Is the BC Government Losing Control?

[Scooter]

Link to Article:
http://www.timescolonist.com/news/b-c/b ... -1.2140421

VANCOUVER — The B.C. government has given away so much power to timber companies that district forest managers no longer have the authority to stop suspect harvesting practices in the public good, a Forest Practices Board report reveals.

The independent provincial watchdog says that in recent years, it has seen “situations arise where forestry development was putting local environmental and community values at risk, yet district managers could do little to affect the development and protect the public interest.”

The board adds that “conflicts between resource users could have been avoided if district managers had the authority to intervene to ensure operations would meet local management objectives and respect tenured interests.”

As the provincial officials “closest to the ground,” district managers should receive conditional discretion over the issuance of cutting permits and road permits in “specific and limited circumstances,” the board recommends.

“It would strengthen the district manager’s role in safeguarding the public interest when dealing with matters such as logging on steep slopes, cumulative effects management, visual quality, conservation of species at risk, or conflicts between tenure holders.”

The Forest and Range Practices Act is designed to give forest licensees flexibility to manage harvesting within a framework of government objectives.

The report says: “These objectives place restrictions on logging in certain locations, but licensees are free to operate elsewhere, as long as they comply” with the act and Forest Planning and Practices Regulation.

“It is licensees and their professionals who make the final decisions about how to balance resource values and minimize risks. If a problem occurs, government officials are restricted to dealing with it after the fact.”

Susan Yurkovich, president and CEO of the Council of Forest Industries, said the industry is “operating at a very high level of compliance” under the Forest and Range Practices Act and has a set of requirements and expectations against which companies are expected to perform.

She noted as an example that companies are required to maintain a minimum of 1,800 hectares of caribou habitat in the timber-

harvesting land base, but are maintaining 10 times that amount and “expect to maintain that level for the foreseeable future.”

In another report last August, the board concluded that most forest-stewardship plans governing forest activities on Crown land do not meet the public’s needs, are not enforceable by government and provide little in the way of innovative forest management.

Vivian Thomas, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations, said that in response to the report, the ministry will focus on communicating clear government expectations, improved language for plan objectives and improvements to measurement and verification of results and strategies. The board’s recommendation for greater power for district managers will be considered as a part of that process, she said.

The board’s findings drew immediate support from the environmental community and people who have fought against the province’s inability to stop controversial logging practices.

“Logging companies have free rein over everything,” said Pitt River Lodge owner Dan Gerak, who is fighting to stop the Teal Jones Group from logging his tourist viewscapes and the rain- forest habitat of some of the few remaining grizzlies in southwest B.C. “Somebody has to get control of these logging companies. They have way too much power.”

Teal Jones is also under fire for logging of old-growth forests in the Walbran Valley on Vancouver Island.

“District managers must be given back the right to say no,” said Joe Foy, national campaign director for the Wilderness Committee, adding that the government has stripped that right in the name of cutting red tape. “People attend public meetings thinking that their pleadings to save endangered-species habitat or a viewscape or favourite camping area will be heard and acted on by the district manager, but the people might as well be talking to a blank wall.”

Randy Saugstad, a rancher in the Chilcotin, was the subject of two Forest Practices Board reports into the impact of logging practices on the hydrology of his property. He reached an undisclosed out-of-court settlement this year with Tolko Industries.

“It should go back to where there’s government oversight,” he said at the time. “There’s no compliance and enforcement anymore. It’s just a free-for-all.”

Told of the board report, he said: “This couldn’t come at a better time as B.C. Timber Sales has now — in spite of Tolko’s settling with me — gone up Twinflower Creek and laid out a 300-hectare block to be put up for auction. I have a lawyer involved again but am not looking forward to another six-year fight, especially with the government.”

Saugstad’s 160-hectare ranch is bisected by Twinflower Creek.

- See more at: http://www.timescolonist.com/news/b-c/b ... -1.2140421

[jdtesluk]

Yup. Meanwhile in Squamish, where we have an 8 to 10 million dollar mountain biking industry, BCTS set up a set of three large clearcuts right smack dab in the centre of the mountain biking area, threatening our entire recreation infrastructure. Only a few months in, we already have one slide, 25 metres wide, crossing two roads, and destroying one popular trail, cutting off access to a dozen more,leaving nearly 100 danger trees dangling over public access areas, with a road that compromises the hydrology of the entire hillside.

F*cking BCTS. Bunch of freaking rocket surgeons.

[Thomas]

Is this article accurate in any way? What is it even saying? That timber companies are cutting beyond their allowable cut and cutting wherever they please? I was under the impression The provincial governments were the control freaks.

