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Fate of old growth timber in B.C. hanging in the balance
“Perceptions,” by Gerry Warner
Op-Ed Commentary
A deadline passed Jan. 31 for one of the rare government attempts to do something significant to save old-growth forests in British Columbia.
It was called the BC Old-Growth Strategic Review Process and consisted of a panel of two professional foresters who held public meetings around the province –except for the East Kootenay – to receive input on how British Columbians feel about the rapidly declining stands old-growth timber in what I would forlornly call “Beautiful BC.”
Will it save a single old-growth tree? I doubt it. Will it save a significant patch of old-growth forest? Judge for yourself. Look around almost anywhere in B.C. and what do you see – gaping gashes of barren ground where once verdant green forests existed. From the Alberta border to the Pacific Coast the view is the same – zig-zagging logging roads and jagged clear cuts devoid of trees where mature old- growth forests once lived. Not a pretty sight. Some conservationists claim only five percent of our original old-growth stands are left in the province. What an appalling waste of the public’s patrimony!
Unfortunately, most British Columbians don’t seem to care about this. A great furore is raised about the burning of the Amazon rain forest but the same thing happens in B.C. every day and there’s hardly a peep. The few who complain are branded as “tree huggers” or “greenies” and everyone has a good laugh. Well, the laugh will soon be on us because we’re running out of commercially marketable timber and dozens of mills are closing and thousands of workers laid off.
We have messed up the forest big time in B.C. Locally, one only has to hike to the Lakit Forestry Lookout and take in the 360-degree view – clear cuts in every direction as far as the eye can see. It’s a depressing sight. It looks even worse if you fly over it on a flight to Vancouver. Why is this destruction allowed? The answer is simple. Few complain. They think this is the way logging is and has to be. And even if they did complain to government or the Forest Service, nothing gets done because clear cutting is official government policy in order to placate the appetite of industry for higher profits and government for more revenue.
Clear cutting also causes massive ecological damage by destroying temperate rain forest habitats supporting rare species like the endangered Mountain Caribou, which depend on lichens and mosses that only grow on mature old-growth trees. Without their main food source, the weakened ungulates fall prey to predators like wolves and cougars and quickly die out. Rare plant and bird species suffer too. Lack of shade causes the snowpack to melt more quickly in the spring causing floods in the valleys downstream followed by drought in summer. Old-growth timber stands also fight climate change by sequestering enormous amounts of carbon in their trunks and branches. When old-growth disappears, climate change arrives much more quickly.
Forests, especially old-growth forests, are the lungs of the earth. They purify the air and clean the water. They provide a home for a myriad of species to live, including us, and they produce much of the food and goods that we put on our tables to sustain us. And in B.C., we can’t chop them down fast enough.
Wake up people. That’s how logging has been done in B.C. for the past 100 years – clear cut and slash burn – just like they do in the Amazon. It’s our culture just as it is in the Amazon and now we’re paying the price for mismanaging a seemingly endless resource for mere pecuniary greed and profit.
There’s something wrong here. We ought to be ashamed! But most of us aren’t. That’s why our old-growth is disappearing. No one cares. Who needs trees when there’s always plastic?
– Gerry Warner is a retired – and tired – journalist who has seen too many clear cuts in B.C. in his life.
