It is unreasonable to expect an individual professional forester working for a corporation to serve both private and public interests
Hi Margaret, Thank you for your well considered comment. In response to the selected quotation from your comment, I remind readers that every clearcut is approved by a government forester, who has sworn an oath of allegiance to the Crown, the trustee of public forests on behalf of the public.
Further, that same forester is a member of Forest Professionals BC (new name, previously called the Association of BC Forest Professionals) to which all practising foresters belong. The Professional Governance Act, which replaced the Foresters Act, requires Forest Professionals BC to serve and protect the public interestwith respect to the conduct of registered professionals.
Furthermore, Forest Professionals BC has a Code of Ethical and Professional Conduct embodied within bylaw 9. Within this code of ethics, under a section titled "Standard 2 - Independence", a practising forester is required to exhibit objectivity and independence in fact and appearance by, among other requirements, upholding the public interest and professional principles above the demands of employment or personal gain.
So contrary to your assertion, I find it entirely reasonable to expect practising foresters to obey provincial laws and regulations and to abide by the bylaws of their governing body by giving priority to the public interest over the interest of employers. Most would agree that destruction of public forests (biodiversity, soil, water, carbon and air) is not in the public interest. What has happened by way of destruction to the forests of the province under the mismanagement of professional foresters over the past 50 years shows me that collectively they are a failed profession.
As to the future, I will say that Professor John Innes, the former dean of forestry at UBC, did much to improve the education of forestry students. My hope is that a new generation of foresters will have a good basic grounding in conservation biology, in hydrology and in forest ecology that will enable them to abhor the extensive destruction of our forests (biodiversity, soil, water, carbon and air) perpetrated by their predecessors through excessive clearcutting and will motivate them to work towards repairing the damage.
Finally, I need to acknowledge my part in the collective failure of the profession. I was a registered professional forester in B.C. for almost four decades. I resigned my membership on January 7, 2022. I resigned because, in good conscience, I could no longer belong to Forest Professionals BC when I consider that the harm done by some of its members to biodiversity, soil, water, carbon and air far out-weighs the good done by many members working for the public and private sectors and for some First Nations. Forest Professionals BC by association and some of its members had become for me agents of ecocide.
BC'S current logging industry should be allowed to fail
in Comment
Posted
Hi Margaret, Thank you for your well considered comment. In response to the selected quotation from your comment, I remind readers that every clearcut is approved by a government forester, who has sworn an oath of allegiance to the Crown, the trustee of public forests on behalf of the public.
Further, that same forester is a member of Forest Professionals BC (new name, previously called the Association of BC Forest Professionals) to which all practising foresters belong. The Professional Governance Act, which replaced the Foresters Act, requires Forest Professionals BC to serve and protect the public interest with respect to the conduct of registered professionals.
Furthermore, Forest Professionals BC has a Code of Ethical and Professional Conduct embodied within bylaw 9. Within this code of ethics, under a section titled "Standard 2 - Independence", a practising forester is required to exhibit objectivity and independence in fact and appearance by, among other requirements, upholding the public interest and professional principles above the demands of employment or personal gain.
So contrary to your assertion, I find it entirely reasonable to expect practising foresters to obey provincial laws and regulations and to abide by the bylaws of their governing body by giving priority to the public interest over the interest of employers. Most would agree that destruction of public forests (biodiversity, soil, water, carbon and air) is not in the public interest. What has happened by way of destruction to the forests of the province under the mismanagement of professional foresters over the past 50 years shows me that collectively they are a failed profession.
As to the future, I will say that Professor John Innes, the former dean of forestry at UBC, did much to improve the education of forestry students. My hope is that a new generation of foresters will have a good basic grounding in conservation biology, in hydrology and in forest ecology that will enable them to abhor the extensive destruction of our forests (biodiversity, soil, water, carbon and air) perpetrated by their predecessors through excessive clearcutting and will motivate them to work towards repairing the damage.
Finally, I need to acknowledge my part in the collective failure of the profession. I was a registered professional forester in B.C. for almost four decades. I resigned my membership on January 7, 2022. I resigned because, in good conscience, I could no longer belong to Forest Professionals BC when I consider that the harm done by some of its members to biodiversity, soil, water, carbon and air far out-weighs the good done by many members working for the public and private sectors and for some First Nations. Forest Professionals BC by association and some of its members had become for me agents of ecocide.