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This Week at Sierra Club BC (Archive)
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Key species in the Great Bear Rainforest could still be at risk of extinction despite commitments in the internationally acclaimed conservation agreement for the region, say the three environmental groups who helped negotiate it with the province.
A new report by the groups entitled, “Slipping Through the Cracks? The Fate of Focal Species in the Great Bear Rainforest” released today by Greenpeace, ForestEthics and Sierra Club BC shows there is still a risk of extinction for a number of important species of conservation concern, including grizzly bears, marbled murrelets, mountain goats, northern goshawks and tailed frogs.
According to the organizations, the Province has yet to deliver the new species conservation measures that were identified as a priority by all stakeholders. With the current increase in timber prices, major forestry companies may soon be submitting logging plans without incorporating crucial information for key species habitat. The groups are asking that no new logging approvals or road permits be granted until crucial focal species habitat is set aside from logging.
“The Great Bear Rainforest Agreement was gold on paper but is dragging along in reality,” said Eduardo Sousa, forest campaigner with Greenpeace. “We are not seeing the progress required for a world-class standard for rainforest conservation”
The March 2009 Agreement required new scientific analysis to be in place by September 2009 as a way to determine if key species needed additional habitat for survival.
“When we announced the new Great Bear Rainforest Agreement we all agreed its success depended on meeting the long-term goals of ecological integrity and healthy communities, while ensuring in the short term that no important species fall through the cracks,” said Valerie Langer, Director of BC Forest campaigns at ForestEthics.
The new agreement announced a year ago included full legislation of 2.1 million hectares protected from logging, as well as new, transitional logging regulations, which when combined totals 50 per cent of the rainforest off-limits to logging. The Agreement also committed to achieve the goals of ecological health and high quality of life in communities by 2014.
“The province said that they are making an Olympic effort to achieve this bold and challenging initiative,” said Jens Wieting, forest campaigner with Sierra Club BC. “To live up to that we have to see real change on the ground for these species very soon or we will not make it to the podium.”
The report “Slipping Through the Cracks? The Fate of Focal Species in the Great Bear Rainforest” was released today by Greenpeace, ForestEthics and Sierra Club BC.”
The full report can be found here: www.savethegreatbear.org
A plan to protect large areas of the Great Bear Rainforest from logging has fallen so far behind schedule that key species could soon be put at risk, say three environmental groups working with the government to save the area.
“Right now we are entering a red zone in terms of delays. It's no longer acceptable … we have to see a turnaround,” said Jens Wieting, a spokesman for the Sierra Club of B.C.
Mr. Wieting said when the government last year passed legislation protecting about half the area (some 2.1 million hectares) from logging and other resource activity, it promised to draft scientific harvesting plans that would reduce the environmental impact of timber cutting on the remaining lands.
The approach, first promised in 2006 when the government announced its intention to save the Great Bear Rainforest, drew widespread praise and three major environmental groups – the Sierra Club, Greenpeace Canada and Forest Ethics – signed on as partners to help develop the strategy.
The idea was to save key habitat for threatened species, while allowing logging with a “lighter touch” in remaining areas in the Great Bear Rainforest, a vast wilderness on B.C.'s central coast.
But Mr. Wieting said a new study, being released by the three environmental groups Friday, shows there has been little progress toward developing those scientific logging plans.
“When we endorsed the agreement in March 2009 … all parties agreed it was an absolutely high priority that we address the habitat needs of key species. … Now it's 2010 and that still hasn't been done, so that's a big deal to us,” he said.
Mr. Wieting said the government logging plan is nine months behind schedule and he's worried it won't be ready in time to manage logging activities this year.
“We are concerned about market news. There has been an increase in timber prices and there could be significantly more logging [in the Great Bear Rainforest] in 2010,” he said.
Mr. Wieting said if logging roads are built, or timber harvesting takes place before a plan is in place, key habitat could be lost.
The report looked at five “focal species” and concluded all could be at risk if resource development fractures key habitat zones.
“Although the B.C. government pledged to protect the biodiversity of the Great Bear Rainforest, it cannot confirm that it is maintaining enough habitat to prevent the extirpation of the five focal species,” states the report.
It says the provincial government continues to issue permits to build roads and log in the unprotected areas of the Great Bear Rainforest, even though those activities “have a high likelihood of degrading critical focal species habitat.”
The five focal species examined were the grizzly bear, mountain goat, northern goshawk, marbled murrelet and coastal tailed frog.
The Great Bear Rainforest is best known for the so-called Spirit Bears – black bears with white fur – that roam the forest there.
Mr. Wieting said the focal species were chosen as indicators of environmental trends, and whatever happens to them will also happen to the other animals in the area, including the Spirit Bear.
The report offers two key recommendations. It calls on the province “to provide decisive leadership” in completing the logging plans as soon as possible, and urges the government to not issue any new permits for cutting or road building until those plans are in place.
Forests and Range Minister Pat Bell was not available for comment, but a spokesman for his office said he had the report and would read it.
