This new front in the logging industry’s continued misguided self-justification is sadly predictable. When you have been bull-shitting for 70 years, it’s hard to suddenly become a straight-shooter. The basic underlying premise of this report, that logging at the scale being practiced in BC is “sustainable”, is certifiable nonsense. Just because the Canadian logging industry created and funds a “certification” industry that then gives the logging industry a guaranteed stamp of approval doesn’t hide or undo the damage the industry is doing: Through logging's associated carbon emissions and consequential reduction in the natural level of carbon sequestration, the industry is making an over-sized contribution to global heating and climate instability. That's not sustainable. Clearcutting eliminates practically all biodiversity in the area of a clearcut. Allowing several thousand clearcuts every year relentlessly reduces biodiversity over a wide swathe of BC—200,000 to 250,000 hectares—every year. That's not sustainable. The growing prevalence of those clearcuts raises forest fire hazard above the level of a mature or old forest. The plantations that follow the clearcuts raise the fire hazard even higher, in many cases for decades. The result is a frightening new era of forest fires that are initially harder to control, grow faster, and lead to larger fires and exponentially higher carbon emissions. That growing area of logged and burned forest is resulting in more frequent and more devastating flooding. All of this is made worse by the increased temperature, longer periods of drought and higher wind speeds resulting from climate change—each of which, in turn, are made worse by the scale of logging in BC. None of this is sustainable. The industry is also liquidating BC's old forests to far below levels needed to sustain biodiversity, claiming that plantations will, in the distant future, turn into new old-growth forests. This notion, that a future logging industry would somehow be more responsible than the current industry and will allow nature to recover, is nonsensical. Thinking nonsense isn't sustainable. The only aspect of logging at the scale being undertaken in BC that can be counted on in the future is the damage the industry does. The foolish course adjustments the industry is now taking—including green-washing reports like this one—will only make it more likely that damage will be sustained. So let’s dispose of the underlying premise of this report, that the 85 percent of wood used in making pellets that comes from "sawmill and harvest residuals" is somehow “sustainable”. It isn’t. And what about the 15 percent the report claims comes from “low-quality logs and bush grind rejected by other industries”? Bull-shitting is a slippery slope. Only someone sliding uncontrollably down that slope would be unable to recognize that calling a natural forest “low-quality logs” or "bush grind" is the kind of semantic invention that occurs just before the inventor falls over the edge into the abyss. That so much waste is being created that it needs a new industry to grind and burn it away is a situation that arises only because the scale of logging that has been occurring in BC is so vast. Eighty-five to ninety percent of that waste is created to provide cheap wood products for other countries, mainly for the US, China and Japan. As a result of that relentless over-cut—combined with the long decline in the market for pulp and paper—BC mills would be drowning in their own waste were it not for the pellet industry. But the solution to that overwhelming level of waste is not to grow a green-washed pellet industry. When burned for thermal energy, pellets produce as much carbon emissions per unit of energy generated as does coal. Coal! Pellets are a solution to nothing but the logging industry's embarrassment of widespread waste. The only solution for an industry drowning in waste from the over-cutting of publicly owned forests is for government to reduce industrial access to those forests. Logging should be limited to only what British Columbians need for their own use.

The old road that failed above Duffey Lake is a branch of the "Steep Creek Forest Service Road". This is not a gazetted stream name, so someone recognized the hazard rating of the area when it was built. And as far as slides from failed logging roads go, this was just average size

I am very upset reading the article on the logging on Quadra Island, but not surprised. There seems to be complete disregard for old growth trees, they are a valuable commodity for logging companies who are getting very good deals to access our, bc's invaluable assets. When the trees are gone and our biodiversity irreversibly damaged it will be too late to do anything about. it. "...Ministry of Forests’ notoriously inaccurate Vegetation Resource Inventory. It is notorious because it fails miserably at identifying old-growth forest" Working with information that you know to be inaccurate should be a crime, and Okisollo Resources, who ever they are should be charged, and if convicted should serve time, not just pay a fine.

I am very upset reading the article on the logging on Quadra Island, but not surprised. There seems to be complete disregard for old growth trees, they are a valuable commodity for logging companies who are getting very good deals to access our, bc's invaluable assets. When the trees are gone and our biodiversity irreversibly damaged it will be too late to do anything about. it. "...Ministry of Forests’ notoriously inaccurate Vegetation Resource Inventory. It is notorious because it fails miserably at identifying old-growth forest" Working with information that you know to be inaccurate should be a crime, and Okisollo Resources, who ever they are should be charged, and if convicted should serve time, not just pay a fine.

