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Michelle Connolly

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  1. January 31, 2024 To the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework team, We are a volunteer collective comprising academics, resource professionals, First Nations, forest industry workers, artists and the public. We recognize that communities of native species and their habitats have a right to coexist with humans. Employing both science and advocacy to improve government policies on land management, we promote natural habitat protection. BC’s Biodiversity is underpinned by primary forests (also called natural forests), which are those of any age that have never been logged [1][2]. Seventy years of industrial logging and associated road construction in primary forests have resulted in critically low levels of ecosystem health and biodiversity. Some forest ecosystems are on the brink of collapse owing to the cumulative impacts of logging, roads, and land conversion [3]. We propose the following three improvements to the Draft BC Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework: 1. A scientifically sound definition of ecosystem health enshrined in law. Over-reliance on forest professionals, whose job is to treat primary forests as sources of harvestable fiber as opposed to life-sustaining systems, has failed biodiversity and natural ecosystems. Professional forestry is about timber production not the maintenance of ecosystem health. In order to prevent discretionary decisions harmful to natural ecosystems, a strong definition of ecosystem health is needed. All primary forests owe their structure and sophistication to thousands of years of complexity-building processes like fire, insects, and disease. Primary forests with recent natural disturbance histories are persecuted by forestry under the euphemism of “forest health”, causing all manner of ecological harm [4]. To address this failing, we propose the following scientifically-defensible definition of ecosystem health [5], and ask that the legislation under development incorporate this definition: "A healthy ecosystem has the ability to sustain a living community having species composition, diversity, and functional organization comparable to natural (primary) habitats within a region. An ecological system has health/integrity when its dominant ecological characteristics occur within their natural ranges of variation (accommodating climate change responses) and can withstand and recover from most perturbations imposed by natural environmental events or human disruptions." 2. A clear stipulation that no “Ecosystem-Based Management” should occur in primary forests. Alternative forms of logging have no place in primary forests, which represent BC’s healthiest and most resilient ecosystems. While we recognize that Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM) has at times the well-intentioned goal of minimizing ecological risk while permitting industrial extraction, its core assumptions are all scientifically untenable. These assumptions are that: a) there is substitution between patterns of forest harvest and natural disturbance, b) the age of dominant trees are an indicator of successional processes and the ecological structures they produce, and c) compensation rather than addition happens in relationships between natural disturbance and resource activities. For this reason we recognize that EBM ultimately degrades ecosystems, and we oppose its use in remaining primary forests. EBM belongs only in previously degraded (logged) plantations, where ecosystem health gains might be made as a result of human action. A true commitment to biodiversity and ecosystem health in BC should apply the “Half Earth” principle [6] by: a) setting aside all remaining primary forests (of any age) under a sincere form of protection (i.e. not FRPA) that prohibits industrial development; and b) removing some previously logged lands from the Timber Harvesting Land Base to allow them to recover (also known as “proforestation” [7]) to meet the Half Earth target of conserving 50% of BC’s landbase. We note that, in addition to conserving healthy functioning ecosystems by 2030, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework calls for degraded ecosystems be restored. Restoring ecosystems takes time, and restoration investments must be protected from perverse incentives to extract precisely when those systems finally begin to function in a healthy way. 3. Forest Landscape Planning must include and actively involve civil society, not just governments, industry, and professional foresters. Many governments in BC – including Provincial and First Nations – are under some form of regulatory capture by industry. The gross imbalance in direct subsidy to the forest industry relative to its contribution to BC’s overall GDP is ample evidence of this [8]. To balance industry interests with wider societal ones, such as traditional relationships with the land, civil society groups must be included in forest landscape planning. Human communities rely on primary forest for a staggering variety of ecosystem services and those communities must be involved in the spatial planning as we move towards Half Earth. Ecologists have a vital role to play in this planning process to ensure these conservation and restoration efforts meet the spatial needs of wildlife movement, climate refugia, minimum patch sizes for biodiversity, while accommodating inevitable (and necessary) natural disturbances. Sincerely, Conservation North info@conservationnorth.org References: [1] Convention on Biological Diversity definition of primary forest. www.cbd.int/forest/definitions.shtml [2] Remaining primary forests in BC are mapped here: https://consnorth.