Anthony Britneff
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Wildflower families of the Discovery Islands
Forest-related journalism
Ocean-related reporting
Primary forest survey: Quadra Island
Plant species of the Discovery Islands (white-coloured wildflowers)
Loss of forest cover on Quadra Island
Plant species of the Discovery Islands (yellow-coloured wildflowers)
Plant species of the Discovery Islands (pink-coloured wildflowers)
Plant species of the Discovery Islands (Blue-flowered wildflowers)
Plant species of the Discovery Islands (Red-orange-flowered wildflowers)
Plant species of the Discovery Islands (brown-coloured wildflowers)
Plant species of the Discovery Islands (purple-coloured wildflowers)
Animal species of the Discovery Islands: Marine mammals
Animal species of the Discovery Islands: Land mammals
Animal species of the Discovery Islands: Marine birds
Animal species of the Discovery Islands: Forest birds
Animal species of the Discovery Islands: Amphibians
Animal species of the Discovery Islands: Reptiles
Animal species of the Discovery Islands: Marine Invertebrates
Animal species of the Discovery Islands: Fish
Plant species of the Discovery Islands (Green-flowered wildflowers)
Logging in the watersheds of Quadra Island
Plant species observed on the Discovery Islands that are endangered, threatened or species of concern
Animal species observed on the Discovery Islands that are endangered, threatened or species of concern
Plant species of the Discovery Islands (Trees and Shrubs)
Lichen species of the Discovery Islands
Primary forest survey: Read Island
Primary forest survey: Cortes Island
Primary forest survey: Maurelle Island
Primary forest survey: Sonora Island
Primary forest survey: West Redonda Island
Primary forest survey: smaller islands
Primary forest survey: East Redonda Island
Place names: Quadra Island
Place names: Cortes Island
Place names: Read Island
Place names: Maurelle Island
Place names: Sonora Island
Place names: West Redonda Island
Place names: East Redonda Island
Place names: smaller islands
Plant species of the Discovery Islands (Grasses, sedges & rushes)
Plant species of the Discovery Islands (Aquatics)
Plant species of the Discovery Islands (Ferns)
Plant species of the Discovery Islands (Lichens)
Plant species of the Discovery Islands (Fungi)
Plant species of the Discovery Islands (Mosses and Liverworts)
Animal species of the Discovery Islands: Butterflies, Skippers and Moths
Animal species of the Discovery Islands: Dragonflies and Damselflies
Animal species of the Discovery Islands: Bees, Ants and Wasps
Animal species of the Discovery Islands: Beetles
Animal species of the Discovery Islands: Slugs and Snails
Loss of forest cover on Read Island
Loss of forest cover on Cortes Island
Loss of forest cover on Maurelle Island
Loss of forest cover on Sonora Island
Loss of forest cover on West Redonda Island
Loss of forest cover on East Redonda Island
Solutions
Photographic survey
Forest carbon release by logging on the Discovery Islands
Portal: Public subsidization of logging on the Discovery Islands
Loss of forest cover on the Discovery Islands
The cost of the public subsidy of clearcut logging on the Discovery Islands
Impact of clearcut logging on forest-related employment
Loss of forest carbon sequestration capacity due to logging
Forest stewardship plans for area-based forest tenures on the Discovery Islands
History of forest loss on the Discovery Islands
Portal: A paradigm shift in how Discovery Islands forests are managed is urgently needed
Portal: Over-exploitation of BC forests
Portal: Imagining a new relationship with forests
Portal: Loss of primary forest
Portal: Destruction of wildlife habitat and loss of biodiversity
Portal: Loss of the hydrological functions of forests
Portal: Increase in forest fire hazard
Portal: Loss of carbon sequestration capacity
Portal: Increase in forest carbon emissions
Portal: Plantation failure
Portal: Use of ecologically damaging practices
Portal: Permanent loss of forest to logging roads, landings and quarries
Portal: Soil loss and damage
Portal: Loss of forest-related employment
Portal: Loss of employment resulting from the export of raw logs
Portal: Costs of floods, fires and clearcutting of community watersheds
Portal: The economic impact on communities of boom and bust cycles
Portal: The instability of communities dependent on forest extraction
Portal: Psychological unease caused by forest destruction
Portal: Loss of trust in institutions as a result of over-exploitation of forests
Portal: Social division caused by over-exploitation of BC forests
Portal: Loss of economic potential of other forest-related sectors
Portal: The economic cost of converting forests into sawdust and wood chips
Portal: The need to reform BC forest legislation
Portal: The need to expedite treaties with First Nations
Portal: The need to get informed, organized and ready for change
Portal: Surveys
Portal: The case for much greater conservation of forests on the Discovery Islands
Portal: Greater conservation of forests is needed to mitigate climate change
Portal: Retention of old and mature forest is necessary to protect biodiversity
Portal: Compared with old and mature forest, logged areas have a higher fire hazard
Portal: The extraordinary beauty of the Discovery Islands needs to be protected
Portal: We support Indigenous title and rights on the Discovery Islands
Portal: Logging on the Discovery Islands is heavily subsidized by the public
Species at risk on the Discovery Islands
Historical record of forest fires on the Discovery Islands
