David Broadland

This is a work in progress.

Quadra Island Cortes Island Read Island Maurelle Island Sonora Island

Ministry of Forests’ records suggest 80 to 90 percent of the cut on Quadra Island is exported as raw logs by Mosaic Forest Management—all to support government employee pensions. At one time in BC, the damage done by logging forests was considered an acceptable cost for the jobs provided. In 1965, for example, for each 1000 cubic metres of wood harvested, there were 1.69 people employed in logging, milling and allied industries. But by 2019, that number had fallen to less than a full job—.79 person per 1000 cubic metres. That’s less than half of what it was in 1965. Ouch. Of that .79 person per 1000 cubic metres in 2019, only .33 was in “forestry and logging with support services.” In areas of BC where clearcutting is followed by raw log exports, .33 person per 1000 cubic metres is all there is in terms of jobs. Both TimberWest and Island Timberlands log on the Discovery Islands, and, as “Mosaic Forest Management,” they are BC’s largest exporter of raw logs. How much of the volume that TimberWest cuts on Quadra is exported as raw logs? We don’t know for sure, but the likelihood that most of the logs cut on Quadra Island—from TimberWest’s TFL 47 and from the 11 woodlot licences—end up being exported as raw logs is evident from Ministry of Forests’ records. In 2019, for example (the last year for which data is available on the total volume of logs exported), TimberWest advertised the availability of about 89,000 cubic metres from Gowlland Harbour. (Companies wishing to export raw logs must advertise them to BC buyers before the logs can be exported.) The total volume cut by all tenure holders on Quadra in 2019 was 98,143 cubic metres. So it appears that 90 percent of the volume logged on Quadra that year was intended for export as raw logs. The Ministry of Forests’ records also show that 84 percent of the total volume that was advertised in 2019 was exported, so it’s very likely that 80 to 90 percent of the trees logged on Quadra Island in 2019 were exported as raw logs. (This situation likely applies to logging in TimberWest’s TFL 47 on Sonora, East Thurlow and West Thurlow, too.) That high level of log exports would put the jobs per 1000 cubic metre measure very close to .33 (one-third of a job per 1000 cubic metres)—only one-fifth the level of employment per 1000 cubic metres that the industry provided in 1965. What seemed like an acceptable trade-off back in 1965 is now one-fifth of an acceptable trade-off. Back in 1965, though, the logging industry’s contribution to climate instability, biodiversity collapse, its detrimental impact on salmon fisheries and its amplification of forest fires and flooding were not well understood. Neither was the industry’s need to be subsidized by the public. (We have estimated the public subsidization of logging on Quadra Island on this page.) Using the 0ne-third of a job per 1000 cubic metres—which is the provincial average—we have estimated the employment each tenure has provided over the last 12 years. The provincial average includes thousands of small woodlot licence tenures like those on Quadra Island, so the small scale of those tenures is already reflected in the number we are using. However, it is possible that some or all of the woodlot tenures on Quadra are, for some unknown reason, particularly labour intensive. This project invites individual tenure holders to provide documentary evidence of higher full-time equivalent employment, and we will adjust our numbers to reflect that information if we get it. One way in which Quadra Island tenures are quite different from the average BC tenure is in the stumpage they pay. In the graph below, the average stumpage paid by Quadra tenure holders over a 12-year period is shown in comparison with the average that was paid across BC (you can see a breakdown for each individual tenure at this page). As you can see, the Quadra Island woodlots are paying far less stumpage than the provincial average. If Quadra tenures do have a slightly higher level of full-time equivalent employment per 1000 cubic metres than the provincial average, that social benefit is almost certainly going to be offset by the much lower level of stumpage paid by these tenures. Note that in only 2 of the last 12 years did TimberWest pay a rate of stumpage that was higher than the provincial average for the volume it cut on Quadra Island. So the jobs it provides, too, are being subsidized by lower stumpage payments. Keep in mind that the stumpage, logging taxes and export fees collected by the BC government for all logging across BC fell far short of even covering the basic cost of forest management provided by the Ministry of Forests. Over the 12 years shown above, that shortfall amounted to almost $1 million each day. This does not include the cost of other, hidden subsidies. The bottom line is that any employment generated by logging on Quadra Island—and all of the Discovery Islands for that matter—is highly subsidized by BC taxpayers. But that logging is absolutely necessary, right? Without that logging, the people of BC wouldn’t be able to build and maintain their houses and develop other infrastructure necessary for a healthy economy. Right? Nope. Depending on the year and the strength of the international market for forest products, between 80 and 90 percent of the forest harvested in BC is exported in some form. That includes everything from raw logs to wood pellets, pulp to paper, panels, timbers and lumber. If none of the 27,600 truckloads of logs that were removed from Quadra Island over the last 12 years had been cut, that would have had no impact on the availability of wood products for building in BC. The same applies to 80 to 90 percent of logging across BC. Once an important part of BC’s colonial economy, the now-highly-mechanized and export-dependent industry has lost 50 percent of its workforce in just the last 20 years and now contributes less than 2 percent of the province’s GDP. As it runs out of old-growth and cuts younger and younger trees, the industry’s viability, especially in light of the huge uncounted costs and the low level of employment, is seriously in doubt. The tenuous economic nature of the industry is illustrated by a statement made by Mosaic Forest Management’s Chief Forester Domenico Iannidinardo. In 2020, as reported by The Globe and Mail’s Justine Hunter, Iannidinardo claimed that “the company’s cost of harvesting usually exceeds what local mills are paying for logs.” Mosaic made that claim even as it pressured the federal government to remove all restrictions on the export of raw, unprocessed logs to overseas markets. Is all of this really being done to fund the pensions of former government employees? Yes. TimberWest is owned by the BC Investment Management Corporation and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, both of which manage funds that are used to pay government employee pensions—including those of the former Ministry of Forests personnel who made the decision to liquidate the forests on the Discovery Islands. All of this points to the need for completely rethinking what we are doing to forests on the Discovery Islands. The trade-off between the damage done and the jobs provided is no longer acceptable. Below: TimberWest-Mosaic Forest Management’s log dump at the north end of Gowlland Harbour on Quadra Island

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A summer moonrise over Texada Island. The south end of Cortes Island is on the left, Quadra Island’s Rebecca Spit is on the right. (Photo by David Broadland) Library: Conservation of forests is needed to protect biodiversity Library: Conservation of forests is needed to mitigate climate change Library: Logging and plantations create higher forest fire hazard Library: Indigenous title and rights

