listed species: Mackenzie Natural Resource District
Listed species: Nadina Natural Resource District
Listed species: North Island Natural Resource District
Listed species: Peace Natural Resource District
Listed species: Prince George Natural Resource District
Listed species: Quesnel Natural Resource District
Listed species: Rocky Mountain Natural Resource District
Listed species: Sea-to-Sky Natural Resource District
Listed species: Selkirk Natural Resource District
Listed species: Skeena Natural Resource District
Listed species: South Island Natural Resource District
Listed species: Stuart-Nechako Natural Resource District
Listed species: Sunshine Coast Natural Resource District
Listed species: Thompson Rivers Natural Resource District
Listed species: Coast Mountains Natural Resource District
Action Group: Divestment from forest-removal companies
Fact-checking mindustry myths
First Nations Agreements
Monitor: BC Timber Sales Auctions
BC Timber Sales auction of old-growth forests on Vancouver Island
Monitoring of forest fires in clearcuts and plantations: 2021
Library: End public subsidization of forest industry
Examples of engaging the mindustry:
Portal: The over-exploitation of BC forests
Portal: The need to reform BC forest legislation
Portal: The need to expedite treaties with First Nations
Portal: The need to get more organized, informed and inspired for change
Portal: Develop a new relationship with forests
Portal: Destruction of wildlife habitat and loss of biodiversity
Portal: Loss of the hydrological functions of forests
Portal: Increase in forest fire hazard
Portal: Loss of carbon sequestration capacity
Portal: Increase in forest carbon emissions
Portal: Ecologically damaging forestry practices
Portal: Loss of forest-related employment
Portal: Loss of future employment resulting from raw log exports
Portal: Costs of floods, fires and clearcutting of watersheds
Portal: The economic impact on communities of boom and bust cycles
Portal: Loss of economic development by other forest-based sectors
Portal: The true cost of subsidies provided to the logging industry
Help
Loss of trust in institutions
Portal: The instability of communities dependent on forest extraction
Portal: The psychological unease caused by forest destruction
Portal: Loss of trust in institutions caused by over-exploitation of BC forests
Portal: Social division caused by over-exploitation of BC forests
Journalism: The instability of communities dependent on forest extraction
Journalism: Psychological unease caused by forest destruction
Journalism: Loss in trust of institutions as a result of over-exploitation of BC forests
Journalism: Social division caused by over-exploitation of BC forests
Library: The instability of communities dependent on forest extraction
Library: Psychological unease caused by forest destruction
Library: Loss of trust in institutions as a result of over-exploitation of BC forests
Library: Social division caused by over-exploitation of BC forests
Resources: Psychological unease caused by forest destruction
Resources: The economic impact on communities of boom-and-bust cycles
Resources: Loss of economic development potential in other forest-based sectors
Journalism: Cost of floods, fires and clearcutting of community watersheds
Journalism: The economic impact on communities of boom-and-bust cycles
Journalism: Loss of economic development potential in other forest-based sectors
Library: Cost of floods, fires and clearcutting of community watersheds
Library: The economic impact on communities of boom-and-bust cycles
Library: Loss of economic development potential in other forest-based sectors
Portal: Permanent loss of forests to logging roads
Portal: The economic costs of converting forests into sawdust and wood chips
Journalism: Permanent loss of forests to logging roads
Library: Permanent loss of forests to logging roads
Journalism: The economic costs of converting forests into sawdust and wood chips
Library: The economic costs of converting forests into sawdust and wood chips
Resources: The economic costs of converting forests into sawdust and wood chips
Resources: Ecologically damaging forestry practices
Resources: Conversion of forests to permanent logging roads
Library: Getting organized
Journalism: Getting organized
Forest politics
Forest Stewards
Portal: Plantation failure
Library: Plantation failure
Journalism: Plantation failure
Library: Loss of carbon sequestration capacity
Portal: Soil loss and damage
Journalism: Soil loss and damage
Library: Soil loss and damage
Resources: Soil loss and damage
Journalism: Loss of employment resulting from export of raw logs
Journalism: Destruction of wildlife habitat and loss of biodiversity
Journalism: Loss of the hydrological functions of forests
Journalism: Increase in forest fire hazard
Action Group: Sunlighting professional reliance
Making the case for much greater conservation of BC forests
Science Alliance for Forestry Transformation
Bearing witness:
Economic State of the BC Forest Sector
Big tree mapping and monitoring
Reported Elsewhere
Protect more
Start a forest conservation project
Get involved
Article reference pages
Physical impacts created by logging industry
Nature Directed Stewardship at Glade and Laird watersheds
References for: How did 22 TFLs in BC evade legal old-growth management areas?