Praised in the past as the greenest government in Canada, British Columbia came under fire from environmentalists yesterday for a budget they say negates the impact of clean-energy initiatives by offering bigger subsidies to the oil and gas industry.
“The B.C. government deserves a gold medal in green rhetoric with this budget, but when it comes to real action on the environment they have veered far off course,” said Gwen Barlee, policy director for the Wilderness Committee.
George Heyman, executive director of the Sierra Club of B.C., said there were some welcome measures in the budget, but overall it had tipped too heavily in favour of carbon-intensive industries.
Mr. Heyman said the government's allocation of $100-million for climate action and clean-energy development, and $35-million to revive LiveSmart, a program that encourages energy efficient homes, was set back by larger incentives to resource industries.
He pointed out the budget projects $282-million in subsidies this year for the oil and gas sector; $274-million to extend power lines up Highway 37 to service coal mines, and $200-million to upgrade roads in B.C.'s northeast oil and gas patch.
“This budget gives small snacks to green initiatives compared to the full-course meals that oil, gas and mining companies will get from public coffers,” said Mr. Heyman.
Matt Horne, director of B.C. Energy Solutions for the Pembina Institute, praised the government for its new clean-energy fund, but said “in a large part when you look at the budget in balance, it's disappointing it's not moving at the scale or pace we need to hit the province's climate targets.
He said in addition to offering significant subsidies to the oil and gas industries, the government has failed to close carbon-tax loopholes.
“British Columbia's law requires that we reduce our carbon emissions by 33 per cent by 2020 … [but] this budget doesn't do enough to help British Columbia take those next steps and drive the transition from dirty to clean energy,” said Mr. Horne.
The budget sets aside $100-million over three years to support infrastructure for cleaner transportation choices, the production of bio-fuels from wood waste, and new forms of electricity generation “including wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, wave, and run-of-river applications.”
The government also said it is moving to support carbon trading and clean technology by extending to those sectors tax breaks intended to make B.C. more attractive as an international financial centre. Details on that program weren't immediately available.
The B.C. budget contains some welcome measures for a clean, green economy but the overall balance tips heavily in favour of carbon-intensive industries such as oil and gas, Sierra Club BC said today.
“This budget gives small snacks to green initiatives compared to the full course meals that oil, gas and mining companies will get from public coffers,” said Sierra Club BC Executive Director George Heyman.
The $100 million slated for climate action and clean energy development, and $35 million to revive the popular LiveSmart program, pale in comparison to a projected $282 million in subsidies this year alone for the oil and gas sector, Heyman said. The budget also includes $274 million for the electrification of Highway 37, an initiative that will support carbon-intensive coal mining and other mining mega-projects, as well as $200 million to upgrade roads in B.C.’s northeast for the oil and gas sector.
“We appreciate that the government listened to British Columbians and reinstated LiveSmart funding to help with energy-efficient home retrofits, but judging from LiveSmart’s initial success we expect that money will disappear in less than one year instead of the three years for which it is intended,” said Heyman. “Expanding LiveSmart further would be a significant boost for B.C.’s economy and help reduce our carbon emissions, especially since homeowners will now have to swallow the cost of the new HST on labour for climate-friendly upgrades.”
While the environment ministry’s budget remains relatively unchanged after eight years of significant and harmful reductions, Heyman said he is concerned about a $655,000 cut to parks and protected areas, likely to lead to parks closures and further staff reductions.
Deep cuts to the Ministry of Forests and Range, including a 10 percent reduction of almost $30 million to forests and range management, are alarming, said Heyman. “It’s unclear what the full impact of those cuts will be, but we hope that the ministry’s important work on forests and climate change will continue. We are also very concerned that decreases in forest management staff will prevent B.C. from ensuring that new environmentally-friendly forms of forest management will be implemented and monitored in order to ensure a sustainable forest economy--while protecting our province’s ecosystems, jobs and communities.”
British Columbia and Montana will work together to protect a
tiny piece of the province described as a missing piece of a
world heritage site.
A deal to be signed Thursday between Premier Gordon Campbell and Gov. Brian Schweitzer sustains environmental values in the Flathead River Basin, an area in the extreme southeastern corner of B.C., bordered by Glacier National Park in Montana.
The pact is being called “conservation gold” by the
Sierra Club of B.C., in part because Campbell has agreed to ban mining, oil and gas development in the region.
But environment groups said there's still a need to create a
provincial park in the lower third of the valley and a wildlifemanagement area through the rest of the valley and its adjoining habitat.
“B.C.'s Flathead River Valley is so exceptional that it
needs the permanent protection offered by a national park in the lower one-third of the valley, adjacent to Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park,” said Chloe O'Loughlin,
executive director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness
Society.”
Sierra Club spokeswoman Sarah Cox said the agreement recognizes that nature has no national boundaries and that B.C. and Montana must work together to protect shared fish, wildlife and water.
The Flathead Valley extends south into Montana and the B.C. region is considered the missing piece of the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.