Tsilhqot'in Nation v. British Columbia 2014.pdf

Delgamuukw v. British Columbia (1997).pdf

Sparrow decision.pdf

Calder decision.pdf

ABSTRACT: This is the opinion and order (2019) made by a US District Court in Oregon in a case brought against the US Bureau of Land Management by Oregon Wild. In it, analysis of BLM's record of conduct regarding a specific clearcut makes evident that BLM was aware that, following logging, a higher fire hazard would exist for 40 years. Although independent scientists studying the issue have found that logging increases fire risk, this is one of very few examples in which the record of a land manager admitting this relationship has been made public. Cascadia Wildlands v. Bureau of Land Management (2019).pdf

By Harold S. J. Zald and Christopher J. Dunn ABSTRACT: Many studies have examined how fuels, topography, climate, and fire weather influence fire severity. Less is known about how different forest management practices influence fire severity in multi-owner landscapes, despite costly and controversial suppression of wildfires that do not acknowledge ownership boundaries. In 2013, the Douglas Complex burned over 19,000 ha of Oregon & California Railroad (O&C) lands in Southwestern Oregon, USA. O&C lands are composed of a checkerboard of private industrial and federal forestland (Bureau of Land Management, BLM) with contrasting management objectives, providing a unique experimental landscape to understand how different management practices influence wildfire severity. Leveraging Landsat based estimates of fire severity (Relative differenced Normalized Burn Ratio, RdNBR) and geospatial data on fire progression, weather, topography, pre-fire forest conditions, and land ownership, we asked (1) what is the relative importance of different variables driving fire severity, and (2) is intensive plantation forestry associated with higher fire severity? Using Random Forest ensemble machine learning, we found daily fire weather was the most important predictor of fire severity, followed by stand age and ownership, followed by topographic features. Estimates of pre-fire forest biomass were not an important predictor of fire severity. Adjusting for all other predictor variables in a general least squares model incorporat- ing spatial autocorrelation, mean predicted RdNBR was higher on private industrial forests (RdNBR 521.85 18.67 [mean SE]) vs. BLM forests (398.87 18.23) with a much greater proportion of older forests. Our findings suggest intensive plantation forestry characterized by young forests and spatially homogenized fuels, rather than pre-fire biomass, were significant drivers of wildfire severity. This has implications for perceptions of wildfire risk, shared fire management responsibilities, and developing fire resilience for multiple objectives in multi-owner landscapes. Severe fire weather and intensive forest management increase fire severity in a multi-ownership landscape (2018).pdf

By Curtis M. Bradley, Chad T. Hanson et al ABSTRACT: There is a widespread view among land managers and others that the protected status of many forestlands in the western United States corresponds with higher fire severity levels due to historical restrictions on logging that contribute to greater amounts of biomass and fuel loading in less intensively managed areas, particularly after decades of fire suppression. This view has led to recent proposals—both administrative and legislative—to reduce or eliminate forest protections and increase some forms of logging based on the belief that restrictions on active management have increased fire severity. We investigat- ed the relationship between protected status and fire severity using the Random Forests algorithm applied to 1500 fires affecting 9.5 million hectares between 1984 and 2014 in pine (Pinus ponderosa, Pinus jeffreyi) and mixed-conifer forests of western United States, accounting for key topographic and climate variables. We found forests with higher levels of protection had lower severity values even though they are generally identified as having the highest overall levels of biomass and fuel loading. Our results suggest a need to reconsider current overly simplistic assumptions about the relationship between forest protection and fire severity in fire management and policy. Does increased forest protection correspond to higher fire severity in frequent-fire forests of the western United States? (2016).pdf

ABSTRACT: Wildfires across western North America have increased in number and size over the past three decades, and this trend will continue in response to further warming. As a consequence, the wildland–urban interface is projected to experience substantially higher risk of climate-driven fires in the coming decades. Although many plants, animals, and ecosystem services benefit from fire, it is unknown how ecosystems will respond to increased burning and warming. Policy and management have focused primarily on specified resilience approaches aimed at resistance to wildfire and restoration of areas burned by wildfire through fire suppression and fuels management. These strategies are inadequate to address a new era of western wildfires. In contrast, policies that promote adaptive resilience to wildfire, by which people and ecosystems adjust and reorganize in response to changing fire regimes to reduce future vulnerability, are needed. Key aspects of an adaptive resilience approach are (i) recognizing that fuels reduction cannot alter regional wildfire trends; (ii) targeting fuels reduction to increase adaptation by some ecosystems and residential communities to more frequent fire; (iii) actively managing more wild and prescribed fires with a range of severities; and (iv) incentivizing and planning residential development to withstand inevitable wildfire. These strategies represent a shift in policy and management from restoring ecosystems based on historical baselines to adapting to changing fire regimes and from unsustainable defence of the wildland–urban interface to developing fire-adapted communities. We propose an approach that accepts wildfire as an inevitable catalyst of change and that promotes adaptive responses by ecosystems and residential communities to more warming and wildfire. Adapt to more wildfire in western North American forests as climate changes (2016).pdf

By John L. Campbell, Mark E. Harmon and Stephen R Mitchell It has been suggested that thinning trees and other fuel-reduction practices aimed at reducing the probability of high-severity forest fire are consistent with efforts to keep carbon (C) sequestered in terrestrial pools, and that such practices should therefore be rewarded rather than penalized in C-accounting schemes. By evaluating how fuel treatments, wildfire, and their interactions affect forest C stocks across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales, we conclude that this is extremely unlikely. Our review reveals high C losses associated with fuel treatment, only modest differences in the combustive losses associated with high-severity fire and the low-severity fire that fuel treatment is meant to encourage, and a low likelihood that treated forests will be exposed to fire. Although fuel-reduction treatments may be necessary to restore historical functionality to fire-suppressed ecosystems, we found little credible evidence that such efforts have the added benefit of increasing terrestrial C stocks. (2012) Can fuel-reduction treatments really increase forest carbon storage in the western US by reducing future fire emissions?.pdf

By David B. Lindenmayer et al ABSTRACT: Does logging affect the fire proneness of forests? This question often arises after major wildfires, but data suggest that answers differ substantially among different types of forest. Logging can alter key attributes of forests by changing microclimates, stand structure and species composition, fuel characteristics, the prevalence of ignition points, and patterns of landscape cover. These changes may make some kinds of forests more prone to increased probability of ignition and increased fire severity. Such forests include tropical rainforests where fire was previously extremely rare or absent and other moist forests where natural fire regimes tend toward low frequency, stand replacing events. Relationships between logging and fire regimes are contingent on forest practices, the kind of forest under consideration, and the natural fire regime characteristic of that forest. Such relationships will influence both the threat of fire to human life and infrastructure and biodiversity conservation. We therefore argue that conservation scientists must engage in debates about fire and logging to provide an environmental context to guide considered actions. Effects of logging on fire regimes in moist forests David B. Lindenmayer (2009).pdf