[peroxide]

I think it's saying that the BC government has given up its discretionary power when it comes to the management of the provincial forests. Timber companies are the ones who are making the decisions about which areas of forest are to be logged and local communities have very little power to influence the decision making process. I was on Van Island this summer and I met a guy in Port Renfrew who was organizing some protests against Teal Jones around Walbran Creek. It's totally insane that they're logging one of the last areas of old growth on the south of the island, and locals weren't too happy about it.

[jdtesluk]

My understanding is that as long as they(logging companies) fill out the applications appropriately, ministry officials have no ability to decline the logging plans. The process of deciding whether or not to cut has been completely out-sourced to the private sector. The Liberals, in all their wisdom, decided that government oversight of this process was far too inefficient, so they should leave it to the market (profit-seeking corporations) to figure what is best for all of us when it comes to use of our forest resources....because if you can't trust a money-hungry logging company to do what's best for everyone with the land, who can you really trust in this day and age. Pure liberal brilliance.

This asinine policy approach is not simply a product of the corporate-sycophant government, but also a direct product of industry manipulation of the government. The industry has basically gone to Gov't, said "we want this", and Gov't put it into policy. That is the direct interpretation I received from lawyers at a prominent environmental law organization. In some cases, they explained, the Gov't has actually cut and paste industry suggestions into forest practices. So no, the Gov't are not "control freaks", unless by this you mean freaks about taking any sense of control away from the public, and placing all the cards in the hands of industry.

So, you can have forest land with a multitude of non-timber values, say berry and plant harvesting, recreation, hunting, tourism and so forth, but as long as Mr. Moneybags fills out the right form, he can proceed to log the f**k out of it, regardless of how this affects the local community. Of course, it's not entirely wild west, and there are general guidelines to follow regarding environmental practices, (largely meaningless) periods of public consultation, and so forth. Most logging folks (at the contracting end of things) are decent folks that don't really want to destroy the area around themselves. However, in far too many cases, we see priceless resources being cut up and shipped overseas to foreign mills, leaving us with no true forests, just little tree plantations. It is most grating, when it is BCTS at the middle of this, and they demonstrate a total failure to look after the interests of the communities in which they ply their trade.

The fact that we see relatively few protests about logging these days shows that A) forestry is not keen on conflict because they know they don't possess the unchallenged public sympathy they enjoyed up to the 1990s, and B) there really isn't a whole lot of really really good wood left that they haven't already logged. There are often many options to log, and tonnes of forest to go after, but at the crappy profit margins of the global log market, they only go after the cream. If they thought they could log the parks, they would have the trucks at the yellow gates tomorrow. Perhaps there is also a bit of the process actually working with respect to forest practices. The system isn't all bad, and totally without effect. However, in situations where there are conflict of forest values, the system is ultimately biased toward logging companies, and provides very little protection to other parties that stand to benefit from the forests.

[bhappy]

I don't know if we can really say BC gov't is 'losing' control. From my understanding of the legislation and conversations with some older foresters who have worked with the MOF, there have been a few waves in terms of the level of enforcement that the MOF has. I think also, that we are kind of approaching one of those tipping points that will send the industry back into more of a merciless enforcement-based legislation...hopefully in the next 5 years or so.

Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong on some of this stuff (I know my dates might be a bit off)...

I think in the 80s a lot of the silviculture and management was entirely controlled by the government. Logging companies would harvest according to their approved plans and were require to pay some form of fee to the government. The government was supposed to hold onto this money for reforestation purposed etc. (This often got spent on other expenditures). Logging companies were required to make reforestation plans and apply to the government to receive the funs (that were supposed to have been 'held' for these purposes). Frequently, the government could only return a certain portion of these funds (because they had already spent it on something that wasn't forestry) to implement these reforestation efforts.

Industry began to get frustrated for two reasons - one being they were required to reforest and couldn't efficiently. There was a MASSIVE backlog. Silviculture practices were being micro-managed from gov't. There was a push to allow industry to control the entirety of their logging practices (including silviculture). (Industry pressures gov't)

I think this is when the Forest Practices Code of BC Act was developed - which was implement in its entirety as legislation in 1995 and was then replaced by Forest Range and Practices Act in 2004. Since the gov't handed over control to the industry to manage their operations and reforestation completely there was a rigorous enforcement procedure that was being followed and practices within the MOF. (The ministry also collects important data throughout BC in order to develop standards for the industry and understand the influences of many things such as pests and climate within the ecosystems). Over the next 10 years industry manages their practices under the what was considered 'strict' regulation of the FPC. The ministry enforces frequently with fines and reprimands when regulation or law isn't followed. (They had quite a bit of power to enforce and lots of staff - they frequently conducted their own surveys and verified what was being reported). Over time industry was frustrated with all the reprimands and enforcement. Industry and legislation 'but heads'.