References for: BC's triangle of fire: More than just climate change
References for: Teal Cedar goes after Fairy Creek leaders
References for: Is the draft framework on biodiversity and ecosystem health something new? Or just more talk and log?
IWTF events, articles and videos
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Everything posted by Evergreen Alliance Staff
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By Jim Pojar Pojar dismantles 7 myths employed—mainly by the logging industry to justify current logging practices and rates—about forests and carbon. Pojar outlines recommendations and potential solutions that could reduce carbon emissions associated with logging in BC. Forestry and Carbon in BC Dr. Jim Pojar (2019).pdf -
Clearcut-Carbon-report Sierra BC (2019).pdf
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By HEATHER KEITH,DAVID LINDENMAYER, BRENDAN MACKEY, DAVID BLAIR, LAUREN CARTER, LACHLAN MCBURNEY, SACHIKO OKADA, AND TOMOKO KONISHI-NAGANO Abstract: Management of native forests offers opportunities to store more carbon in the land sector through two main activities. Emissions to the atmosphere can be avoided by ceasing logging. Removals of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere can be increased by allowing forests to continue growing. However, the relative benefits for carbon storage of managing native forests for wood production versus protection are contested. Additionally, the potential for carbon storage is impacted upon by disturbance events, such as wildfire, that alter the amount and longevity of carbon stocks. Using a case study of montane ash forests in southeastern Australia, we demonstrated that the total biomass carbon stock in logged forest was 55% of the stock in old growth forest. Total biomass included above- and belowground, living and dead. Biomass carbon stock was calculated spatially as an average across the landscape, accounting for variation in environmental conditions and forest age distribution. Reduction in carbon stock in logged forest was due to 66% of the initial biomass being made into products with short lifetimes (,3 years), and to the lower average age of logged forest (,50 years compared with .100 years in old growth forest). Only 4% of the initial carbon stock in the native forest was converted to sawn timber products with lifetimes of 30–90 years. Carbon stocks are depleted in a harvested forest system compared with an old growth forest, even when storage in wood products and landfill are included. We estimated that continued logging under current plans represented a loss of 5.56 Tg C over 5 years in the area logged (824 km2), compared with a potential gain of 5.18–6.05 TgC over 5 years by allowing continued growth across the montane ash forest region (2326 km2). Avoiding emissions by not logging native forests and allowing them to continue growing is therefore an important form of carbon sequestration. The mitigation value of forest management options of protection versus logging should be assessed in terms of the amount, longevity and resilience of the carbon stored in the forest, rather than the annual rate of carbon uptake. Managing temperate forests for carbon storage (2014).pdf
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Biophysical considerations in forestry for climate protection (2010).pdf
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The Evergreen Alliance is hoping to set up a network of mapping projects across the province that observe and record forest destruction at a local level. With the Discovery Islands Mapping Project we are creating an example of how this can be done. The project is currently compiling a 10-year record of forest cover loss, loss of forest carbon and loss of carbon sequestration capacity in the forests on these islands. It is also mapping remaining primary forest and conducting surveys of biodiversity and special geographical features. The objective of the project is to help the communities on these islands find a pathway to a less destructive, more ecologically-based and economically balanced use of forests. You will find the project here. -
Based on the 2018 provincial mill survey conducted by the ministry of forests, nearly half of the total volume of trees logged in BC ends up in one of 20 pulp and/or paper mills in the province. THE MINISTRY OF FORESTS' 2018 mill survey reveals how little of the harvest of BC forests ends up as long-lasting lumber or plywood. The survey needs some analysis since it does not indicate how much of the volume of logs entering sawmills is later shipped off to pulp mills as either wood chips or hog fuel. The mill survey includes the volume of wood that was cut on privately-owned land. With end use expressed as a percentage of the total cut in BC, that looks like this: The ministry's mill survey analysis makes clear some basics facts about the forest industry in BC. First, almost two-thirds of the volume of logs harvested in BC is turned into short-lived products like hog fuel, paper, pellets, shingles and shakes. Only the lumber and plywood are likely to survive longer than 25 years, and some of that won't make it even that long. As