Lakes and wetlands of the Discovery Islands
Recreation Resources: Morte Lake-Chinese Mountain area
Recreation Resources: Nugedzi Lake-Mount Seymour area
Recreation Resources: Newton Lake-Small Inlet-Waiatt Bay area
Recreation Resources: Mud Lake-Nighthawk Lake area
Recreation Resources: Eagle Ridge-Blindman's Bluff area
Recreation Resources: Heriot Ridge area
Recreation Resources: Shellalligan Pass area
Recreation Resources: Two-Mile Lake-Clear Lake-Hummingbird Lake area
Recreation Resources: Maud Island-Saltwater Lagoon
Recreation Resources: Hyacinthe Point area
Recreation Resources: Raven Lake-Raven Ridge area
Recreation Resources: Main Lake Provincial Park
Recreation Resources: Octopus Islands Provincial Park
Recreation Resources: Darkwater Lake-Darkwater Mountain
Salmon bearing streams
Portal map: Salmon bearing streams of the Discovery Islands
Library: Logging and plantations create higher forest fire hazard
Libary: Conservation of forests needed to protect biodiversity
Library: Conservation of forests is needed to mitigate climate change
Library: Supporting Indigenous title and rights
Central library
Portal: Discovery Islands' place names
Export of raw logs from the Discovery Islands
Log exports from the Discovery Islands
Discovery Islands forest tenures and logging plans
Discovery Islands Protected Areas
Place names of the Discovery Islands
Portal: Calculation of direct local employment
Watersheds of Quadra Island
Watersheds of Read Island
Watersheds of Cortes Island
Watersheds of Maurelle Island
Watersheds of Sonora Island
Portal: Watersheds of the Discovery Islands
Engaging the mindustry
Species at risk of local extirpation
Artistic Expression
Volunteer
Discussion
Project calculations
Definitions
Fisheries surveys of Discovery Islands creeks
Portal: Resolution of forest-use conflicts
Vancouver Island Land Use Plan
About the Discovery Islands Conservation Project
Recent satellite imagery of forest cover loss on the Discovery Islands
Forest planning documents
Sources for April 2023 complaint to Forest Practices Board
Woodlot 2031 (Okisollo Resources)
Herbicide use
DI Forest Bulletin
Sources for 2024 submission on TFL 47 Johnstone Strait FSP
Comments on proposed cutblocks and roads
Blogs
Events
Downloads
Everything posted by Anthony Britneff
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It’s time to reverse the regulatory capture of the forests ministry by the forest industry. A Canadian Biomass Magazine article on the bioenergy industry promoting its priorities featured this photograph of a wood pellet trade show. BC’s former Chief Forester Diane Nicholls is third from right. Nicholls resigned in 2022 to go to work for a pellet company. (Photograph by Fiona Pun) WHEN I JOINED THE BC FOREST SERVICE in the late 1960s and later as a forester, I was struck by the obvious leadership from the top that permeated throughout the organization to its lowest rungs. The organization was defined by a strong culture of unity of purpose and belonging (1). In those days, the chief forester had direct line authority over operations from Victoria through five Forest Regions to the Ranger Stations. The chief forester had a degree in forestry, had been initiated into the Forest Service with the same basic training as all other foresters, and had risen to the top through merit as a career public servant. Since the 1950s, the common training at initiation into the service had consisted of a compulsory first two years working in forest inventory: the collection of forest information; the mapping of provincial forests; the management of forest data; and the reporting of forest descriptive statistics. So, it was inevitable that any chief forester understood the critical importance of forest inventory in its application to forest management, to forest planning and especially to the setting of an allowable annual cut (AAC). That all began to change in 1978 with the introduction of a new Forest Act and a major reorganization of the Ministry of Forests, which centralized forest administration. For example, over 103 Ranger Stations and Field Offices were replaced by 36 District Offices. Eighty-one management areas (known as Public Sustained Yield Units) were merged into 36 management areas (known as Timber Supply Areas) largely to rationalize over-cutting. 1978 was the year in which the forest industry began the regulatory capture of the forests ministry, the organization trusted with the management of the public’s provincial forests. By “regulatory capture,” I mean the co-option of a public regulator for the benefit of private companies. Mike Apsey, who had previously worked for the Council of Forest Industries, became the deputy minister. During his tenure as deputy minister, Apsey instituted a policy dubbed as “sympathetic administration” toward the forest industry. Previously, the role of the Forest Service had been strictly to regulate the industry. Not from then on. Apsey also initiated the Ministry of Forests and Range Act, which is still in force today. That legislation clearly spells out five purposes and functions of the forests ministry, which are, for the most part, timber-centric and industry-focused. In this Act Apsey introduced a new notion of “multiple use” of forests. In retrospect, one purpose—“Encourage a vigorous, efficient and world competitive timber processing industry and ranching sector in British Columbia”—coupled with the policy of “sympathetic administration”, set the course for eventual regulatory capture of the forests ministry by the industry. As matters stand today, the forests