Jens Wieting is the senior forest and climate campaigner and science advisor with Sierra Club BC.

If you thought the BC NDP government has made significant progress protecting awe-inspiring, irrecoverable old-growth forests that don’t exist anywhere else, think again. 

Provincial data shows that one soccer field of the last old-growth gets clearcut in B.C. every 7 minutes and nothing suggests this has changed. It is heartbreaking and infuriating but ignoring it is not an option. 

On Nov. 2 the B.C. government shared new old-growth maps and announced their “intention” to defer logging of the most at-risk forests across B.C. The new data confirmed that many old-growth ecosystems are in a state of emergency. The province shared the maps showing the 2.6 million hectares proposed for deferrals with 204 Indigenous Nations across the province, with a request for a response within 30 days. 

The latter infuriated many Indigenous leaders, because, as stated by Khelsilem, chairperson for the Squamish Nation Council: “The BC NDP are giving a terrible choice by only offering consent for temporary deferrals but not requiring consent for logging. Deferrals are needed now to provide the opportunity for long-term planning.” 

‘Extremely frustrating’: B.C. announces 2.6 million hectares of at-risk old-growth, no permanent protections

Despite recent government ads and misleading media reports that make it sound like a vast area of old-growth was recently protected, a provincial mid-December update offered no clarity on how much of these most endangered forests has been set aside but indicates that the majority of the contacted Nations have not yet made a decision. A high-level review of provincial logging data by Sierra Club BC shows that thousands of hectares that were proposed for deferrals have already been logged, and thousands more are on the chopping block for the coming months. 

To understand how far behind the NDP government has fallen on its promise to protect old-growth, we need to keep in mind that the call for deferrals for at-risk forests is only one of the 14 recommendations made by the Old-Growth Panel. Deferrals are needed to ‘stop the bleeding,’ buying time to find solutions for a small fraction of B.C.’s forests considered at very high risk. 

The full set of recommendations with a three-year implementation framework describes a paradigm-shift with the goal to safeguard biodiversity in all of the forests in B.C. The panel called for deferrals for at-risk forests within six months and Premier Horgan promised to implement all recommendations in the fall of 2020. Over a year later, we have maps that show which forests need deferrals but change on the ground remains uncertain. The B.C. government has accepted that some old-growth forests are as imperiled as endangered whales, but they still haven’t stopped the industrial hunt. 

One exception is BC Timber Sales. The province announced in November that the provincial agency would stop auctioning at-risk forests. This step should result in deferrals for about one fifth of the proposed areas. The BCTS example also shows the logical next step provincial staff must take to hold off the ongoing logging of endangered stands. Provincial staff must immediately stop issuing cut permits for all at-risk forests and use all options available to ensure logging companies spare at-risk areas already on the chopping block. 

This course correction must be combined with immediate adequate funding commitments to address both short-term impacts and enable Indigenous-led conservation solutions. Current provincial commitments for “new capacity funding of up to $12.69 million” to support Indigenous Nations and “nearly $19 million in new funding” for workers, contractors and communities, are insufficient to enable long-term protection for old-growth forests. 

‘Put away your power saws’: First Nations leaders, conservationists have a new plan to protect old-growth

The initial public discussion in response to the provincial old-growth announcement was dominated by exaggerated claims on jobs impacts. Then, the November floods and landslides offered a horrific reminder that clearcutting, particularly of old-growth forests, exacerbates life-threatening and infrastructure-destroying climate impacts that can disrupt entire regional economies. 

The escalating climate emergency highlights the urgency to defend the lifesaving, irreplaceable benefits of intact old-growth forests before climate impacts like floods, heat waves and wildfires create even more havoc (more on this in Sierra Club BC’s expert report ‘Intact Forest, Safe Communities’). In contrast, deferrals for less than five per cent of B.C.’s total forest area have a limited impact on forestry jobs, a sector that represents less than two per cent of B.C.’s total workforce today. 

Protecting old-growth forests will not come for free but it will save money in the long term. The B.C. government can justify the needed funding by highlighting the immeasurable benefits of intact forests such as reducing the devastating damage caused by climate impacts, storing huge amounts of carbon and preserving species habitat, drinking water, clean air and long-term jobs in a diverse economy. A recent economic analysis for a Vancouver Island study area showed old-growth forests are worth far more to society standing than logged when considering their value for a stable climate, tourism, recreation, salmon habitat and non-timber forest products. A 2017 case study estimates the average value of environmental services such as flood control, climate regulation and water filtration of one hectare of intact forest in Canada at more than $26,000 per year.   

