Climate change and B.C. forest stewardship – a widening gap
According to a Thursday newspaper article there are around 400 active forest fires in B.C. this week. 85,000 hectares of forest have burned so far this year. Heat waves and dry weather contribute to forest fires in many other parts of the world and together with other extreme weather events are a powerful reminder that our planet is no longer the same (read Bill McKibben’s new book Eaarth if you haven’t yet). 2010 is on track to become the hottest year on the planet since recordings began. At the end of July, scientists presented global data that showed that each of the past three decades – 1980s, 1990s and 2000s – was the hottest on record.
Not only do we have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions dramatically and as quickly as possible but we also have to work hard and fast to use all available means to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. There is no better way to do that than taking care of our forests to ensure that their overall carbon storage increases and not decreases. Last month I wrote about how globally unique and important B.C.’s forests are in this context.
In April Sierra Club BC Executive Director George Heyman, along with Ben Parfitt of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, described the impact of the latest round of cuts to the Forest Service.
This month Briony Penn writes in Focus Magazine about how the B.C. government has reduced Ministry of Forests staff cut by cut over the past decade “rendering it unable to do its job”. Only 22 of 42 district offices that existed in 2001 remain today. Over 1,000 employees have been cut since 2002 (total number of remaining staff unknown). Penn writes: “Each district office, with only a handful of field staff, is now responsible for over two million hectares—1000 times more forest per forester than in Sweden.”
The B.C. government argues that in times of less revenue from forestry there will be less resources for stewardship of our forests. The argument ignores the flood of evidence about the values of healthy forests other than timber, for carbon storage, climate, species, watersheds, tourism and many others benefits that are not directly measured in our economy but critical for the survival of communities across B.C.
The changing climate is already impacting our forests with the Mountain Pine Beetle outbreak, other pests and more forest fires. Regionally climatic zones begin to shift and some tree species get under pressure. We have to prepare for a crisis that will undermine and threaten the existence of healthy forests and the services they provide for us. Due to the cuts of Ministry of forests staff we have not even sufficient information about the current state of our forests under a changing climate, let alone measures in place to mitigate the damage.
There is a widening gap between what we know about the importance of our forests for our survival and government stewardship in B.C. Much information and recommendations of what would be needed to manage the provincial forests for climate, species and jobs is available. This is not the time to withdraw further from good forest stewardship but to correct past mistakes and begin repairing some of the damage both in our forests and the ministry that got created to do this job.