And as it goes - if you beat someone down hard enough they will eventually stop caring. Between the 80s and the 90s there was a big shift within the MOF (talk to anyone who has worked there for a long time - most of them do not wear their patch with pride anymore). Industry didn't always agree with enforcement or with the scientist working within the MOF. (Industry pressures gov't again)

In 2005 the FRPA was implement - this essentially removed most if not all of the MOF's ability to enforce.I cannot remember what really pushed the last big change in legislation but... here we are. (One thing to note is since the public might not have been very involved since management was being practiced from a more strict point of view - there were not as many stories of companies cutting more than their AAC or not meeting provincial requirements).

In the past few years it has become more obvious that (now that their isn't as much) enforcement is an important part of making the machine work... and well industry can't have free rein. And while it might be unfortunate to say - we might need a few more incidents like these to happen before the public puts enough pressure on the gov't to make some changes in legislation.

[jdtesluk]

Good summary bhappy. On a textbook level, it is good. However, it all depends on who is writing the book. Sharp critics of forest policy may provide alternative interpretations, and argue that at no time have we had truly effective enforcement of meaningful and effective forest standards, and the condition of the forest as both ecosystems and timber farms has consistently and continually declined.

Just cherry-picking a single part, but to provide some idea.


"Over time industry was frustrated with all the reprimands and enforcement. Industry and legislation 'but heads'."-

Well, frustration at this time may actually have been outrage that their unimpeded plunder of the public forests was actually being challenged. Up to the 80s, virtually nothing stood in their way other than market demands and technical capacity to cut. To say they were frustrated implies that the enforcement and reprimands were actually meaningful impacts on forestry operations. They weren't. The main impacts were changing global markets, and they were doing everything in their power to liquidate the forest of the province as fast as they could. The early 90s represented the actual peak of forest consumption, with the highest level of cutting in history occuring in 1989 at 89.1 million cubic meters.

"And as it goes - if you beat someone down hard enough they will eventually stop caring. Between the 80s and the 90s there was a big shift within the MOF (talk to anyone who has worked there for a long time - most of them do not wear their patch with pride anymore). Industry didn't always agree with enforcement or with the scientist working within the MOF. (Industry pressures gov't again)"

The only thing beating them down were markets. The average number of workers per 1000 cubic metres cut nosedived through this decade, reaching a low of 1.02 in 1996. Basically, the industry was automating, shedding wages, keeping more money in foreign hands, and sucking the province dry. That is sheer fact. To suggest that regulations were hurting them is like pretending that the Koch Brothers are hurt by increased parking meter rates. Industry simply blustered about enforcement because they wanted to continue liquidating the public assets in the easiest and fastest way possible to concentrate even more money in corporate hands. Labour complaints about standards at the time were simply woefully misguided voices manipulated by industry into thinking environmental protection was hurting them, when reality was that automation, high production, and increasing foreign ownership by a small number of corporate actors (an oligopoly) was really to blame for the demise of forest workers.


"In 2005 the FRPA was implement - this essentially removed most if not all of the MOF's ability to enforce."

Yup, but there's so little left to protect, and the public has basically stopped caring about forests, and it barely makes headline news unless something truly abominable is happening, like the harvesting of the Walbran valley.

So, I agree with the basic timeline, bhappy, you definitely have a good grasp of the evolution of basic policy. However, I think the industry has been extremely successful at propagating an illusion of them struggling against cumbersome regulation. Add to that, many bureaucrats simply don't like to work hard, and felt put out in actually doing their job. That sounds cynical, but I've seen it first hand, and continue to see it today. I really don't see the public waking up to care about this, as there are larger problems on their plate (LNG, Transmountain, climate change). I expect Teal Jones and their cohorts to merely chip away at the public resources as much as they can, until nothing worth holding is left. In their case, I sympathize a bit, as their mills really rely on good cedar. However, they are paying the price of a thoughtless and poorly designed forest industry that pulped magnificent old growth in the past, and failed to properly conserve resources. Now they want to continue taking the scraps that are left. It is truly a sad situation, and both environmental sympathists and forest workers have some dodgy futures ahead.