ministry not only fails in this statutory charge but gives superordinate emphasis to it over the other four purposes. This is accomplished through massive subsidies to the forest industry—to the detriment of biodiversity, soil, water and carbon. Today these subsidies have rendered futile the fifth purpose of the ministry, which is to “assert the financial interest of the government in its forest and range resources in a systematic and equitable manner”. BC’s forest sector is now a sink for subsidies and a source for carbon. In 1984, Apsey left the BC Forest Service and returned to the Council of Forest Industries as its president and chief executive officer. Throughout the remaining years of the 1980s BC’s public service underwent significant privatization and contracting out of its activities. The forests ministry was a prime target for both, an example being the privatization of the seedling nurseries. In 1992, Mike Harcourt was elected premier and the direction set by Apsey and successive Social Credit governments shifted. Larry Pedersen rose to the position of chief forester in 1994 based on merit as a career public servant with the BC Forest Service. He was the last chief forester whose position needed mastery of forest inventory, growth-and-yield modelling and the process of AAC determination. The Forest Practices Code of British Columbia Act (the Code) was enacted in 1995 under the progressive leadership of Harcourt’s government. Andrew Petter was the minister responsible for the Code and a province-wide program of land-use planning. The government initiated the Code in large part at the behest of the forest industry to calm international export markets for BC’s forest products, which had experienced boycotts because of the province’s poor forest practices. BC had become known as the “Brazil of the North.” The drafting of the Code infused enthusiasm in ministry staff and restored faith in the BC Forest Service as a regulatory body. Stakeholders and the public were engaged in land-use planning and in reviewing draft legislation. After his election as premier in 2001, Gordon Campbell ransacked the public service, including the BC Forest Service. Prior to 2002, the office of the chief forester was also the main policy arm of the forests ministry. Much forest policy was based in science thanks to a long-established, internationally renowned research branch reporting to the chief forester. The chief forester’s position was also responsible for the inventory, silviculture, tree-seed improvement and forest health programs as well as for land-use planning, timber supply analysis and AAC determinations. But in 2002, Campbell’s government began to dismantle the BC Forest Service including the chief forester’s division. Campbell’s purge scrapped detailed annual and periodic reporting; eliminated the research branch (2); removed the inventory (3) and forest health (4) programs from the forests ministry; and reduced by 94 per cent the silviculture budget (5) for the reforestation of forests destroyed by wildfire and by the mountain pine beetle. The chief forester’s only remaining statutory responsibility was for AAC determinations. Campbell enabled the complete regulatory capture of the forests ministry by giving industry a prominent role in the writing of forest legislation. Just a few metres down the hall from my office, lawyers from the Council of Forest Industries were actively engaged in the drafting of the Forest and Range Practices Act to replace the Code. I mean drafting, not reviewing. This was unheard of in government and possibly illegal. The Forest and Range Practices Act was assented to in late 2002 and most of the Code was rescinded in 2004. This meant that the only remaining standards for forest practices were tree-seed standards and stocking standards. Other operating standards were embodied in Government Action Regulations (GAR) and are not legally binding. The Forest and Range Practices Act pays lip service to what are described as ten “non-timber resource values” such as biodiversity, soil and water. Timber is the eleventh value. Objectives for some of these 11 resource values are found in the Forest Planning and Practices Regulation, most of which are meaningless without benchmarks against which to measure results. The industry’s influence can be seen in the wording in that regulation of the extent to which the non-timber values could be protected. Such protection could not “unduly reduce the supply of timber,”(6) which meant in policy not more than 6 per cent for a management unit, an arbitrary and meaningless level of protection. From now on, timber was king in law; land-use plans were allowed to become outdated; and the forests ministry only needed to pretend it was managing public forests for multiple uses and for ecosystem and cultural values other than timber. This Act, its attendant regulations and an ingenious policy of “professional reliance” were the passport to industry self-regulation, and they remain so today. Professional reliance replaced government regulation with professional opinion. Essentially, the Campbell government devolved regulatory responsibility to industry, which abnegated its responsibility to professional reliance. The BC Forest Service had become an extension of the forest industry. In 2003, with the morphing of Mike Apsey’s small business program into BC Timber Sales—a logging giant responsible for 20 per cent of the allowable annual cut—government became industry. In his political allegory, Animal Farm, George Orwell concluded: “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” (7) So it is now with the industry and the ministry: the “mindustry.” The forest industry operates through the forests ministry and the ministry effects its policy through the industry. Since the forest industry’s coup d’état du ministère, the Council of Forest Industries even approves senior management positions in the ministry of forests. The critical qualification appears to be the right response to the question: “How useful are you going to be to us?” I remember asking a ministry staff member if he had been successful in winning a junior management position in the ministry. He told me, without a hint of irony, that his appointment was awaiting final approval from the Council of Forest Industries. Starting in 2009, the forests ministry executive dabbled in social engineering by actively setting about “changing the culture” of the organization to have staff view their work through “an industry lens” (as opposed to a public-interest lens) and to instil a “can-do” attitude where the past is expunged and questioning discouraged. Among other initiatives, this included purging the ministry of the last vestiges of the old public service ethic of the BC Forest Service. This was achieved through downsizing. Finally, the BC Forest Service was officially dissolved in 2012 marking its centennial, 1912 to 2012. The importance of ethics as a part of corporate culture has been, and is, little understood by forests ministry management. The ministry has never had a land ethic. The ethical tone of the ministry is set by its executive ranks and senior managers and is best described by Margaret Somerville’s term “situational ethics,” which enable the worst excesses of the “can-do culture” that we see today, such as concealment, obfuscation, stonewalling and active disinformation. Once instructed to be independent of industry, forests ministry staff under the “can-do culture” and the Forest and Range Practices Act no longer have to put on a false front. In this regard, the present chief forester’s position sets the tone. Instead of formulating policy within government, the chief forester obtains advice from a leadership team comprised of only industry chief foresters. The government has no qualms about inventing a role for the chief forester as a trade envoy shilling for industry and promoting the pellet industry. What next? The chief forester’s face on the back of BC Transit buses promoting laminated lumber in front of twin logos for the Council of Forest Industries and the forests ministry? The point here is that through deregulation, through the steady demise of a regulatory role for the forests ministry and through the decline of a meaningful role for the province’s chief forester, we are left with a forests ministry bereft of laws, of forest policy formulation and of any semblance of independence from the industry it should regulate. The events of the last two decades have rendered the forests ministry unfit to continue as the trustee responsible for the care of the public’s provincial forests and the web of life therein. Change matters. The history of forest governance since 1912 is about change, both good and bad. But since the turn of the century, the forests ministry has completely lost its way, and you, the public, need to reorient it or replace it under new legislation with regulatory purpose that defines a sustainable relationship between the conservation of the natural world and the use of all natural resources. That is my story. Through this portal, we want to hear your story or examples of how the forests ministry has been captured by the forest industry and/or your ideas for renewed public-interest governance of publicly owned forests. Anthony Britneff worked for the B.C. Forest Service for 40 years holding senior professional positions in inventory, silviculture and forest health. He has a masters degree in public administration. Footnotes: (1) For those readers interested in the culture of the BC Forest Service between the end of the Second World War and the 1960’s, they might enjoy Herbert Kaufman’s book “The Forest Ranger: A Study in Administrative Behaviour,” published in 1960 and still in print. Although this study is about the US Forest Service, many of the elements that define the US Forest Service as a successful organization and an efficient bureaucracy applied to the BC Forest Service. (2) Although the research branch was disbanded, the government did not fire all the scientists. Some scientists were transferred to the environment ministry. So, forest research continues to this day but without cohesive direction, policy and administration. Prior to Gordon Campbell, in 1998, the BC NDP under Glen Clark terminated the research branch; but Andrew Petter in his last task as finance minister restored the funding for the branch allowing it to survive for another decade. (3) The forest inventory program moved to a short-lived ministry called the Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management before being returned to the forests ministry with far less staff and reduced budget. (4) The forest health program was devolved to the forest industry under an ill-conceived initiative known as defined forest area management. Predictably the industry was not interested in adding one cent to its costs; so, the program was eventually returned to the forests ministry at less than half its original budget. (5) Although the Campbell government repealed legislation requiring the forests ministry to reforest lands denuded of forest cover by wind, disease, insects and wildfire, the curtailing of reforestation of these lands was politically unacceptable. So, the reforestation budget was returned to the ministry at less than half the pre-Campbell amount. (6) The actual clause repeated for each objective reads “without unduly reducing the supply of timber from British Columbia's forests”. (7) Orwell, George. 1945. Animal Farm. LC Class: PR6029.R8 A63 2003b
