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Robert Hart

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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 Robert Hart

  1. Robert Hart
    An open Letter to Premier David Eby December 7, 2022 Rt. Hon. David Eby, Premier premier@gov.bc.ca Dear Premier Eby, Re: the cost of clearcutting ecosystems I am writing to you to request a clear statement on what your Ministries are prepared to do to prevent the extirpation of Caribou in southern and central BC. The South Purcell herd is gone. The Central Selkirks herd is down to 28 individuals and while the Columbia North herd has enough numbers to rebuild, 622 ha of their critical habitat have approved plans for clearcutting. These cutblocks overlap deferral areas that were announced over a year ago when your government promised a paradigm shift in policy. If BC Timber Sales and the Ministry of Forests are allowed to continue to approve cutblocks in required habitats and construct logging roads into them, we will also lose the Columbia North herd within the next couple of decades. Caribou, though iconic, are only the tip of the iceberg. The health and basic functionality of the environment, and we along with it, is imperilled by this approach to resource extraction. We once had 1.3 million hectares of rich Inland Temperate Forest and we are now down to less than 5 percent of that. Our present approach to timber harvesting involves removing a working ecology and replacing it with a second growth plantation. That in itself creates immense damage but having no plans to ever rebuild towards intact forests is essentially a plan to continually degrade the landscape over time. Ecosystems are designed through time to be viable, resilient, stable and abundant. Biodiversity is both a product and a key driver to that evolutionary process. The wholesale removal of an ecosystem that has evolved through millions of years is called ecocide and I cannot think of a greater offence. It is appalling to contemplate because it is catastrophic in consequence. Those words are not too strong. We do not have any science that says we can reproduce ecosystems once we remove them. We do have science that says we are losing our building blocks. The Wilderness Committee and Sierra Club BC have just released Species at Risk Recovery in BC that starts out by noting that we have 1900 species at risk in British Columbia. On this issue alone we should be immediately halting the clear cutting of the intact forests we have left and especially the richest, most biologically diverse ones like our rare Inland Temperate Rainforests. Science is also telling us that while our forests used to be a massive carbon sink, they are now a carbon emitter on a scale equal to fossil fuel emissions. As you know, that warming is driving increased insect outbreaks, increased numbers and severities of forest fires and breakdowns in the forest’s ability to manage water, in addition to driving the biggest loss in biodiversity humankind has ever witnessed. So the need for the promised paradigm shift in forestry towards ecosystem health appears greater every year. Your Ministries delays for over two years in addressing this ballooning emergency is both puzzling and urgently concerning. Of the 14 recommendation from the Merkel/Gorley report, your government has actively responded to only one, logging deferrals in critical habitat, and that poorly. Your Technical Advisory Panel identified 4 million critical hectares and you have deferred only 2.6. Conserving all of the little remaining of our old growth forests is critical to our success in protecting as much of our biodiversity as we can and building back toward true sustainability as quickly as we can. The current management approach of clearcutting intact forests for timber harvest has brought us to this point. To attempt to change while allowing clearcuts simply exacerbates a long-standing and growing problem. We need to come out of the deferral period with a new harvest approach that, through relying on highly selective cutting, leaves the forests intact and the integrity of their ecosystems functioning and vital. We have a choice. We can continue to clearcut until all our old growth forests are gone, (except for memorial parks to house the species that have survived). We can accept species loss, accelerating climate change, forest fires, the breakdown of water regimes and least-value forestry with fewer mills, less manufacturing, fewer jobs and a steadily degrading landscape. Or we can use what we have left to begin the centuries-long job of building back intact forests that store carbon better, are more resilient to forest fires, manage water better, preserve the greatest biodiversity possible and support a truly sustainable, community-based forestry. “It becomes even more important to maximize the number of jobs and the economic benefits from every cubic metre of wood harvested,” Taylor Bachrach, MP for Skeena-Bulkley, said in parliament on November 28. Clearcutting our forests will not do that. You have the resources to shift the paradigm toward forest and community resilience. Forestry was once our iconic industry and you continue to subsidize it to the tune of over a million dollars a day, this to large international forestry players who increasingly invest more of their BC generated profits out of the country. Despite that support, forestry has fallen to a few percent of our GDP. The old model has failed both environmentally and economically. If you diverted even half of that support to working with community forests and Indigenous-based forestry, you would get a better return for our money. Communities need help to repair their ecologies and develop appropriately scaled harvesting, manufacturing and marketing models that work for them but do not erode the environmental capital that surrounds them. They need new policy that supports the development of social infrastructure, everything from models of community financing to doing the research necessary to inform the move back to forest and community health. Your government has shown strong social leadership in beginning to move BC laws and policies to align with the principles of the UNDRIP and reconciliation with Indigenous people. Your government announced a watershed security fund two years ago. On October 6 the First Nations Leadership Council called for a Watershed Security Fund by 2023. The federal government has offered an initial $50 million towards saving old growth and is trying to protect 30 percent of our land base by 2030, (rather than the present 14 percent). The 15th global Convention on Biological Diversity is meeting in Montreal to try to save as much as we can. Surely our stars have aligned. The time has come. We are ready to proceed. We, especially those of us who live in forest communities, need this shift to include a new partnership with all local governments. Work with us and we will move to a higher standard of forest practice, one that is focussed on assessing what the land surrounding us needs to continue to support the life around us and our livelihood here. In a good ways. We don’t want to only find caribou on the back of a quarter. Thank you for your attention to this and for your work for us. Robert Hart, Terrace
  2. Robert Hart
    Well done. This issue is not where to cut but how much less we need to cut to bring back the integrity of a healthy ecosystem. The process issue is how to create and maintain an ongoing, effective and respectful conversation with the community.
  3. Robert Hart
    Well done. This issue is not where to cut but how much less we need to cut to bring back the integrity of a healthy ecosystem. The process issue is how to create and maintain an ongoing, effective and respectful conversation with the community.
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