[jdtesluk]

I should add that I think one of the best commentaries on this subject I have ever heard, is from Corky Evans at the WSCA conference in 2011

I can think of worse ways to spend 45 minutes. He starts slow and bumbles a bit, but that's his schtick. Bring you in closer to his folksy roots, and then let you see the madness through the eyes of a person reliant upon forests to survive.

https://vimeo.com/21201061

[bhappy]

I guess the real question is...can you lose what is already lost?

[jdtesluk]

Your response here is great. Indeed, what is next? One must ask what can be done about a set of circumstances that is rooted in a such a long history of economic and political structure? Taking steps to manage, or repair our capacity to manage, the forests is no easy task. When one (agency, ministry, NGO) endeavors to correct the flaws in forest policy, they are dealing with 120 years of complex licensing, regulation, marketing, social, and cultural forces.

I would say in short, YES. There are still things worth protecting in BC forests. It would be very easy for the public to give up, say "so what", and shift their attention to the next big thing (LNG?). Truth is that forestry will likely remain a vital part of the BC economy and community structure for our lifetimes and beyond. It will shift and change, but part of the neoliberal lie is that forestry is dead, and that there is little point in investing state oversight and public resources in managing yesterday's resource base. Nothing could be farther from the truth. BC forests offer the most sustainable economic base out of any resource possessed within our borders (next to human resources I suppose). They have endured nearly two centuries of mindless colonial exploitation, yet they still hold the potential to power our province through the future....if they are managed properly and if we structure our economy in a manner that takes advantage of shifting market opportunities.

However, clawing back control from corporate entities is extremely difficult. There is little precedent for reversing the flow of privatization in control over natural resources. Some, but very little nonetheless. Our more recent descent (or ascent, depending on how you see it) into neo-liberal (private-emphasized, and market-controlled) management systems is not an isolated phenomena. It is the continuation of a long process that began over a century ago. There is absolute continuity in the trajectory of change in relationships between state, public, and resource bases.

So, the question may not be so much as CAN we, but HOW do we? That is, if our society (our public body) wishes to reclaim control over the forest resource base, we must determine the methods that fit the new era. Approaches of the past (protest, krypto-locks to gates, etc) are hardly effective anymore. Too many court injunctions, and too much competition for attention. Even the more advanced methods of shaming government and corporate bodies on international market forums (lobbying foreign buyers to boycott irresponsible BC forestry practices) have lost their edge. New approaches are needed to reverse, or even stem, the flow of increasing corporate mastery over the commons.

In short, what we have done in the past as a public body (not speaking as an individual, but as a citizen of the province) to maintain linkages between forest exploitation and citizen enrichment, is no longer working sufficiently to protect the resource base. New steps are needed, and clearly the ENGO and environmental law community do not yet have a clear answer for the problem. They continue to mix and match old tactics, and have in some cases sought to align themselves more closely with corporations in co-management schemes (see Great Bear), but these are proving to have only limited impact. In the broad and abstract world of public movements, state-corporate-public relations, and human-resource relationships, we may in fact be stepping into a new era, we just don't know it yet.

[RPF]

We could go back to the days when the NDP were in power where they basically paralysed the industry with strict "cookie cutter" approaches to forest management, OR we could collectively appeal to the Association of BC Forest Professionals to more stringently enforce their main code of ethics upon all member, namely "... to place the public interest before the interests of their employer..." This works both for Government and Industry foresters. To do so, may require some innovative thinking and deviations from legislation, but I think it can be done if the will of the general public is there to support this approach. As it sits now, there are still too many rules and regulations that tend to stifle innovative thinking and we end up in the perceived mess that we have now.

It's too bad that the ABCFP have limited ability to ensure that its members are really thinking of the public interest first instead of the interests of their employers. Let's be honest here, how long do you think a forester would remain employed if they really did put the public interest ahead of his employer's? My guess is not very, and since we all need to eat, how many foresters would be willingly to speak up in public against their employer - even if they know by doing so is the right thing to do. Until that day comes, I fear that what we see is what we will continue to get.

[jdtesluk]

Pure agency/agent capture. Neolibs call it professional reliance.

ABCFP aren't the only ones swept up in this.

[Scooter]

From today's WSCA Rumour Mill Roundup Newsletter:

The Forest Practices Board is preparing to ask the big picture question, “Are reforestation choices meeting expectations?” This represents a forest policy area the WSCA has urged the Board to examine. The first challenge, considering the potential scope of such a project, or series of projects, will be to contain the investigation so it can produce useful results in a reasonable time. To that end the Board will spend the first part of this year working on its terms of reference. The WSCA has expressed its interest in supporting this pivotal undertaking.