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=d1620f43f9084a99a4921e5e8b9b98dd [3] DellaSala, D.A., Strittholt J.R., Degagne, R., Mackey, B., Werner, J.R., Connolly, M., Coxson, D., Couturier, A., Keith, H. 2021. Red-Listed Ecosystem Status of Interior Wetbelt and Inland Temperate Rainforest of British Columbia, Canada. Land 10:775 [4] Lindenmayer, D. B., Burton, P.J., and Franklin, J. 2012. Salvage logging and its ecological consequences. Island Press. [5] Werner, J.R. 2023. In defense of lost causes. Presentation at the University of Northern British Columbia. https://video.unbc.ca/media/NRESi%20Colloquium%20-%20February%2017th%2C%202023%20-%20Dr.%20Jeff%20Werner/0_ktcrorj5/23996 [6] Wilson, E.O. 2016. Half-Earth: our planet's fight for life. New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company. [7] Moomaw, W.R., Masino, S.A., and Faison, E.K. 2019. Intact forests in the United States: Proforestation mitigates climate change and serves the greatest good. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change 2: 27. [8] Broadland, D. Forestry definitely doesn't pay the bills, folks. December 7, 2021. https://www.evergreenalliance.ca/portal-the-true-cost-of-subsidies-provided-to-the-logging-industry/2/
  2. The BC Ministry of Forests has done nothing to limit further destruction of wildlife habitat in the Prince George Timber Supply Area (TSA) and conservationists are wondering why. Extensive logging in the boreal rainforest north of Prince George (Photo: Conservation North) IT HAS BEEN TWO YEARS since the Forest Practices Board concluded that nature was at high-risk in the Prince George TSA because of industrial logging. Why is it taking so long for the BC government to act on the Board’s recommendations when these ecosystems are on the brink of collapse? A 2020 investigation by the Forest Practices Board was triggered by complaints from the public who observed extreme levels of logging by forestry companies in endangered old-growth spruce stands in the Parsnip drainage north of Prince George. The Board concluded that biodiversity (plants and animals) is at high risk of irreversible loss in most of the Prince George District because of industrial logging. This area includes the globally rare inland temperate and boreal rainforests. Logging in the Hart Caribou range of the northern wetbelt (Photo: Conservation North) “We are watching logging trucks fly down highway 97 with eight spruce logs because the trees are so huge that’s all that will fit in the back of the truck,” explained Asta Glembotzki of Conservation North. Confirming the Board’s findings, in 2021 a Technical Advisory Panel identified and mapped these areas as being rare and at-risk because of logging. The Forest Practices Board’s two recommendations to the BC government in the 2020 report—which have not yet been acted upon—were that they promptly map and protect old growth where it is most threatened by logging, and update the province’s anachronistic biodiversity requirements for the region to reflect the latest science. Current requirements around biodiversity for the TSA are contained in the Biodiversity Order, a document that was negotiated with industry 17 years ago. The Order is widely known to have been written to protect logging company access to the amount of old forest they want, where they want it. It specifies minimum areas to be retained that are way below what the science says must be protected to avoid ecological collapse. Conservation North notes that there are other serious problems with biodiversity protection in the Prince George TSA that were never addressed in the 2020 Board investigation report. One example is that the work of keeping track of what has been logged and how much old growth remains in the TSA is left to a group of logging companies, as opposed to an independent scientific body or BC government staff. Conservation North views this arrangement as a serious conflict of interest that needs to be rectified if there is to be any hope of protecting nature in our region. Conservation North’s Asta Glembotzki observes, “No one we talk to thinks letting forest companies make decisions about how to protect biodiversity is a good idea.” She adds that “BC has to rectify a massive problem in the Prince George TSA by following the recommendations of the Board now.” Michelle Connolly is a founding director of Conservation North.