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The hidden agenda of industrial forestry companies in BC is privatization of publicly-owned land. Rural communities dependent on forestry need to resist that and support changes that would increase local, public control of the working forest. THE FOREST SECTOR has deep roots in rural British Columbia with multi-generational families working in the industry either directly in logging or in related businesses like selling logging trucks. Continued forest industry decline threatens a long-established way of life for those relatively few people remaining in the sector. The forest industry’s decline began in 1988. Since then, that decline has been exacerbated by the impacts of the mountain pine beetle epidemic and by a shortage in timber supply owing to unsustainable logging, wildfires and forest health issues related to clearcutting and climate change. Since 1988, the forest industry has contracted radically. The pulp mills that once stood in Prince Rupert, Kitimat, Ocean Falls, Port Alice, Campbell River, Gold River, Tahsis and Woodfibre are long since gone. Since 2000, over 80 sawmills province-wide have been shuttered. Mining, not forest products, is now B.C.’s largest export sector. The Elk Falls pulp, paper and lumber mill at Campbell River on Vancouver Island is one of many major forest product manufacturers around BC that have closed permanently since 2000, cutting forest-related employment in half. Rural British Columbians have dealt with, and adapted to, massive job losses in the forest sector over the last three decades. In 2000, jobs in forestry, logging, support services and wood products manufacturing numbered 101,000. Since then, over 55,000 jobs have been lost. The industry’s once-proud claim that forestry paid for healthcare and education is now illusory. Government revenue reporting shows that forestry does not pay its own bills never mind underpinning social service expenditures. The forest industry now accounts for a mere 2 percent of provincial gross domestic product. The once vibrant Ocean Falls (inset), now all but abandoned. The choice for industry was clear and it decided on its strategy years ago: maximize short-term profit; invest profits in mills overseas as the best of the old-growth forests are logged; shutter mills; and sell associated assets and working forest (tenure). Forest-dependent British Columbians have a choice between two options for their future: to maintain the industrial status quo and suffer further decline, or to collaborate with government in changing how forestry works in B.C. and reap the rewards of forward thinking. Ninety-four percent of B.C. remains public land. By retaining public ownership of the land, British Columbians keep open their options for land use compatible with timber production. This allows for diversified local economies. The forest industry has had a “working forest” since the beginning of the 20th century. It is called the “tenure system.” Unlike the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR), from which land can be removed for other uses, timber volume or land cannot be removed from a forest tenure holder for other uses without compensation. So, with security of timber supply in place, why do some rural British Columbians sign petitions for a “working forest” at the behest of the Council of Forest Industries and the BC Forestry Alliance? They do so not recognizing that the forest industry already has a working forest and blind to the industry’s hidden agenda, which is to privatize forest land. That said, the present working forest or tenure system does badly need revamping to take away control of public forests from an oligopoly of multinational corporations and to place it in the hands of local forest trusts. This would require removing large corporate industry from the woods and having it do what it does best, which is manufacturing, not forestry. Regional log markets would allow mid-sized and small manufacturers to access the available supply of timber. Local residents would find employment both in the woods under the administration of local forest trusts and in private sector manufacturing plants—niche, value-added and primary. A forester general would report to the legislature and have powers to set standards for regional forest practices, to audit the activities of local forest trusts and regional log markets, to oversee regional research, and to provide the legislature with detailed, annual forestry reports. Change in the governance of forests along these suggested lines would preserve a rural way of life now badly threatened by maintaining the industrial status quo. Such change would be focused on local economic and environmental well-being. This vision would be achieved by re-writing forestry laws based on the principles of sustainability and conservation, of local forest administration, of open access to timber, and, last but not least, of reliance upon the will of rural British Columbians to change, survive and succeed. Anthony Britneff worked for the B.C. Forest Service for 40 years holding senior professional positions in inventory, silviculture and forest health.
