Softwood lumber sits ready for shipment at Tolko Industries in Heffley Creek, B.C. on April, 1, 2018.JONATHAN HAYWARD/The Canadian Press
British Columbia will establish new powers to redistribute logging rights on public lands, as part of a package of reforms designed to increase the share of industry held by Indigenous communities. In doing so, the government is putting the province’s major forest companies on notice that existing timber tenures are no longer assured.
The new forestry policy was released on Tuesday as RCMP began a third week of arrests at a simmering protest over old-growth logging in and around Fairy Creek on southern Vancouver Island. The provincial government promises to squeeze more jobs out of a declining number of trees, and increase penalties for bad actors, but it will not end the practice of harvesting ancient forests.
Instead, the NDP government intends to redistribute forestry tenures to shift more harvesting rights to smaller timber companies – especially value-added manufacturers – while doubling the share of forestry held in the province by Indigenous nations, to 20 per cent of the annual harvest within two years’ time.
“British Columbians want to turn the page on our colonial past,” Premier John Horgan told reporters. He said the policy shift will enhance protection of old-growth forests, although there were no new specifics announced. “We continue to collaborate with First Nations, and others, to make sure that we protect species, and we protect the biodiversity that is so critically important to our old-growth forests.”
Legislative changes will be introduced in the fall. Mr. Horgan was unapologetic that large forestry tenure holders can expect a smaller share of the harvest. “I’ve been looking at investments that have been made by many of the majors over the past number of years, and they have not been in British Columbia,” he said. “The forests are on public lands, they belong to the people of B.C., they belong to the Indigenous communities where they’re growing.”
Susan Yurkovich, president and CEO of the BC Council of Forest Industries, said the sector will work with the province and other stakeholders to make the shift. “After nearly 20 years, we agree that it is time to recognize the challenges and opportunities we face, along with the dynamic nature of forests and the forest industry.”
The government’s intentions paper, titled Modernizing Forest Policy in British Columbia, concludes that B.C. is not realizing the full value and potential for jobs from its forest resources, in part because the existing value-added sector in British Columbia cannot get access to enough fibre supply. “The goal is to ensure local communities, including Indigenous communities, have opportunities to benefit from the resources coming from their own backyards,” the paper states.
Just five forestry companies hold half of all the timber harvesting rights in B.C. through “evergreen” tenure rights. Under the new policy, B.C. will establish the power to reassign harvesting rights, if those tenure holders cannot reach agreements to share tenure on their own. Those companies that are forced to give up tenure will be offered what the province calls fair compensation. Details of the compensation model have not yet been established.
The changes will also increase potential fines and penalties for violations of forestry practice, and ensure, for the first time, that those infractions are made public.
It is a slow-paced transition that is frustrating environmental activists who see the climate crisis and loss of biodiversity through a more urgent lens. More than 140 people have been arrested since May 18 at the Fairy Creek blockades. The policy reforms unveiled Tuesday by Mr. Horgan will not appease those who want a moratorium on old-growth logging.
“British Columbia is in the middle of a generational moment of public outcry and activism around endangered old-growth forests,” said Torrance Coste of the Wilderness Committee. “This movement isn’t asking Premier Horgan what his intentions are, we are demanding action to safeguard the most at-risk forests while they still stand.”
Instead, the province is eyeing new areas where it will defer old-growth logging – temporarily – while consultations with Indigenous communities continue.
Although lumber prices are soaring this year, the forest industry has been contracting in B.C. and the amount of timber available for harvest has declined, in part because of pine beetle infestations and wildfires. However the province still sees the industry as a significant economic engine: More than 50,000 British Columbians work directly in the forest industry, and forest products made up 29 per cent of B.C.’s total exports, worth $11.5-billion, in the last fiscal year. Direct forestry revenues will bring in an estimated $1.5-billion to the provincial coffers this year.
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