By Solomon Z. Dobrowski et al Expanding the global protected area network is critical for addressing biodiversity declines and the climate crisis. However, how climate change will affect ecosystem representation within the protected area network remains unclear. Here we use spatial climate analogs to examine potential climate-driven shifts in terrestrial ecoregions and biomes under a +2 °C warming scenario and associated implications for achieving 30% area-based protection targets. We find that roughly half of land area will experience climate conditions that correspond with different ecoregions and nearly a quarter will experience climates from a different biome. Of the area projected to remain climatically stable, 46% is currently intact (low human modification). The area required to achieve protection targets in 87% of ecoregions exceeds the area that is intact, not protected, and projected to remain climatically stable within those ecoregions. Therefore, we propose that prioritization schemes will need to explicitly consider climate-driven changes in patterns of biodiversity. (2021) Protected-area targets could be undermined by climate change-driven shifts in ecoregions and biomes.pdf

By Karen Price, Rachel Holt, and Dave Daust The Province has appointed a task force to investigate the state of BC’s old growth forest. The panel will report to government in April 2020. The old growth task force website1 shows a map of the old growth forest in BC — and says “Based on government’s working definition, old-growth forests comprise about 23% of forested areas, or about 13.2 million hectares”. We have written this report because old growth cannot be portrayed by a single number or map. Old forest comes in many forms. We have used publicly available provincial data and definitions to examine the status of different types of old forest found across the province in different ecosystems (biogeoclimatic variants) and productivity classes. These distinctions matter because while all forms of old growth have inherent value, different types provide tremendously different habitat, functional, cultural, spiritual and timber values. BC’s globally rare high productivity forests have particular value for their high biomass, structural complexity and stable carbon storage. Our analysis concludes the following: The provincial total area of old forest (~13.2 million hectares) matches our total. The vast majority of this forest (80%) consists of small trees: › ~5.3 million hectares have site index2 5–10m; another ~5.3 million hectares have a site index 10–15m. › Small trees characterize many of BC’s natural old forest types, including black spruce bog forests in the northeast, subalpine forests at high elevation, and low productivity western redcedar forests on the outer coast. › Large areas of this old forest type remain because the trees are too small to be worth harvesting (under today’s prices). In contrast, only a tiny proportion of BC’s remaining old forest (3%) supports large trees: › ~380,000 hectares have a site index 20–25m, and only ~35,000 hectares of old forest have a site index greater than 25m. › These types of forests match most people’s vision of old growth. They provide unique habitats, structures, and spiritual values associated with large trees. › Productive old forests are naturally rare in BC. Sites with the potential to grow very large trees cover less than 3% of the province. Old forests on these sites have dwindled considerably due to intense harvest so that only 2.7% of this 3% is currently old (see pie chart). These ecosystems are effectively the white rhino of old growth forests. They are almost extinguished and will not recover from logging. › Over 85% of productive forest sites have less than 30% of the amount of old expected naturally, and nearly half of these ecosystems have less than 1% of the old forest expected naturally. This current status puts biodiversity, ecological integrity and resilience at high risk today. A Last Stand For Biodiversity (2020).pdf

By Alana R. Westwood et al British Columbia has the greatest biological diversity of any province or territory in Canada. Yet increasing numbers of species in British Columbia are threatened with extinction. The current patchwork of provincial laws and regulations has not effectively prevented species declines. Recently, the Provincial Government has committed to enacting an endangered species law. Drawing upon our scientific and legal expertise, we offer recommendations for key features of endangered species legislation that build upon strengths and avoid weaknesses observed elsewhere. We recommend striking an independent Oversight Committee to provide recommendations about listing species, organize Recovery Teams, and monitor the efficacy of actions taken. Recovery Teams would evaluate and prioritize potential actions for individual species or groups of species that face common threats or live in a common area, based on best available evidence (including natural and social science and Indigenous Knowledge). Our recommendations focus on implementing an adaptive approach, with ongoing and transparent monitoring and reporting, to reduce delays between determining when a species is at risk and taking effective actions to save it. We urge lawmakers to include this strong evidentiary basis for species recovery as they tackle the scientific and socioeconomic challenges of building an effective species at risk Act. (2018) Protecting biodiversity in British Columbia- Recommendations for developing species at risk legislation.pdf

By Julia R. Chandler, Sybille Haeussler, Evelyn H. Hamilton, Michael Feller, Gary Bradfield, Suzanne W. Simard Forests are being clearcut over extensive areas of western North America, but plant community response to harvesting and slashburning under varying climatic conditions in central British Columbia, Canada is still largely unknown. Evaluation of resilience is hampered by the short history of logging, lack of long-term experiments and methodological limitations. To test the effect of clearcut logging, prescribed burning and reforestation on forest resilience, we recorded vascular plant cover repeatedly after treatment between 1981 and 2008 in 16 permanent research installations in three biogeoclimatic zones: Engelmann Spruce- Subalpine Fir, Interior Cedar-Hemlock and Sub-Boreal Spruce. We created a plant-trait dataset for the 181 recorded species to define plant functional types representing groups of plants that behave in similar ways and/or produce similar ecological outcomes. These plant functional types, along with taxonomic analysis of diagnostic and indicator species, were then used to evaluate plant community response to disturbance. Twenty years post-treatment, species diversity increased in all zones and plant abundance was greatest in the Interior Cedar-Hemlock. Cover of understory plant functional types associated with mature conifer forests increased in all zones, constituting a significant proportion (> 40%) of the vegetation community by year 20. Response patterns varied by zone and with time. Understory species diagnostic of mature forests were present in all zones by year 20, but we identified indicator species sensitive to slashburning or requiring more time for recovery, including white-flowered rhododendron (Rhododendron albiflorum) and devil’s club (Oplopanax horridus). Overall, loss of compositional or functional diversity following harvest and site remediation was not detected, suggesting that montane and subalpine forests in British Columbia are resilient to this treatment. However, because these forests can be slow to recover from disturbance, the post-disturbance assessment window of this study may not have been long enough to detect diminishment of ecosystem resilience. (2017) Twenty years of ecosystem response after clearcutting and slashburning in conifer forests of central British Columbia, Canada (2017).pdf

By Nick M. Haddad et al We conducted an analysis of global forest cover to reveal that 70% of remaining forest is within 1 km of the forest’s edge, subject to the degrading effects of fragmentation. A synthesis of fragmentation experiments spanning multiple biomes and scales, five continents, and 35 years demonstrates that habitat fragmentation reduces biodiversity by 13 to 75% and impairs key ecosystem functions by decreasing biomass and altering nutrient cycles. Effects are greatest in the smallest and most isolated fragments, and they magnify with the passage of time. These findings indicate an urgent need for conservation and restoration measures to improve landscape connectivity, which will reduce extinction rates and help maintain ecosystem services. (2015) Habitat fragmentation and its lasting impact on Earth’s ecosystems.pdf