more end users move away from paper for various reasons, the industry would be challenged to find an alternative use for the mountains of sawdust and woodchips lumber production creates. To maintain the current level of lumber production, the industry appears to be intent on turning the waste into compressed pellets which will be burned for energy. In this initiative they are supported by BC's Chief Forester Diane Nicholls. Burning sawdust for energy has been described by scientists as worse for the atmosphere than burning coal. In a 2021 letter to world leaders (download from link below), 500 scientists urged them to stop the burning of trees for energy. The scientists wrote, "Overall, for each kilowatt hour of heat or electricity produced, using wood initially is likely to add two to three times as much carbon to the air as using fossil fuels." In spite of the science, the BC ministry of forests seems intent on developing this backward idea. With an industry that turns over 50 percent of the forest it cuts into sawdust and wood chips, the only alternative may be to cut less forest. The forest industrial complex will respond to this challenge, of course, by spending money to convince the public that, somehow, the scientists have got it wrong. Letter from 500 scientists regarding use of forests for bioenergy (2021): Letter Regarding Use of Forests for Bioenergy (2021).pdf -
WE'VE MAPPED the location of all BC's major mills, the volume of forest they consume, and the associated forest carbon emissions. Click on the image below to go to the live map for all of BC. -
For more information on how we made this estimate, go to this page.
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Photo to left: The channel running east toward the Coast Mountain Range is known as "Hole-in-the-Wall." It separates Maurelle Island (right) and Sonora Island. BC Timber Sales has laid out cutblocks along the north end of Maurelle Island just above the channel. The Discovery Islands Forest Conservation Project is investigating the impacts of clearcut logging taking place on this group of Islands at the north end of the Salish Sea. The organization is conducting a survey of biodiversity and mapping all remaining primary forest, including old growth. The project is examining how a transition could be made from traditional clearcut logging to a practice of biodiversity conservation, forest carbon stewardship and development of research and recreational potential. -
Between 2000 and 2023, direct employment in the BC forest industry was cut in half, falling from just over 100,000 jobs to 46,200. Over this same period the volume cut fell by 30 percent. The loss of jobs per unit of volume cut is mainly the result of increased mechanization of logging and milling operations. -
In the year 2000, BC's forest industry contributed $5.2 billion to BC's GDP. That represented aboput 3.5 percent of BC's total GDP. By 2019, the forest industry's contribution to GDP had grown to $5.42 billion. The overall BC economy had grown much larger, however and the GDP was $252 billion. The forest industry's share of the GDP fell to about 2 percent. The forest industry now contributes about the same value to provincial GDP as the telecommunications industry. -
OVER THE TEN YEARS from 2010 to 2019, the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development (under different names) spent $10.74 billion and took in $7.3 billion in revenue, according to documents obtained by FOI and cross-referenced with annual ministry service plans and BC budgets. Based on those numbers, the ministry's forests-related losses over that 10-year period were $3.44 billion, or an average of approximately $942,000 per day. That loss was incurred almost entirely to manage BC's forests so they could be logged by the forest industry. The Evergreen Alliance considers this cost to be a public subsidy of the forest industry. -
Between 2001 and 2019, British Columbia lost forest cover on 7.88 million hectares of land. That number was determined by Global Forest Watch, which analyses satellite images to estimate forest loss around the globe. In BC's case, according to Canada's National Forestry Database, logging accounted for 3.9 million hectares of that loss. The other half was the result of forest fires and insects, mainly the Mountain Pine Beetle infestation in BC's Interior. When compared with the most-forested nations on a per capita basis, BC's record of total forest cover loss is, by far, the worst. It's well-known that the Mountain Pine Beetle attack on Lodgepole Pine tree had a heavy impact on BC's forests during this period. As well, the province has experienced more frequent large forest fires than the historical frequency of such fires. Yet if we count only the forest cover loss as a result of logging, BC still has a considerably worse record than any of the most-forested nations. While Russia and Brazil both had a higher absolute loss of forest cover, they also have much greater populations than BC. It's only when forest cover loss is considered on a per capita basis that we can see how haywire our rate of logging is compared to other countries. Our over-exploitation of BC's forests is sometimes explained away as just an inescapable aspect of our national character: "Canadians are just hewers of wood and drawers of water." But the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, both of which are made significantly worse by the vast scale of industrial logging in BC, demand that we change that part of our national character and begin to respond materially to crises which we, on a per capita basis, have played a profoundly significant role. -