  3. Michelle Connolly spoke with three grassroots activists to learn why they are involved with a forest conservation effort. Here is her interview with Taryn Skalbania, Sarah Newton and Carole Tootill. TARYN SKALBANIA is an animal lover, farmer, grandma and activist who made Peachland (Syilx territory) her home 30 years ago. She is one of the co-founders of the Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance (PWPA) and an active member. She holds a similar role in the BC Coalition for Forestry Reform and is also part of her District’s Healthy Watershed Committee. Sarah Newton is an elementary school teacher who taught in Fort St. James (Nak’azdli territory) and currently teaches grade 6 in Revelstoke, (Sinixt, Syilx, Secwepemcúl'ecw and Ktunaxa territory). She was raised and educated in Nova Scotia (Mi’kma’ki territory). Sarah loves exploring wild places with her husband and two teenage children. Carole Tootill is a mother, educator and concerned citizen. Born in Victoria (W̱SÁNEĆ territory) in the early 60s, she has lived as far east as Toronto (Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, Anishinabewaki and Haudenosaunee territory) and as far north as Whitehorse (Kwanlin Dün territory). Moving back to the Island in 2014 came with a shock: the forests she grew up with were gone. From left: Sarah Newton, Carole Tootill and Taryn Skalbania What inspired you to become a grassroots activist? Taryn: Originally it was a selfish motivation. I found that my favorite long-distance hikes, horseback rides and fishing lakes were being wiped out by logging. Secondly, the inconsistency between how forestry is regulated compared to mining and recreation, for example, pissed me off. As I started talking to others in my community, I realized that they had no clue what was happening to the land, and they had no idea that the land was not in good hands. Forestry was on a pedestal when I grew up. At UBC, the MacMillan Bloedel building was next to the Sauder School of Business, near the Jimmy Pattison Pavillion and the Canfor Theatre. I’m angry now. So that’s my motivation right there. Sarah: I have always been involved on some level, whether that was with the North Columbia Environmental Society/Wildsight, writing politicians, sitting on committees. To stand on that road and blockade at the Bigmouth/Argonaut Creek was the last thing I wanted to do. I did it because as a parent and teacher, I couldn’t look kids in the eye anymore, knowing the flora and fauna will not be there for them if I didn’t step up. It was kind of like live on your feet or die on your knees at that point. For me, the only way to defy despair was to take action. Members of the activist community form deep connections in a very short time, feeding each other hope and inspiration. Carole: Necessity. We’re losing wildlife because of habitat loss from logging. “Fiber supply” is prioritized over the free services of intact ecosystems. Old-growth forests with big trees not only store carbon and provide clean air and water, they keep us cool and moist when it is hot and dry. The NDP created the facade that it would protect old-growth forest, won the election and has fooled the public; the NDP has increased old-growth logging and paved the way for near-complete liquidation of our grand forests. Most people have not experienced an old-growth forest, so they do not understand the direct and indirect impacts of logging. The government is killing wolves and cougars to protect caribou, but loss of old-growth habitat to logging is the real issue. Numerous First Nations’ communities have been forced to rely on forestry and sign agreements with gag clauses to keep community members quiet and disallow dissent. The NDP continues this and calls it reconciliation. Argonaut Creek forest defenders blocking the Bigmouth logging road in 2021 What are the advantages of grassroots activism? Taryn: It has no advantages; we don’t have money. [Group laughs]. The advantages are that you can speak the truth and be irreverent without anything to lose. There is nothing else other than the community voice that makes change. We must do the work ourselves; we can’t wait for ENGOs, government and industry. I don’t see that there’s any other way. There will be more civil disobedience in BC. Sarah: We have the opportunity to do the right thing at the right time. Maybe that’s blocking a road or doing other things that aren’t so polite. And of course, what’s polite changes over time and all of a sudden these things that everybody used to think were extreme aren’t any more because what’s happening to Mother Earth has become a horror show. Carole: I’ve made decades worth of monthly contributions to ENGOs to finally realize that it was a poor investment. They operate within a mandate of complete safety. This has worked well for government and industry. Government has protected very little of the most biodiverse forests