The logging industry—and its government facilitators—don’t want the BC public to know how wasteful the industry is, but it’s hard to hide. The economic costs of that waste are enormous. Teal Cedar Products Ltd’s cedar shake and shingle mill beside the Fraser River in Surrey. About half of the cedar logs that go through the mill end up in the pile on the right. TEAL CEDAR PRODUCTS LTD, the company in the news over its logging of old-growth forests on southern Vancouver Island, knows something that it doesn’t want you to know: About one-half of the ancient forest Teal cuts in TFL 46, trucks to its log sort at Duke Point, and then booms across the Salish Sea and up the Fraser River to its mill in Surrey, spends time as a pile of sawdust and wood chips on its way to a pulp mill or a bag of garden mulch or some other low value product. About half. According to data published by the BC ministry of forests, approximately 52 percent of the logs removed from BC forests become wood chips or sawdust. Teal’s mill is no different. The image above shows its shake and shingle mill on the Fraser River. That big pile of sawdust on the right? That’s the destination of approximately half of the old-growth cedar logs it removed from TFL 46 near Port Renfrew. Like the wood waste from any other mill in BC, the sawdust and wood chips are then transported to a pulp or pellet mill and turned into short-lived products like newsprint, toilet paper, burnable pellets or garden mulch. But the extent to which the forest is wasted when it’s logged is actually much worse than this, whether it’s old growth or second growth. What can’t be seen in the mill image is the slash left behind in the clearcuts after logging: The stumps and roots, the non-merchantable tops, the branches, parts of the tree that were broken during felling, the rotten parts of the trees, smaller unmerchantable trees, standing dead snags, and woody debris on the forest floor. Oh, and the understory plants and the underground mycorrhizal network. Approximately one-half of the total biomass of a forest that is killed by logging stays in the clearcut until it burns or decomposes and then passes into the atmosphere. Yes, this would all happen over time, naturally. But logging unnaturally shrinks the time frame within which that occurs, and, in the developing climate emergency, accelerating the process of returning forest carbon to the atmosphere could be suicidal. Logging slash left after clearcut logging of old-growth forest in the Klanawa River Valley on southern Vancouver Island (Photo by TJ Watt) The wasted biomass left in the clearcut, along with the piles of sawdust and wood chips at the mill, account for 75 percent of the original biomass that was in an old-growth stand before it was logged. That’s not a typo. Seventy-five percent. In BC, of the remaining 25 percent that gets turned into lumber, plywood, veneer, panels, shakes, shingles and poles, about 80 percent of that is exported, mostly to the USA, China and Japan. That means that only about 5 percent of the total forest biomass that is killed in BC each year by logging is actually used here as a product that could store carbon for more than a couple of years. Five percent. The other 95 percent is the forest industry’s big, dirty secret. This matters because there is a climate emergency. Killing forests means killing the most effective way to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and safely store it for hundreds of years. Over the past 20 years in BC, mainly as a result of logging, the province’s forests have lost over 90 percent of their annual capacity to sequester atmospheric carbon. It also matters because killing forests means killing the wildlife that lived in those forests. As a consequence of logging, BC is experiencing an unprecedented decline in wildlife populations. The greatest cause of biodiversity collapse is loss of habitat. And it also matters because British Columbians are subsidizing this colossal forest-wasting exercise: By paying for the forest management necessary for the gargantuan scale of logging involved to meet export market demand, by subsidizing the industry’s electrical energy usage, and by failing to tax the immense carbon emissions and loss of carbon sequestration capacity caused by the forest industry. As awareness of these facts grows, both the ministry of forests and industry are desperately trying to create counter arguments about the damage the industry is doing to climate stability and wildlife. On the government side, provincial and federal forest mandarins are scrambling to promote initiatives that make it appear they are on the verge of mitigating the harms to climate and biodiversity. “Innovations” like “collecting harvest residuals” to make “bioenergy” and “mass timber construction” to store carbon are being promoted as climate friendly reasons why forest conservation is unnecessary. These initiatives—eviscerated by serious scientists—only address the symptoms, not the disease itself, which is too much logging. Worse, these unproven initiatives likely will have no impact at actually reducing the harm, and instead provide only the appearance of “We’ve got this.” The forests ministry’s own account of “fibre flows” shows (diagram below) how little of what they call “harvest residuals” is actually being collected. In 2019, approximately 800,000 cubic metres of residuals were collected of the approximately 50 to 60 million cubic metres of biomass left in clearcuts—just over 1 percent.