Photo to left of logging in the Mount Freda area Mount Freda, in the Sunshine Coast Natural Resource District, is a project of qathet old growth. The area is described on the organization's website: From the Knuckleheads, Sentinel, and Skwim you can see her volcano-like profile, often with a shawl of cloud cloaked around her flanks. The community of Powell River uses a beautiful trail climbing through ancient forests, sensitive sub alpine meadows and tarns to access the summit at 1865 meters year round for hiking and skiing. Ecologically, wet coastal forests dominated by Cedar and Hemlock are good examples of where natural disturbances are rare and often the whole forest can be much older than their oldest trees. Sometimes 3000-10,000yrs as an ecosystem. Trees at high elevation grow very slowly. Many tree rings are less than 1 mm wide. 1000 yr old trees can be less than 1 meter in diameter. The Freda forest could possibly be some of the oldest forests in Canada and apart of the oldest living closed canopy forests in the world. 44 kms as the crow flies to the south from the Freda forest, is the Caran Forest. It is located on the lower Sunshine Coast and has world record holders for the yellow cedar and hemlock. It is in the same subalpine biogeoclimatic zone as the mountain hemlock/ yellow cedar forests here in our Powell River Backcountry. Freda Cedar 1200 yrs Caran Cedar 1824 yrs Freda Hemlock 800 yrs Caran Hemlock 1250 yrs -
Eldred Valley
Evergreen Alliance Staff posted a gallery image in Forests and trees that need protection
The Eldred Valley, in the Sunshine Coast Natural Resource District, is a project of qathet old growth. -
Anzac River/Conservation North
Evergreen Alliance Staff posted a gallery image in Forests and trees that need protection
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See the report here, or download it from the link below. A new future for old forests-Gorley-Merkel (2020).pdf
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By Karen Price, Rachel Holt, and Dave Daust The Province has appointed a task force to investigate the state of BC’s old growth forest. The panel will report to government in April 2020. The old growth task force website1 shows a map of the old growth forest in BC — and says “Based on government’s working definition, old-growth forests comprise about 23% of forested areas, or about 13.2 million hectares”. We have written this report because old growth cannot be portrayed by a single number or map. Old forest comes in many forms. We have used publicly available provincial data and definitions to examine the status of different types of old forest found across the province in different ecosystems (biogeoclimatic variants) and productivity classes. These distinctions matter because while all forms of old growth have inherent value, different types provide tremendously different habitat, functional, cultural, spiritual and timber values. BC’s globally rare high productivity forests have particular value for their high biomass, structural complexity and stable carbon storage. Our analysis concludes the following: The provincial total area of old forest (~13.2 million hectares) matches our total. The vast majority of this forest (80%) consists of small trees: › ~5.3 million hectares have site index2 5–10m; another ~5.3 million hectares have a site index 10–15m. › Small trees characterize many of BC’s natural old forest types, including black spruce bog forests in the northeast, subalpine forests at high elevation, and low productivity western redcedar forests on the outer coast. › Large areas of this old forest type remain because the trees are too small to be worth harvesting (under today’s prices). In contrast, only a tiny proportion of BC’s remaining old forest (3%) supports large trees: › ~380,000 hectares have a site index 20–25m, and only ~35,000 hectares of old forest have a site index greater than 25m. › These types of forests match most people’s vision of old growth. They provide unique habitats, structures, and spiritual values associated with large trees. › Productive old forests are naturally rare in BC. 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 (see pie chart). These ecosystems are effectively the white rhino of old growth forests. They are almost extinguished and will not recover from logging. › Over 85% of productive forest sites have less than 30% of the amount of old expected naturally, and nearly half of these ecosystems have less than 1% of the old forest expected naturally. This current status puts biodiversity, ecological integrity and resilience at high risk today. BC's Old Growth Forest-A Last Stand for Biodiversity (2020).pdf