I completely agree with everything that these remarkable women say in this interview. It is time to stop playing with ENGOs, participating in the forestry referral process, lobbying government and other energy-sucking and futile diversions. It's time for radical action and educating the public about what is going on in our backyards and how it will affect our collective future. Shame on our public representatives and servants.

thanks so much for your powerful and well-research articles! We (Elders for Ancient Trees) will make sure we highlight your work in our Call Out. If you'd like to receive our monthly missives, just send an email to oldfolksforoldgrowth@gmail.com

Hi Yudel, All great points. Thanks for making them. Many countries count the carbon emissions from forest loss as part of their national inventory of emissions. As you probably know, Canada opted out of doing this when it signed on to the Kyoto Protocol. But the international convention is to calculate all forest carbon emissions as though they occurred on the date a tree was cut. If that wasn’t done, then there would be no accountability for the eventual emissions from the parts of forest biomass that are slower to decay, like roots. The stumps and roots of trees cut on Vancouver Island in the 1900s are still decaying, but no one is counting those emissions. There are a whole lot of forest carbon emissions from old logging in BC that will never be counted, including in my own calculation of a carbon subsidy. Climate and forest scientists have discounted the idea that manufactured wood products store large quantities of carbon for long periods of time. The BC ministry of forests' own research shows that manufactured wood products—from wood pellets for burning, to paper and even more durable building materials—have a relatively short life span and storage capacity compared with the life span and storage capacity of the forests those products came from. The ministry’s graph below shows the short-term nature of those products: Why is “woody debris” counted? In the photograph below, taken by TJ Watt in the Klanawa Valley area of Vancouver Island, a lot of the material piled for burning is “woody debris”. A much more rapid release of emissions is produced by burning such dead structural elements than would have occurred by slow decomposition in a natural forest. In a natural forest, those elements would also have retained large quantities of water over many years, making those forests more resistant to intense burning by forest fires. Removing them effectively insures the plantation that follows will have a greater risk of being burned by a forest fire. I think your perception that logging slash is not piled and burned anymore may be coming via the forest-industrial complex. This perception is not based on reality, and as more and more second-growth forests are logged, and rotation periods shorten, a higher percentage of the logged biomass will be un-utilizable and will be burned in a slash pile. For almost all logging in BC, logging companies are required by forest regulations to mitigate fire hazard by piling and burning the immense quantities of above-ground slash they create. If they didn’t do this, forest fires in BC would be an even larger problem than they are. The photo below shows a second-growth slash pile on Quadra Island, piled in 2021 by TimberWest. It, and the other 11 piles in a 5-hectare clearcut, has been piled to be burned, most likely this fall. There are currently attempts to create a new business that removes “logging residuals” and turns them into pellets for thermal energy. But right now only a small percentage of logging slash is removed for such purposes. The incipient pellet industry appears to need to grind up whole trees, including primary forest—and to receive public subsidies for doing that—to be economically viable. The energy produced from wood pellets is even dirtier than burning coal, according to scientists.

You assume that the carbon in all the volume logged is instantly returned to the atmosphere as CO2. But the rate of decomposition depends on what the wood is used for. Pulp might become CO2 fairly quickly, although not if a large percentage of paper/cardboard is recycled. Lumber can last decades or even hundreds of years when used for construction. For coastal old growth this might still be less than the time the trees would have lived. But perhaps not by much. For the interior, the living trees might have decomposed just as soon, if not sooner, than the lumber. Also, why do you count woody debris in the carbon subsidy? That wood was already dead before logging and will be left there after logging (not much slash burning happens anymore, as I understand it). Roots too will decompose quite slowly and I don't think you should have counted 100% of their carbon. Taking into account the shelf life of wood products, and not counting woody debris, would lower your estimate for the carbon subsidy. Nevertheless, you're probably correct that there is a large carbon subsidy (externality). It's possible that the value of the forestry industry to provincial GDP is currently greater than the combined subsidies, but even if so, it's probably not by much. And the difference will shrink and likely become negative as the price of carbon rises, as you pointed out. I would just like to see revised numbers that take into account the shelf life of wood products.