In the last two years, the cost of hidden subsidization of BC’s logging industry has been greater than the industry’s contribution to BC’s GDP. And it's going to get worse. IN 2020 I WROTE A STORY titled “Forestry doesn’t pay the bills, folks.” It looked at the costs and revenues of the ministry of forests over a 10-year period and found that, over that time, the ministry spent about a million dollars a day more than it took in through stumpage revenue and the BC Logging Tax. While many people appreciated that analysis, others found it flawed. The skeptics noted that costs were based on entire ministry costs, not just forest-related costs. The Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, they believed, had many costs that were not related to forest management. Take those out and the picture would change, they hoped. Others noted that my analysis didn’t include export, corporate or municipal taxes paid by forestry companies or the income taxes paid by forestry workers, and so forth. Others observed that the analysis didn’t include costs such as the $24 million paid by the community of Peachland, which needed to install an expensive water treatment facility to take out the sediment that clearcut logging has introduced to its watershed; it didn’t include the estimated $100 million cost to the community of Grand Forks where flooding attributed to logging in the Kettle and Granby watersheds has cost people their homes and overturned their lives. Nor did it include the cost of fisheries lost as a result of increased sedimentation and rising water temperatures caused by clearcutting over 250,000 hectares of forest each year. And so on. In other words, there were two kinds of objections: 1. You didn’t credit the forest industry for all the revenue it provides for government, and 2. You didn’t include all the costs. This is an update of my first analysis, starting with the objections about not including all the revenue to government that the forest industry generates. I am interested in your objections to this report. I’ll include them when I update this story down the road. So let’s start with a brief reexamination of the numbers in my first report. The forest management subsidy Although the ministry publishes an Annual Service Report that provides generalized breakdowns of costs and revenues, it doesn’t specify which are forest-related expenses and revenues. So I filed FOIs with the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development aimed at clarifying what ministry revenue and expenses were forest-related. The documents released (attached at end of story) show the vast majority of its expenses are forest-related. The ministry’s account of its forest revenues increased the value of those revenues slightly over what I had estimated from their Annual Service Plans. In the graph below I show the net deficit for each year, 2010 to 2019. The cumulative operating deficit of the ministry over 10 years was $3.44 billion rather than the $3.65 billion identified in my earlier story. That works out to $942,466 a day. Taxes paid by workers and corporations don’t pay ministry bills, they pay for services used So what about the question of the personal income taxes paid by forestry workers and the municipal and corporate taxes paid by forest companies? Shouldn’t those be included, somehow, in determining whether “forestry pays the bills”? The ministry of forests, of course, doesn’t include corporate or municipal taxes paid by forestry companies or the income taxes paid by forestry workers in its reckoning of revenue, and for good reason. In each case, the taxes collected by some level of government, like municipal taxes collected from a sawmill operating within a municipality, or income taxes collected from a feller-buncher operator in Quesnel, go to pay for a host of services provided by that government that have nothing to do with the ministry of forests. These are services that are consumed, in part, by that sawmill or that feller-buncher operator. For example, the healthcare services provided to residents of a community with a mill operating in it are paid for by such revenue streams as corporate and income taxes. When the feller-buncher operator needs a hip replacement as a result of a work-related injury, the cost of that surgery is paid for by such government revenue streams. When the home of the head sawyer at the local sawmill is burglarized, the police that investigate are paid for by such revenue streams. The mill manager’s children are educated in a school that is partly funded by property taxes collected by the municipality, including from the mill. Forestry workers, and the companies they work for, aren’t just paying for government services through their taxes. Like the rest of us, they are also consumers of those services. Their taxes pay for their own use of myriad government services, just like every other kind of taxpayer. By the way, for various reasons, people who live in forestry-dependent communities have notoriously high health costs compared with urban populations. In general, all the arguments from the forest industry and its supporters about how much they contribute to the provincial economy are half true; they always fail to include in their analysis all the costs to government that are incurred to keep them housed, warm, fed, clothed, educated, employed, policed, healthy, mobile, governed and defended from enemies, both internal and external. The same principle applies to corporate income taxes. Those taxes go to pay for a host of government services those corporations consume, as well as the cost of the burdens their operations impose on the rest of the community. All workers and corporations in BC pay taxes, not just forest industry workers and corporations. In fact, in 2019, 98.2 percent of the workers in BC who paid taxes were not forest industry workers. Only a tiny fraction of BC companies that paid corporate income taxes were forestry companies. Another aspect of the ministry’s costs that people questioned was the “direct fire management” cost, the cost of fighting forest fires. To what extent is this cost actually attributable to the logging industry? All of BC’s largest fires in 2021 included large areas of clearcuts and plantations. Those clearcuts and plantations raise fire hazard to “high” for up to 30 years. They create fuel conditions in which fires are easier to ignite and harder to control, and so we are experiencing larger fires more frequently than would be the case had there been no logging. Moreover, much of the money spent fighting those fires is paid to logging companies and allied businesses. The logging industry needs to man-up and acknowledge its role in causing and benefitting from these fires. Forest fires destroy structures, damage community economies, harm human health and kill people. None of those costs have been included in the ministry’s accounting of “direct fire management costs,” and so attributing all of the ministry’s cost of fighting forest fires to the logging industry is likely a significant undercount of the true costs. Now let’s consider some of the costs I left out of my first analysis. Here, there’s plenty of room for improvement over my previous assessment. What constitutes a subsidy? First off, let’s define the term “subsidy.” The World Trade Organization does that in detail. Here, I paraphrase that organization’s definition of “subsidy.” A subsidy is deemed to exist when a government makes a direct transfer of funds; or government revenue that is due is foregone or not collected; or a government provides goods or services other than general infrastructure; or a government makes payments to a private body to carry out the type of functions that would normally be vested in government; and, as a result of any or all of these circumstances, a benefit is thereby conferred to an industry. The “forest management subsidy” illustrated in the graph above is an example of government revenue that is due but not collected. The BC government sets stumpage rates, yet those stumpage rates—even after all other sources of forest revenue are included—consistently do not cover the ministry’s operational costs for managing the industry’s operations on public land. As a result of the BC government’s failure to require the logging industry to pay for the cost of managing forest removal on public land, a benefit is conferred to the industry. That constitutes a public subsidy of the industry. Public subsidization of the forest industry’s consumption of electricity Now let’s consider other benefits conferred on the forest industry, starting with public subsidization of the electricity it consumes. Over the 10-year period for which we gathered data, the public subsidization of the cost of electricity used by forest companies amounted to $5.1 billion. You won’t find a record of this public subsidy anywhere in the forest industry’s or the ministry of forests’ public accounts of their operations. It occurs entirely as a result of BC Hydro’s inequitable rate structure. Here’s how we calculated it: Residential consumers of electricity in BC—who, as a class, are BC Hydro’s largest customer—pay a two-tiered rate for electricity. If a residential customer keeps their consumption to less than 675 kilowatt-hours per month, they pay 9.3 cents per kilowatt-hour. If they go over 675 kilowatt-hours, they pay 13.94 cents per kilowatt-hour. The principle applied to residential consumers is this: If you consume more than a set amount, you pay a higher rate. BC Hydro uses this strategy in order to encourage consumers to conserve electricity. Why? Because supplying additional capacity is very expensive. Consider the estimated $16 billion cost of Site C to understand just how expensive supplying additional capacity can be. But this principle of applying a higher rate for higher consumption is flipped on its head when it comes to forest industry consumers of electricity. BC Hydro’s current rate for “Large General Service” users—those customers whose average monthly consumption is at least 45,833 kilowatt-hours, and that would include all BC pulp and paper mills and virtually all sawmills and veneer/panel