because they are the most commercially desired. In the 1990s during the Clayoquot protests, more than one-third of our ancient old growth ecosystems still stood. Now we are down to about 2 percent of what we once had. Time is running out; government will continue to steal our energies through engagement surveys, false promises, and other distractions while logging continues under the protection of publicly funded police militias. Only direct action will work at this stage, but last summer’s and more recent police brutality and going through the courts has worn people out. People have been seriously physically and psychologically injured for trying to do what the NDP promised to do. We now have small pockets of big-treed old growth surrounded by a sea of clearcuts and biologically void tree plantations. A blockade of Teal Cedar Products logging in the Fairy Creek Rainforest in 2021 What have you learned since you started doing grassroots work? Taryn: We formed as a society in 2016 because we had to do the job ourselves; we are responsible for watershed and forests. We realized that industry was lying to us and the provincial government could not possibly have our best interests at heart. Also, the professional corruption among some foresters became clear because, really, to survive in that profession you have to be either morally bankrupt or bought off. Willing to serve two masters, and neither of those masters is the natural world. Many foresters are embarrassed by their profession and have spent their retirement trying to improve the system. Anthony Britneff explained in an Evergreen Alliance article last year that former premier Gordon Campbell gave the forest industry a prominent role in the writing of forest legislation. The Council of Forest Industries lawyers were actively engaged in the drafting of the Forest and Range Practices Act to replace the Forest Practices Code of B.C. Act. Not reviewing the legislation—they drafted the legislation. This law does not need to be tweaked, it needs to be shit-canned. Sarah: I’ve learned that my generation is almost invisible in the fight for conservation and climate action. When at the Bigmouth/Argonaut Creek blockade over those ten months (fighting to protect the last valley bottom old growth inland temperate rainforest in the world), it was mostly all people in their 20s; missing from these actions was a huge chunk of society. The other thing I learned was from a course on climate education at Cornell University. We can use the same psychology that’s used on us by media, and that we must truly listen, be confident with what we know, and find commonality with others. Carole: It is very difficult to change laws, and there is no time to do so. Judges, crown prosecutors, and police exist to uphold the status quo—their lifestyles and pensions depend on it. The conflict of interest is obvious. Yet we have to chip away at this front or laws won’t change. We need more radical action or we lose everything. Fairy Creek Rainforest defenders confronted by RCMP in 2021 (Photo by Alex Harris) What advice would you give to others who want to start a grassroots group to protect nature and their communities? Taryn: Effective negotiations with industry and government to protect forests and change the practice of forestry will not occur without a balanced playing field. Effective negotiations require that participants have relatively equal legal and political power, backed by adequate financial resources. In the absence of this balanced negotiation structure, all that may be expected from “collaborations” are half-baked compromises that err on the side of protection of industry and government interests. This means that forest exploitation will continue to trump forest protection. Herb Hammond imparted that wisdom. Sarah: We need to support grassroots Indigenous communities. We need to be there together. We also need to join forces with the working class. When I look at forestry workers who are losing jobs or economic migrants coming to my community, we’re all trying to do our best independently, but it’s not enough. We are all fighting against the 1 percent that dominate resource extraction. The bonus for me was finding community with the other blockaders. It has really kept despair at bay. As grassroots activists we are not free to abandon this work and so we need to find others to do it with. Don’t use the language of industry and forestry because embedded within it is the belief system that created the predicament we’re in where living ecosystems are a commodity. Don’t use their own weapons to fight them, because they are more skilled at using them. We need to use our own language that speaks to peoples’ hearts. Carole: Just do it, or we lose it. Taryn Skalbania with Syilx Elders at a Water Ceremony on International Women’s Day Michelle Connolly runs Conservation North in Lheidli T’enneh territory/Prince George.
