Anne Sherrod: Nanoose Bay logging strips green veneer off of TimberWest and Long Hoh
The B.C. government is now allowing one of the last small patches of coastal Douglas fir forest in existence to be logged. This is happening near Nanoose Bay in a cutblock known as DL 33. Is the B.C. government mad? Is this a Third World country, such that we need to stamp out one of the last small fragments of a globally endangered forest type for a temporary shot of cash?
It is sad to see the Snaw-Naw-As First Nation being the up-front party to do this, when giant, hugely wealthy TimberWest is lurking in the background with a purchase agreement for the wood. For TimberWest, this provides a way to deal in logs from a globally endangered forest without blowing its cover as an “environmentally responsible supplier of forest products”.
Just go to the website of TimberWest and view the claims it makes about itself: “TimberWest manages its assets for long-term sustainability....Protection of biodiversity is a key element of sustainable forest management and TimberWest continually strives to improve efforts to sustain key habitat for plants and wildlife.” Tell that to the blue-listed Roosevelt elk that are losing their life support system to provide logs to TimberWest.
TimberWest boasts certification by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) as its “verification of sustainable forest management”. TimberWest describes SFI as “a rigorous system of environmental and conservation practices for wildlife and water quality protection, biodiversity conservation, sustainable harvesting practices and a wide range of other forest management goals”.
However, a brief search on the Internet reveals that forest certification advocate ForestEthics has denounced SFI, saying that the acronym stands for “Selling False Information”. According to ForestEthics, SFI was “developed and funded by some of the biggest forest destroyers in North America”.
But even if that weren’t so, what happens when TimberWest gets another company to do the logging? TimberWest gets to buy and sell logs obtained by destroying habitat for red-listed plants, while wearing the green halo of certification for being a company that sells environmentally ethical wood.
Court documents indicate that the logs are to be shipped to a Vancouver Island company by the name of Long Hoh, a specialty lumber export company that originated in Taiwan but expanded into North America in 1998. Its website also boasts certification by the PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification). Long Hoh says that this will “give its customers added peace of mind that they are purchasing a green product harvested in a sustainable and un-controversial manner”.
Uncontroversial? There have been at least three complaints to the B.C. government’s forest watchdog, the Forest Practices Board (FPC), on this subject. The FPC has pointed out that the coastal Douglas fir (CDF) forest type has the highest density of species at risk of any ecosystem in B.C. There are 29 endangered (“red-listed”) plant communities associated with CDF. Due to logging and other development, only 0.5 percent of the CDF is old-growth; in fact, 49 percent of it has been totally wiped out.
Documents submitted in court show that Snaw-Naw-As Forest Services Ltd. agreed to deliver 17,000 cubic metres of logs to Long Hoh for the purchaser, TimberWest. The agreement stipulated that the wood must come from the Nanoose site, which is odd because the permit signed by the government allows only 15,000 cubic metres to be logged. So it appears that we have 65 extra truckloads of wood slipping out of the forest, over and beyond what the government approved in writing.
According to the Forest Practices Board, the coastal Douglas fir forests are home to numerous “critically imperiled” plants—defined as having fewer than five known viable occurrences in the province, and as being at very high risk of extinction. Perhaps, somewhere in the world, purchasers of wood products from DL 33 will soon be having their “peace of mind” disturbed by nightmares of sending red-listed species into oblivion forever.
Anne Sherrod is the chair of the Valhalla Wilderness Society.
Comments
11 Comments
Nanoose Barb
Dec 8, 2011 at 5:32pm
Pls sign petition to stop this kind of logging in BC
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/don-t-buy-bc-s-timberwest-hot-endang...
We need 500 to send to all stakeholders in this lumber deal. Cheers b
Christopher Stephens
Dec 8, 2011 at 5:45pm
Shame on the fraudulent BC government who signed the Convention on Biological Diversity and the National Accord for the Protection of Species at Risk.
The BC government is to cheap to provide real resource land, instead it raids the ecological areas that are the critical reserves of biodiversity.
Or is it in fact a cover scam to give Timberwest a licence to raid?
Boycott BC hot woodproducts. It would be better to buy from the Amazon than BC lumber right now!
The parties involved are potentially guilty of fraud and misrepresentation and may need to be punished for this breach of the public trust and blatant actions. This is not a mistake, this is a calculated and willful attempt to get away with an environmental bank robbery.
morg
Dec 8, 2011 at 11:48pm
the Liberals are pathetic vote these people out!
Nanoose Barb
Dec 9, 2011 at 12:06pm
Updated petition for lumber retailers.
Marian
Dec 9, 2011 at 1:21pm
What are the specific endengered species in the DL 33? Has the author ever been there? Did she monitor the area for the species that she is writing about? The article has no informative value, like many in today's media. Another piece of "investigative journalism" from the comfort of the livingroom.
Brian T. Barber, RPF
Dec 9, 2011 at 4:32pm
Readers should be aware the entire East side of Vancouver Island is covered in Coastal Douglas-fir trees. Mostly second-growth with a few remanant old-growth trees. Logging the latter trees are what people take expection too - some going to extremes publishing sensational scenarios. Van Is Douglas-fir forests are home to a variety of species. Rare and endangered are not contain themselves to one plot of land - those that can do migrate - and far a field such as elk (whose #s are increaseing rapidly). Species will no go extinct because this small area is harvested.
Sad in Nanoose Bay
Dec 9, 2011 at 4:32pm
DL33 was only the first to be clearcut. A few days ago the government announced agreements to cut 92,000cubic meters a year from Parksville to the tip of the Island. That will likely wipe out the rest of the Crown CDF, but I think I know why. No more Supernatural BC. Pat Bell, former Minister of Forests who was apparently tasked with cutting down every last tree, is covering all his current bases - Jobs, Tourism and Innovation - tourists will flock to see clearcuts, scotch broom, scotch thistle, fireweed, billboards and the occasional tree plantation. How innovative. Just a dab of advertising should do it. Brilliant!
D. Bob
Dec 9, 2011 at 6:59pm
To Brian T. Barber, RPF. You should be ashamed. The Forest Practices Board, the independent forest watchdog, said in two reports that logging DL33 will threaten the viability of the ecosystem. A more common way to say this is that it is such a rare mature and old CDF forest, its loss will push the ecosystem towards extinction. As a professional you have a duty of professional reliance instead you condescend. I have a picture of the 2 plant communities in DL33 which are ranked "globally critically imperilled" with the next step being extinction, and the series 01 dull oregon-grape ranked "globally imperilled", packing up their organisms and their roots, with the foam flower and salal and all the inter-linked plants up to the old growth grand fir and douglas fir, and marching over to the clear-cut next door, to escape the chain saws. Some professional. Some ethics.
SFI Program
Dec 12, 2011 at 11:09am
SFI is making a difference on the ground – educating loggers and landowners, promoting best management practices and supporting conservation groups and forest communities across North America while earning recognition here in Canada and around the globe. Forestry experts like the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers and Canadian Institute of Forestry, and conservation recognize the SFI standard as a credible forestry certification standard in North America. Read more on what others are saying at http://www.sfiprogram.org/others-saying.php and get the facts by visiting: http://www.sfiprogram.org/facts/.
Steve M.
Dec 12, 2011 at 5:28pm
Why is Snaw-Naw-As Forest Service Ltd. not singled out as the main culprit here? I get that their customers are also part of the picture, but that company has the chainsaws. If you are giving them a pass because they are associated with a native band, you are doing no one any favours. Either the forest is at risk and all the participants should be criticised or it isn't and none of them should be. You can't slice and dice it like this without looking like you're more concerned with politics than the environment.