mills—is currently 5.96 cents per kilowatt-hour, no matter how much electricity is consumed. If a mill uses less than 45,833 kilowatt-hours, they pay a higher rate. Why wouldn’t the same principle of higher rates for higher levels of consumption be applied to the forest industry if the rationale for higher rates for consumers is to get them to conserve expensive capacity? Over the last 5 years, the forest industry has consumed an average of 6000 gigawatt-hours per year of BC Hydro’s output. Site C will generate 5100 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year. If the forest industry consumes the equivalent of Site C’s capacity, why aren’t there rates in place that would encourage industry consumers, like residential consumers, to conserve? And why should the industry pay less in any case? This preferential treatment amounts to a public subsidy. The magnitude of the subsidy can be determined from the difference in the rates for residential consumers and forest industry consumers. Since BC Hydro does not apply the same principle to forest product mills as it applies to residential consumers, the forest industry is being subsidized by BC Hydro residential consumers. That subsidy amounted to 4.81 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2010 and rose to 7.98 cents per kilowatt-hour by 2020. We obtained records through an FOI request for BC Hydro records that show the electrical energy consumption of BC forest industry companies for 5 years in that 10-year period (attached at the end of the story). Based on those numbers, and other data that allowed extrapolation for the years we didn’t have, we calculated that the public subsidization of the forest industry’s use of electricity amounted to $5.1 billion. Some of you will question whether the lower electricity rates given to the forest industry by publicly owned BC Hydro can actually be considered a public subsidy. You might point to WTO rulings in the Softwood Lumber Dispute regarding US claims that two BC forest companies were paid excessive rates for electrical energy they sold to BC Hydro. Those claims were rejected by the WTO, but not because differences in electricity rates can’t constitute a subsidy. The resolution of that issue by the WTO, in fact, confirms that electrical rates can constitute a subsidy. But the WTO’s mandate isn’t to consider the public interest. It’s only interest is in promoting international trade. For the average British Columbian, who has long been told by the industry and its promoters that “forestry pays the bills, folks,” the important issue is how much of the logging industry’s electricity bills are actually being paid by the excessively high rates of ordinary folks. Over the past ten years that has amounted to $5.1 billion. Public subsidization of the forest industry’s release of forest carbon emissions When an area of BC forest is clearcut, it is immediately transformed from being a carbon sink into a carbon source. While the forest industry and its supporters argue that the carbon in all forests will eventually return to the atmosphere anyway, the acceleration of this return caused by clearcutting creates an immense surge in carbon emissions that would never have occurred naturally, especially in the time frame in which this is occurring. Moreover, turning primary forests into plantations, where the intention is to log the plantation in 45 to 80 years, creates a large carbon debt that will never be repaid. Carbon that enters the atmosphere as a result of the forest industry’s activities has the same physical effect as carbon coming from a car’s tailpipe; they both cause global heating. In response to the climate emergency, the BC government introduced a carbon tax in 2008 which applied only to fossil fuels. The BC government acknowledged that carbon emissions needed to be reduced in order to avoid damage that could be expected as the result of climate change. They were thinking of such events as those that overwhelmed BC in mid November 2021, in which communities were flooded and transportation infrastructure was badly damaged. The fires in the summer of 2021 caused similar losses, with Lytton burned to the ground. These events will be very costly to BC taxpayers. By not applying the Carbon Tax to the forest industry’s forest-removal activities—which cause far greater carbon emissions than the burning of hydrocarbon fuels in BC—a financial benefit was conferred on the forest industry. That is, the public is subsidizing the forest industry’s carbon emissions. For the period 2010 to 2020, that subsidy is shown in the graph below: We calculated this subsidy based on the rate of the Carbon Tax for each year and the estimated biomass of forest removed in each of those years. We used the ministry of forests’ Harvest Billing System to determine the volume of logs removed from public land for each of the 10 years, and used the results of a scientific study conducted by Suzanne Simard and Jean Roach to estimate the original forest biomass those logs came from. The summary of how that biomass was estimated can be found here. We determined the value of annual forest carbon emissions by using the value of the BC Carbon Tax that was applicable in each of the 10 years. The total 10-year value of carbon emissions subsidization was $31.5 billion, or an average of $3.15 billion per year. In 2019, the BC Carbon Tax was $40 per metric tonne. Since the carbon tax is set to increase to $170 per tonne by 2030, this annual subsidy will rapidly increase in size. Public subsidization of the loss of carbon sequestration capacity caused by the forest industry Lastly, we calculated the subsidy related to the loss of carbon sequestration capacity caused by logging in the period 2010 to 2019. To calculate this subsidy we used the Province’s own account of net carbon sequestration capacity loss and the applicable level of the Carbon Tax for each of those years. Through the 1990s the province’s carbon sequestration capacity—the net amount of carbon BC forests could take out of the atmosphere each year—held relatively steady at about 90 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent. Beginning in 1999, as a result of logging and forest loss from other causes, the capacity of BC forests began to fall. The Province has estimated that capacity each year. Here’s what that decline looks like: To calculate the cumulative amount of this loss, we used the difference between the level in the 1990s and the level estimated by the Province for each year between 2010 and 2019. We then calculated a dollar value for the carbon sequestration that didn’t occur each year, using the value of the Carbon Tax that was applicable in each of those years. That totalled close to $22 billion over 10 years. How much of this should be attributable to logging and how much to the Mountain Pine Beetle and forest fires? We compared the volume of forest lost to each since 1999 and found that logging accounted for about 60 percent of the total forest loss. To be on the conservative side, we dropped this to 50 percent. So we attributed one-half of the cumulative monetary cost of carbon sequestration loss over the period 2010 to 2019 to logging—$11 billion. For those of you who don’t think this is a real cost, consider the efforts of Carbon Engineering, the Squamish-headquartered clean tech company that has created a machine that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere—like trees do—and turns that into a hydrocarbon fuel. The goal of the company is to build equipment that can do that at a cost of $100 per tonne. The company’s efforts have attracted investors and media attention from around the planet. The function of Carbon Engineering’s machine amounts to what trees do naturally—for free. In our calculation of the value of lost carbon sequestration capacity, we used Carbon Tax values ranging from $20 in 2010 to $40 in 2019. But at $100 per tonne—Carbon Engineering’s ultimate target—the cost to the forest industry for causing the loss of just this one forest function would be valued at $36 billion over a 10-year period. As noted above, the carbon tax is set to increase to $170 per tonne by 2030, so like the carbon emissions subsidy, the annual carbon sequestration subsidy will rapidly increase in size. If someone destroyed one of Carbon Engineerings’ privately-owned machines, there would be a huge bill to pay. But a logging company destroying a publicly-owned forest that provides exactly the same function? Well the public is paying the logging companies, through the various subsidies outlined here, to do just that. The total cost of all these subsidies is astounding. The graph below shows the total cost by year. The cumulative cost of just these four subsidies is $50.6 billion over those 10 years. The last thing to show you is how the total cost of these subsidies compares with the GDP of the forest industry, which is calculated by the provincial government. You can see in the graph below that in the last two years, the cost of the subsidies is actually greater than the industry’s contribution to BC’s GDP. This may now be a permanent condition since the largest of these subsidies are based on the value of carbon, which is rapidly rising. In 2019 it was $40 per tonne. By 2030 this will rise to $170 per tonne. At that point public subsidization of the forest industry will far exceed the industry’s contribution to GDP. Unless, of course, the provincial government’s approach to managing BC forests begins to recognize the role BC’s forests must play in mitigating climate change. The bottom line, though, is that forestry doesn’t pay the bills, folks. You pay the logging industry’s bills. In the next iteration of this story, we will consider the cash subsidies taxpayers provide the logging industry—like the Bridge to Retirement program and the BC Forest Enhancement Society—as well as offer an estimate of the cost of damage done to communities and public infrastructure by the floods and fires that have been, in part, caused by BC’s over-exploitation of its forests. David Broadland has lived on Quadra Island since 1981. Read more about the Double-Crested Cormorant.pdf