  4. By Mark E. Harmon, Chad T. Hanson and Dominick A. DellaSala Abstract: Biomass combustion is a major biogeochemical process, but uncertain in magnitude. We examined multiple levels of organization (twigs, branches, trees, stands, and landscapes) in large, severe forest fires to see how combustion rates for live aboveground woody parts varied with tree species, size, and fire severity in Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Dougl. ex Laws.) and mixed conifer-dominated forests of the Sierra Nevada, California, USA. In high severity fire patches, most combustion loss was from branches < 2 cm diameter; in low to moderate severity patches, most was from bole charring. Combustion rates decreased as fire severity declined and with increasing tree size. Pinus species had little branch combustion, leading them to have ≈50% the combustion rate of other taxa. Combustion rates could be 100% for small branch segments and up to 57% for small tree aboveground woody biomass in high severity fire patches. However, combustion rates are very low overall at the stand (0.1%–3.2%) and landscape level (0.6%–1.8%), because large trees with low combustion rates comprise the majority of biomass, and high severity fire patches are less than half of the area burned. Our findings of low live wood combustion rates have important implications for policies related to wildfire emissions and forest management. (2022) Combustion of Aboveground Wood from Live Trees in Megafires, CA, USA.pdf
  5. By Mark E. Harmon, Chad T. Hanson and Dominick A. DellaSala Abstract: Biomass combustion is a major biogeochemical process, but uncertain in magnitude. We examined multiple levels of organization (twigs, branches, trees, stands, and landscapes) in large, severe forest fires to see how combustion rates for live aboveground woody parts varied with tree species, size, and fire severity in Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Dougl. ex Laws.) and mixed conifer-dominated forests of the Sierra Nevada, California, USA. In high severity fire patches, most combustion loss was from branches < 2 cm diameter; in low to moderate severity patches, most was from bole charring. Combustion rates decreased as fire severity declined and with increasing tree size. Pinus species had little branch combustion, leading them to have ≈50% the combustion rate of other taxa. Combustion rates could be 100% for small branch segments and up to 57% for small tree aboveground woody biomass in high severity fire patches. However, combustion rates are very low overall at the stand (0.1%–3.2%) and landscape level (0.6%–1.8%), because large trees with low combustion rates comprise the majority of biomass, and high severity fire patches are less than half of the area burned. Our findings of low live wood combustion rates have important implications for policies related to wildfire emissions and forest management. (2022) Combustion of Aboveground Wood from Live Trees in Megafires, CA, USA.pdf
  6. Hi - I love the second idea of doing a Q & A on how to start a grassroots group. It would give me a great excuse to talk to some other grassroots organizers, like the Revy people and Carol Tootil (who I know). If you can give me a month, I will develop some questions, and then ask two other people to answer them, and I will also answer them. That will give other fledgling activists several different avenues. I will initiate this with the Revy folks, Carol at Taryn.
  7. Hi - I love the second idea of doing a Q & A on how to start a grassroots group. It would give me a great excuse to talk to some other grassroots organizers, like the Revy people and Carol Tootil (who I know). If you can give me a month, I will develop some questions, and then ask two other people to answer them, and I will also answer them. That will give other fledgling activists several different avenues. I will initiate this with the Revy folks, Carol at Taryn.
  8. Hi - I love the second idea of doing a Q & A on how to start a grassroots group. It would give me a great excuse to talk to some other grassroots organizers, like the Revy people and Carol Tootil (who I know). If you can give me a month, I will develop some questions, and then ask two other people to answer them, and I will also answer them. That will give other fledgling activists several different avenues. I will initiate this with the Revy folks, Carol at Taryn.
  9. Hi - I love the second idea of doing a Q & A on how to start a grassroots group. It would give me a great excuse to talk to some other grassroots organizers, like the Revy people and Carol Tootil (who I know). If you can give me a month, I will develop some questions, and then ask two other people to answer them, and I will also answer them. That will give other fledgling activists several different avenues. I will initiate this with the Revy folks, Carol at Taryn.
  10. Hi - I love the second idea of doing a Q & A on how to start a grassroots group. It would give me a great excuse to talk to some other grassroots organizers, like the Revy people and Carol Tootil (who I know). If you can give me a month, I will develop some questions, and then ask two other people to answer them, and I will also answer them. That will give other fledgling activists several different avenues. I will initiate this with the Revy folks, Carol at Taryn.
  11. Hi David - yes I clicked on the link to the portal. Works great.
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