Yudel

January 31

On 1/28/2024 at 11:15 PM, David Broadland said:

I don't follow the arithmetic that leads you to believe "a little under half of the conservancy" is clearcuts, inoperable terrain, rock and ice. The half of the new conservancy that was in the original Valhalla proposal also included rock and ice.

Again, look at a high res satellite image. Better to believe your eyes.

But you are missing the main point which is that the current government has shown that it will include a large fraction of unthreatened ecosystems in its program to conserve biodiversity. This will allow it to make its 30 percent quota without actually conserving much highly productive old forest and the high levels of threatened biodiversity found therein.

This conservancy has several mining claims in it. In BC a "conservancy is defined by the Park Act as:

(3.1)Conservancies are set aside

(a)for the protection and maintenance of their biological diversity and natural environments,

(b)for the preservation and maintenance of social, ceremonial and cultural uses of first nations,

(c)for protection and maintenance of their recreational values, and

(d)to ensure that development or use of their natural resources occurs in a sustainable manner consistent with the purposes of paragraphs (a), (b) and (c).

Any government can interpret "(d)" to mean whatever they want it to mean, unfortunately.

Thanks for the clarification!

January 29

I would be interested in a sharper version of this letter, if that is possible?

January 28

31 minutes ago, Yudel said:

"The vast majority of the area of the new conservancy consists of biodiversity-scarce ice and rock... The areal extent of the Incomappleaux Valley that’s now in the conservancy that was considered suitable for logging—see Interfor’s map of its timber harvesting land base in blue in the image below—was only 3600 hectares... much of which had already been logged once—little of that area still contains high levels of biodiversity: a mere 273 hectares."

I think this is misleading. You equate everything outside the timber harvesting land base (THLB) with "rock and ice". But the THLB is simply the forest that is currently economical to harvest. This can be based on proximity to mills and/or current log prices (higher log prices leads to more area being economical to log). Areas outside the THLB might not only be forested, they might also be biodiverse. The fact that old growth forests were mapped outside the THLB supports this (even taking into consideration possible VRI inaccuracies, forested area and THLB are not synonymous since the THLB area itself was constructed using VRI). These old forests outside the THLB may not be as productive or have trees as big as those inside the THLB, but there's no reason to assume they have little biodiversity value, and they certainly shouldn't be called "ice and rock"!

Your overall point, that the size of a protected area does not tell us how much old growth was protected inside that protected area, is still true. But you likely underestimated the importance of this conservancy for old growth protection.

The Valhalla Wilderness Society, who apparently did a lot of the campaigning to protect this area, does use the term "rock and ice", but it refers to a much smaller area than you describe. Taken from their press release (https://www.vws.org/incomappleux/)

“At 58,000 hectares, the promised new Incomappleux Conservancy is relatively large,” says Pettitt. “VWS is pleased that it takes in the entirety of the Incomappleux unit of our park proposal. The Conservancy is close to twice as large as the Incomappleux unit of VWS’s park proposal; but the extra is mostly clearcuts, inoperable terrain, rock and ice."

So a little under half of the conservancy is "clearcuts, inoperable terrain, rock and ice." That's very different from 94% being "rock and ice" [(58,000-3,600)/58,000 ha].

January 28

31 minutes ago, Yudel said:

January 28

"[T]he Incomappleaux Conservancy is not protected from mining... All of the existing mineral claims in the conservancy have been left intact."

According to the in-depth Narwhal article on the conservancy (https://thenarwhal.ca/bc-rainforest-protected-area-conservancy/), this isn't true:

"Logging, mining and large hydro-electric development will be prohibited in the conservancy... The southern one-quarter of the valley — 17,000 hectares — will receive a special designation under B.C.’s Forests Act to prevent timber harvesting but allow mineral exploration and mining, according to a letter the forests ministry sent to the Regional District of Central Kootenay, a copy of which was reviewed by The Narwhal."

January 28

"The vast majority of the area of the new conservancy consists of biodiversity-scarce ice and rock... The areal extent of the Incomappleaux Valley that’s now in the conservancy that was considered suitable for logging—see Interfor’s map of its timber harvesting land base in blue in the image below—was only 3600 hectares... much of which had already been logged once—little of that area still contains high levels of biodiversity: a mere 273 hectares."

I think this is misleading. You equate everything outside the timber harvesting land base (THLB) with "rock and ice". But the THLB is simply the forest that is currently economical to harvest. This can be based on proximity to mills and/or current log prices (higher log prices leads to more area being economical to log). Areas outside the THLB might not only be forested, they might also be biodiverse. The fact that old growth forests were mapped outside the THLB supports this (even taking into consideration possible VRI inaccuracies, forested area and THLB are not synonymous since the THLB area itself was constructed using VRI). These old forests outside the THLB may not be as productive or have trees as big as those inside the THLB, but there's no reason to assume they have little biodiversity value, and they certainly shouldn't be called "ice and rock"!

Your overall point, that the size of a protected area does not tell us how much old growth was protected inside that protected area, is still true. But you likely underestimated the importance of this conservancy for old growth protection.

January 28

"One possible solution to this dilemma would be to not conserve small areas of old forest as formal protected areas or conservancies. Instead, forest-related legislation could be amended to simply make it illegal to log old forest in these areas, including a suitable buffer of surrounding recruitment forest in those biogeoclimatic zones where old forest has fallen below 30 percent."

This is a great idea. Not only would it solve the problem of how to protect thinly spread-out old growth, it would also solve the problem of the VRI inaccuracies that you pointed out in the other article.

As policy currently stands, if government doesn't know an old growth stand exists due to VRI inaccuracy, they can't protect it or defer logging there. If a logging company then stumbles upon that old growth stand, they are free to log it.

But if by default it is illegal to cut down old growth in biogeoclimatic zones/site series that have <30% old growth remaining, then if a company finds an unknown old growth stand in such an area, they would not be able to log it. Instead, the VRI data for that stand would be updated and the stand would be automatically protected.

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