THERE ARE FOUR MEANINGS INTENDED by the use of “plantation failure”: First, there is the failure of government to insure that clearcuts have been replanted at a rate matching that at which forests are being logged. Second, there is the failure of computer modelling to accurately predict the growth and yield of managed plantations. Third, there is the large-scale destruction of conifer plantations by fires, insects and disease. And fourthly—and perhaps most importantly: There has been a failure to recognize that widespread industrial clearcutting, followed by plantations, does not emulate any known natural disturbance; the belief that it does comes from hubris rather than knowledge or wisdom. All of the impacts of these miscalculations are increasing in size as the area logged each year grows. According to the ministry’s own records, between 2000 and 2017, 1.2 million more hectares were logged than were planted. This number does not reflect the backlog of unplanted logged area that had accumulated previous to 2000. Just how bad this problem actually is depends on which ministry record of how much logging has occurred is used: the one made publicly available (below in black), or the one based on the ministry’s best, but still incomplete, data (red). This fact—that the ministry is not ensuring that logged areas are being replanted—undoes the ministry’s and industry’s contention that logging in BC is not deforestation. In a recent press briefing attended by BC Chief Forester Diane Nicholls, a media reporter asked, “How will the COP 26 resolution about deforestation affect BC?” Nicholls responded that “deforestation” was not occurring in BC. But her ministry’s own data shows this is not true. There are many strong indicators that logging in BC is not sustainable and the large replanting deficit is just one of them. Not only are clearcuts not being replanted at the rate they are being logged, but predictions of the rate of growth and yield of managed plantations, which are used to determine how much forest can be cut each year, have been shown to be based on corrupt and inaccurate data that hasn’t incorporated the likely impacts of climate change. In 2018, Anthony Britneff and Martin Watts, both registered professional foresters, made a 134-page joint submission to a panel of forest scientists and professionals assembled to investigate concerns Britneff had expressed in writing to then forests minister Doug Donaldson. In their submission, Watts and Britneff challenge a claim made by various chief foresters in many timber supply reviews that the “best available information” is used in coming to a determination of allowable annual cut. Britneff and Watts provided evidence in the case of the Bulkley Valley Timber Supply Area review, for example, that shows the “best available information” included data that an independent consultant had determined did not meet “Ministry Standards” on several counts. They also note that a major source of uncertainty in computer modelling is “ineffective data management,” and recount how, throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the Forest Analysis and Inventory Branch (FAIB) struggled to effectively manage forest growth-and-yield data, which, as a consequence, had become “corrupted.” The result, say Watts and Britneff, is that “any studies or models using FAIB sample plot data prior to 2017 are suspect.” That would impact most existing timber supply reviews and the corresponding allowable annual cut determination (AAC). A wildly optimistic timber supply forecast made in the 2004 State of the Forests report signed by then Chief Forester Jim Snetsinger. Using faulty growth and yield models, the ministry of forests predicted timber supply in 2020 would be about 50 percent higher than it has turned out to be. In 2004, the ministry was expecting the Mountain Pine Beetle to have a greater impact on timber supply than it actually has had, so the beetle was not the cause of the optimism bias. Watts and Britneff believe the growth and yield models themselves are problematic and cite numerous ways in which the models provide inaccurate and unreliable estimates. For example, consecutive versions of the models produce different results from the same data, and the difference is significantly greater than the timber supply review process reflects in its consideration of uncertainty. As well, an FOI request showed FAIB had no record of the actual data used to calibrate one of the computer models central to estimating timber volume in natural stands. Watts and Britneff also point out that the growth and yield models lack the sophistication needed to reflect actual forest complexity. All of those factors create a level of uncertainty about the growth and yield estimates for managed plantations used in ACC determinations that, Watts and Britneff say, create serious doubts about projected mid-term harvest levels. Astonishingly, the models cannot account for climate change. On this point, Britneff says, “scientists within the forests ministry have reported and published that our Interior managed forests will most likely experience increased tree mortality, reduced growth and reduced utilization as a result of an increase in forest health issues due to climate change.” Yet, because the models cannot accommodate climate change, none of the climate-related effects that are expected to reduce growth and yield are included in the timber supply reviews that determine AAC. Next on our list of the ways in which plantations are failing is their growing impact on forest fires, insects and disease. Plantations on the scale they are being created in BC—about 250,000 hectares each year on public and private land—are creating a much higher risk of each of these problems occurring at large scales. Let’s start with fire. Of the four general configurations of forest found in BC—primary forest, mature naturally-regenerated second growth, clearcut and plantation—the latter has the highest fire hazard (followed by clearcuts), especially in the first 25 years of a plantation’s life. The higher fire hazard of clearcuts and plantations is entirely a matter of the ease with which fuels in them can be ignited and the difficulty in controlling such fires once they start. A high level of fire hazard can be expected to persist for about 20 to 25 years following planting. When fires do occur in plantations, the damage is often severe. One group of US scientists studying fires in Douglas fir plantations found that the most severe burning occurs 12 years after planting. The prevalence of clearcuts and plantations has been growing. The ministry of forests’ record of the extent of logging on publicly owned land shows there has been a large increase over the last 50 years. In the first five years of the 1970s, an average of 105,000 hectares of Crown land were being cut each year. In the 5-year period ending with 2018, that had risen to 240,000 hectares each year, a 230 percent increase. It’s that growing prevalence of clearcuts and plantations that’s worrisome. Lightning strikes in those areas will be more likely to ignite and the resultant fires will be more difficult to control than in mature forest. Lightning is the most common cause of forest fires in BC. Obviously, then, if there’s more land where fires are easier to ignite, more fires will occur. If fires are initially more difficult to control, they are more likely to grow. And once a fire grows large enough to start encountering multiple areas of higher-hazard fuels—like clearcuts and plantations—the fire becomes more and more difficult to control. If the area of the province that’s subject to this higher fire hazard is growing—and it is—then larger fires will become more numerous. That’s exactly what we are seeing. Most big fires in BC, like the 2017 Elephant Hill Fire (above), now involve thousands of hectares of highly-flammable clearcuts and plantations. Once plantations reach 25-30 years of age they have a higher chance of surviving a fire. Before that, they are the most flammable feature on BC’s highly logged landscapes. A burned plantation is a failed plantation. But there are other factors causing widespread plantation failure. In southeastern BC, for example, forest scientists studied monoculture lodgepole pine plantations that had replaced cedar-hemlock primary forests. They found that 44 percent of the trees had unacceptable levels of damage from western gall rust, with the result that one-third of the plantations could not be considered “free growing.” Yet ensuring that a plantation reaches a free-growing state is a legal requirement for companies who obtain permits to log public land in BC. In northwestern BC, the choice of monoculture lodgepole pine plantations to replace primary forest has run up against Dothistroma needle blight. In primary forests, damage from dothistroma has historically been low. But replacing primary forests with monoculture lodgepole pine plantations has resulted in extensive defoliation and mortality in those plantations. Lastly (at least until someone points out a fifth way in which plantations are failing), let’s consider the fundamental but flawed assumption underpinning plantations: After clearcutting, new forests can simply be regrown by replanting whatever species most reliably satisfies the legal but short-term requirement to reach a free growing state. In 2020, forest ecologist Suzanne Simard wrote briefly about this fallacy in a submission to the Haida Gwaii Management Council. She was commenting on a proposed determination of allowable annual cut in the Haida Gwaii Timber Supply Area. Simard wrote: “Reforestation practices for clearcuts of Haida Gwaii, based on personal observations, have followed the industrial model of planting nursery-grown plug stock of cedar, spruce and lodgepole pine. In primary forests of Haida Gwaii, cedar naturally reproduces primarily by layering, where gap phase disturbances facilitate regeneration of cedar around parent trees. These saplings grow up in the neighbourhood of their elders, where they are protected and their growth facilitated. The industrial approach of planting cedar plugs in clearcuts does not emulate these natural processes. Moreover, the planting of lodgepole pine in the clearcuts of Haida Gwai appears to be geared at achieving early free-growing, and we should expect these trees to decline with age past free-to-grow age even more so than has been observed in the interior rainforests. “Furthermore, the changes clearcutting brings to the hydrology of forests will cause a redistribution of water in the soil profile, likely with saturation at depth and surface drying, and this could serve to amplify drought-related die-backs among planted stock. For these reasons, the industrial approach of clearcutting and planting does not emulate natural disturbance regimes and regeneration dynamics on Haida Gwaii. With climate change, the second-growth forests will likely severely underperform relative to primary forests as measured in permanent sample plots.” The Forest Practices Board, which is ostensibly independent from the ministry of forests, echoed Simard’s concerns about plantations in an investigation of similar issues the Board conducted for a different area of BC in September 2021. The investigation focussed on plantations in the Kamloops, Okanagan, Merritt and Lillooet TSAs, as well as the Cariboo-Chilcotin Natural Resource District. The report was politely—but firmly—damning. The investigation into the health of plantation regrowth on cutblocks in the Interior Douglas-fir biogeoclimatic zone found that “[64] percent of the cutblocks examined were in poor and marginal condition and licensees may not be creating/regenerating resilient stands, which may have negative implications for future timber and non-timber values.” Of this opening, the investigation noted: “A cutblock where a strip selection silviculture system was used, was not site prepared and was left to naturally regenerate, resulting in very little regeneration due to grass competition.” Amongst other findings, the investigation found “an over-reliance on clearcutting” in the Interior Douglas-fir zone, and noted that clearcutting “is not appropriate for dry-belt-fir stands, as young trees do not regenerate well without the shade and shelter of overstory trees.” Echoing another concern expressed by Britneff and Watts, the Board recommended to the ministry that it “re-assess the long-term reforestation objectives for the dry IDF [zone], and update them based on the likely consequences of climate change.” The entire premise of liquidating BC’s primary forests was based on the assumption that humans could replace the natural processes that created those primary forests with their own, artificial and industrialized processes. Now the extent to which that decision was based in hubris is evident in the serial catastrophes overtaking BC’s plantation fantasy. You, no doubt, have additional issues with plantations. We welcome your comments below or in the forum on this issue.