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The hidden agenda of industrial forestry companies in BC is privatization of publicly-owned land. Rural communities dependant on forestry need to resist that and support changes that would increase local, public control of the working forest. THE FOREST SECTOR has deep roots in rural British Columbia with multi-generational families working in the industry either directly in logging or in related businesses like selling logging trucks. Continued forest industry decline threatens a long-established way of life for those relatively few people remaining in the sector. The forest industry’s decline began in 1988. Since then, that decline has been exacerbated by the impacts of the mountain pine beetle epidemic and by a shortage in timber supply owing to unsustainable logging, wildfires and forest health issues related to clearcutting and climate change. Since 1988, the forest industry has contracted radically. The pulp mills that once stood in Prince Rupert, Kitimat, Ocean Falls, Port Alice, Campbell River, Gold River, Tahsis and Woodfibre are long since gone. Since 2000, over 80 sawmills province-wide have been shuttered. Mining, not forest products, is now B.C.’s largest export sector. The Elk Falls pulp, paper and lumber mill at Campbell River on Vancouver Island is one of many major forest product manufacturers around BC that have closed permanently since 2000, cutting forest-related employment in half. Rural British Columbians have dealt with, and adapted to, massive job losses in the forest sector over the last three decades. In 2000, jobs in forestry, logging, support services and wood products manufacturing numbered 101,000. Since then, over 55,000 jobs have been lost. The industry’s once-proud claim that forestry paid for healthcare and education is now illusory. Government revenue reporting shows that forestry does not pay its own bills never mind underpinning social service expenditures. The forest industry now accounts for a mere 2 percent of provincial gross domestic product. The once vibrant Ocean Falls (inset), now all but abandoned. The choice for industry was clear and it decided on its strategy years ago: maximize short-term profit; invest profits in mills overseas as the best of the old-growth forests are logged; shutter mills; and sell associated assets and working forest (tenure). Forest-dependent British Columbians have a choice between two options for their future: to maintain the industrial status quo and suffer further decline, or to collaborate with government in changing how forestry works in B.C. and reap the rewards of forward thinking. Ninety-four percent of B.C. remains public land. By retaining public ownership of the land, British Columbians keep open their options for land use compatible with timber production. This allows for diversified local economies. The forest industry has had a “working forest” since the beginning of the 20th century. It is called the “tenure system.” Unlike the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR), from which land can be removed for other uses, timber volume or land cannot be removed from a forest tenure holder for other uses without compensation. So, with security of timber supply in place, why do some rural British Columbians sign petitions for a “working forest” at the behest of the Council of Forest Industries and the BC Forestry Alliance? They do so not recognizing that the forest industry already has a working forest and blind to the industry’s hidden agenda, which is to privatize forest land. That said, the present working forest or tenure system does badly need revamping to take away control of public forests from an oligopoly of multinational corporations and to place it in the hands of local forest trusts. This would require removing large corporate industry from the woods and having it do what it does best, which is manufacturing, not forestry. Regional log markets would allow mid-sized and small manufacturers to access the available supply of timber. Local residents would find employment both in the woods under the administration of local forest trusts and in private sector manufacturing plants—niche, value-added and primary. A forester general would report to the legislature and have powers to set standards for regional forest practices, to audit the activities of local forest trusts and regional log markets, to oversee regional research, and to provide the legislature with detailed, annual forestry reports. Change in the governance of forests along these suggested lines would preserve a rural way of life now badly threatened by maintaining the industrial status quo. Such change would be focused on local economic and environmental well-being. This vision would be achieved by re-writing forestry laws based on the principles of sustainability and conservation, of local forest administration, of open access to timber, and, last but not least, of reliance upon the will of rural British Columbians to change, survive and succeed. Anthony Britneff worked for the B.C. Forest Service for 40 years holding senior professional positions in inventory, silviculture and forest health.