An op-ed by Jennifer Houghton, President of Boundary Forest Watershed Stewardship Society
The Boundary Forest Watershed Stewardship Society is not anti-logging and is, in fact, supportive of creating new forestry jobs. Its just that we want to see a switch from clear cut logging and the industrial sawmill model – and the economic losses our BC communities are suffering due to this system – to a system of eco-forestry and value-added mills and log sort yards.
The current system is entrenched in a timber market that is dependent on shipping cheap raw logs, 2x4s, and now ‘fibre’ out of country. It is a system that has led to the decline of forestry as a portion of the BC GDP and the loss of thousands of jobs in 2019. It has also decimated our ecosystems.
There are examples in BC of how eco-forestry, value-added mills, and local log sort yards create more local jobs and profits per cubic meter of timber than industrial forestry does. Plus, it only takes a little common sense to understand that intact forests are our life-support system. So why does the BC government keep feeding the feeble and destructive ‘feedstock’ industry?
Feedstock, Fibre, Pellets, and Subterfuge
In this article in the Prince George Citizen, the BC Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resources is quoted calling our ecosystems ‘feedstock’. By using this terminology, Donaldson displays a twisted understanding of nature, a commitment to an insecure economic future for BC communities, and an acceptance of corporate propaganda. In order to protect forest ecosystems we need to change this attitude about our forests.
The terms ‘feedstock’ and ‘fibre’ are terms used by industry in their management practices. It is these practices that prop up corporate profits and the interests of the wealthy few rather than protecting local communities.
Forests are not fibre or feedstock – they are living breathing systems that are required in intact form to ensure our survival. Forests protect against climate change, manage our water for us, and provide for our livelihoods.
As long as the BC government views them as a commodity to be torn down and shipped away, we all suffer- and that includes our economies.
Forestry jobs are declining, due, in a big way, to mechanization and the fact that BC market is based on cutting down a lot to get very little value for BC communities. Industry professionals have been making the decisions about how to go about their business for decades. They have no one to blame but themselves for the decline. And, I, for one, am not willing to continue to make a sacrifice for their bad decisions.
BC forests cannot sustain the current rate of logging. Things must be done differently.
The BC government must make a switch to eco-forestry to protect local jobs and give us a future. Eco-forestry creates more jobs at the same time as it cuts down fewer trees.
In this letter to the Editor, published in the Prince George Citizen, Michelle Connolly perfectly describes why our forests cannot be referred to as feedstock:
The term fibre conjures up Metamucil, while feedstock summons the mental image of food for livestock. Why are government and industry employing these euphemisms, rather than just saying forest? The purpose is two-fold: to change how we view these complex living systems and to prevent us from acting to defend them. If forests can be rebranded as stands of consumable objects (which the terms fibre and feedstock achieve), then the work of obtaining social license to destroy them has already been done. If an ecosystem is merely feedstock for a pellet plant, what on Earth else would you do with it?
Michelle Connolly, Conservation North
See Michelle’s full letter here. It is an eloquent characterization of the way that words are used to excuse and buttress practices that common sense tells us are destructive.
Other examples of industry double-speak that the BC government is promoting are the terms ‘biomass’ and ‘biofuel’. Biomass is being touted as the answer to all that ails the BC forestry industry – insiders dub it as a green way to save us from climate change, bolster flagging corporate profits, and create jobs, jobs, jobs. But when whole trees are cut down to create pellets to be burnt, once again common sense wins against any argument that says biomass solves the problem of too much CO2 in the atmosphere. No matter how its spun, we can see the distortion.
“But pellets are being made from the ‘waste’ being scraped off the ground after clear cutting”, industrial forestry and pellet pundits exclaim.
The problem with that is that what is left after clear cutting – relatively small chunks of wood scraps that do not come anywhere near serving the same function as a natural forest floor – still cannot be considered waste when they give at least a little protection to the soil, a home (albeit pathetic one) for micro-organisms, some (again pathetic) shading to the soil, and some (very little and not diverse) organic matter for new plants to grow. There is no such thing as waste in an ecosystem. Even what little organic matter that is left behind from clear cut logging is at least better than leaving a completely bald soil surface.
The other problem with it is that it gives another excuse for more clear cutting, ie. “If we clean up and make use of the waste, then clear cutting is okay.” Clear cutting is not and never will be okay.
And besides, as this article demonstrates, the timber industry is finding its biomass and biofuel by cutting whole trees: B.C. giving millions to transform rainforest into wood pellets for export, new report documents, The Narwhal, April 23, 2020.
And here is another article covering the problems of the biomass frenzy: The Great Biomass Boondoggle, by Mary S. Booth, October 14, 2019
Magic, Innovation, Quality Design
Here in BC we still have some of the most stunning forests on the planet. To save them, two big system changes are needed. Ultimately, the BC government must change the legislation, the model, and the plan. But to make this happen requires an initial and different system change: a great deal of innovative and quality action on the part of environmentalists. Letters, petitions, and marches are being ignored by Horgan and Donaldson and Heyman (recently Premier Horgan has made his disdain for protestors very obvious). People who have worked for decades to conserve forests deserve better than an auto-email response from our elected officials.
We, the people who care about ecosystems, cannot keep doing what we’ve been doing and expect different results. Is it up to us? Yep, sorry but that’s the raw truth, and its time for a new approach to environmental action. We need a powerful eco-forestry lobby to counter the industrial forestry lobby. We need live-action boots-on-the-ground in rural forestry communities creating dialogue about the economic benefits of eco-forestry and how there will be a need for experienced workers and truckers even in tree-hugger style forestry. We need to oust corporate lackies who are currently in government and replace them with independent-minded candidates who stand up for democracy, for ecosystems, and for the future. What else? We need fresh, youthful, brainchild, inspiring ideas to create a metamorphosis in environmental operations to create magical and sparkling results.
As long as the BC government keeps capitulating to industry and letting corporations make decisions about ecosystems, we will lose what we have and despair. It is time to come up with new strategies to get the government to invest in eco-forestry, act on the science, and create a future that is green in a literal sense. I don’t have all the answers but the first step is for environmentalists to acknowledge that its time for a new game plan. Because the forest wreckers and feedstock propagandists are winning.
Update May 12, 2020
This article shares information from a study that found: “that clear-cutting undisturbed, or “primary” boreal forests for material to make wood pellets, in order to replace fossil fuels in electricity generation, is “unlikely to be useful in mitigating climate change in the near term” — and, in fact, would be likely to “exacerbate carbon dioxide emissions for many decades.””
Join us as we try to restore and protect the loveliness of the Boundary forests (and create jobs at the same time – we’re not forgetting about jobs).
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