In this randomly selected, typical aerial view of Crown forest on Quadra Island, the permanent, ballasted logging roads occupy 8.2 percent of the area of the recent clearcuts. LOGGING IN BC has required the construction of an extensive, expensive road network. At approximately 700,000 kilometres long, these industrial-duty roads have gouged out a vast area of previously productive forest and covered it over with blasted rock and gravel. The public has paid for these roads through reduced stumpage payments. They’re poor, if not impossible places for trees to grow and have a wide range of further negative impacts. In BC, logging roads and landings are allowed to occupy up to seven percent of the area of a cutblock, but the actual loss may be higher. A recent report at The Narwhal by Sarah Cox described a study in Ontario that examined the extent of such forest loss in that province. Cox reported that researchers there found “logging scars created by roads and landings…occupied an average of 14.2 percent of the area logged.” So our province’s seven percent restriction could well be an underestimation of the forest base that’s being lost. But let’s use seven percent and calculate how much forest has been lost. Sierra BC’s recent report, Clearcut Carbon (document at end of story), put the total area logged in BC between 2005 and 2017 at 3,597,291 hectares, which included private land on Vancouver Island. If seven percent of that area was covered with roads and landings, the area of forest lost over that 13-year period would be 251,810 hectares. That’s an area larger than Vancouver Island’s largest protected area, Strathcona Park. Besides the sheer amount of forest lost to logging roads, road building results in many negative, sometimes cascading consequences for wildlife, aquatic health, and the ecological integrity of the forest. You cannot build a road without compacting soils. Soil compaction, which can last for decades, restricts root growth and greatly minimizes the nutrients available to vegetation in these areas. Soil compaction also reduces the oxygen and water available to vegetation and negatively effects the microorganisms found in the soil. The loss or disturbance of organic layers that is also a consequence of building these roads, affects mycorrhizal fungi, which are important to many tree species in accessing nutrients. Damage to the fungi network can lead to trees suffering from moisture stress and reduced growth rates; to difficulty getting seedlings established; to negative impacts for long-term forest resilience. Increased, excessive rates of soil erosion are another consequence of logging roads. The erosion leads to sedimentation of nearby water courses, thereby impacting the aquatic systems of the forest. Because roads break up the existing soil and remove the ground cover that assists in the natural distribution of rainfall and runoff, high volumes of sediment flow into these watersheds. Aquatic species dependent on clean, clear water are naturally impacted. We know that the survival rates of many fish species significantly decrease as fine sediment levels increase. Deposited on the stream bed, fine sediment degrades spawning areas, reduces pool refuge habitat, decreases winter refuge areas for juveniles, and impedes feeding visibility. Likewise, sensitive amphibian and invertebrate species are also adversely affected by increased sediment loads, decreasing in abundance and diversity as sediment levels rise. Because invertebrates, amphibians, and fish are important prey species for many mammals, birds and bats, these too are affected by logging roads. The whole biological integrity of the forest is thereby impacted. The construction of logging roads can also change natural streamflow patterns and alter stream channel morphology. Roads, ditches, and newly created gullies form new, large networks of flow paths across the landscape. These logged areas sustain much higher discharge volumes after a storm event than they ever did when the forest was intact—and have proven far more likely to suffer from major landslides and erosion events (which again deposit abnormally high levels of sediment into area streams). Fragmentation of the landscape is also a problem stemming from the building of roads. Roads function as barriers for wildlife dispersal and migration. Many species are unable to cross these barriers and therefore have their range and distribution altered, often leading to drastic consequences on a local scale. Finally, logging roads, in allowing humans greater access to previously inaccessible landscapes, increase the risk of forest fires—humans are the cause of a significant portion of forest fires. The accessibility also allows for the introduction of non-native species, dramatically altering the natural balance of the forest ecosystem. Roads also serve as vectors for the spread of disease by allowing easier access for a potential threat than would otherwise exist.