How Clayoquot Sound’s War in the Woods transformed a region

It’s not too late for the province to pull together the needed funding solutions to make their old-growth promises a reality. They can look to the conservation financing component for the Great Bear Rainforest as a blueprint. The 2006 Agreements included $120 million to support Indigenous Nations in the region and enable protection of an additional 1.7 million hectares in new protected areas, with the provincial and federal governments ($30 million each) matching private funding ($60 million). By 2009, all the proposed protected areas were fully legislated. 

The per-hectare cost of conservation financing for old-growth will be much higher in 2021 compared to 2006 because of inflation and other economic factors. In addition, land use planning by Indigenous Nations will likely result in many more hectares of forests proposed for protection. But the Great Bear experience showed that adequate financial commitments are a crucial part of any conservation announcement to give Nations and communities confidence that they will receive transition support. 

The Great Bear Rainforest model suggests that a provincial commitment of $300 million combined with an invitation to the federal government and private funders to create a one billion funding mechanism would be a promising signal that the Horgan government is serious about following through on its old-growth promise. 

There are few regions in the world that could contribute as much as B.C. to make progress on climate action, protect nature and respect Indigenous Rights. Provincial leadership in protecting forests and reforming forestry is essential if Canada is to follow through with last month’s UN Climate Conference commitment to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030. Canada cannot make progress towards its international commitment to work with Indigenous Nations to protect 30 per cent of lands and waters by 2030 without crucial provinces like B.C. This year showed more clearly than ever before that we only stand a chance if every corner of the world does its part to save the life support systems we depend on. Will we do our part?

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It has been more than three months since the B.C. government received a report and recommendations from the independent old-growth review panel tasked by the province to hear from British Columbians — and it could be any day now that they will share the findings along with plans for how to address this old-growth crisis. 

We have known for years that B.C.’s old-growth forests are under threat. In June, an expert report revealed that less than three percent of the province’s original forest with very big, old trees remains standing. 

The report also showed that most of the last 415,000 hectares of old-growth forests with big and huge trees are not protected from logging. These are the forests with massive, majestic trees which author John Vaillant eloquently describes as being “huge, holy, and eternal-feeling, like a branched and needled Notre Dame.”

The evidence is clear: after being stewarded for thousands of years by Indigenous peoples, a century of industrial logging has cut all but a very few of the last massive, old trees. According to the report’s authors, provincial management for old-growth is characterized by “loopholes, gaming, arithmetic errors and simple lack of monitoring.” They warn that some old-growth ecosystems will be logged to the brink in the next five years if we don’t act now.

While we wait for the provincial response to the review panel’s report, more than 500 soccer fields of B.C. old-growth forest are clearcut every day. Soon they will have all been cut down and it will be too late to protect these ancient giants. Even stands with trees older than 1,000 years are not safe.

Groups have been calling on the B.C. government to cancel cutblocks in the Dakota Valley on the Sunshine Coast. Photo: Jens Wieting

We need John Horgan’s NDP government to work with Indigenous governments for immediate protection measures and strengthened forestry laws to protect these endangered forests. 

B.C.’s last old-growth forests hold cultural values, critical habitat for endangered species and carbon that has been captured over hundreds of years — most of which is released a few short years after a clearcut. These forests provide clean drinking water and salmon habitat, benefit our health and are critical for the province’s billion-dollar tourism industry.

Old-growth forests are also vital in protecting communities from the effects of climate change. As we face water shortages, flooding, extreme rainfall and other worsening climate impacts, intact old-growth are more resilient than logged landscapes and can better safeguard the health and safety of our communities. 

The current B.C. government was elected with a promise to take action on old-growth forests, based on evidence and science. For three years, the province has asked concerned citizens, communities and stakeholders for input and received feedback from tens of thousands on endangered species legislation, amending forestry laws and old-growth protection. Nine in 10 British Columbians support taking action to defend old-growth and want the government to keep its promise, a recent poll commissioned by Sierra Club BC shows.

Despite this massive public support, it has been three years of ‘talk and log,’ as clearcut logging of the last old-growth forests has continued in the midst of a climate and extinction crisis. 

B.C. old-growth data ‘misleading’ public on remaining ancient forest: independent report

With time running out, concerned citizens fear their voices are not being heard. Some are taking stark actions, like Robert Fuller and James Darling’s two-week hunger strike in Nanaimo or activists blockading road building near Port Renfrew to save Fairy Creek, the last intact watershed on southern Vancouver Island, in Pacheedaht territory. They know that if today’s governments don’t take a stand for these irreplaceable, endangered ancient forests, it will be too late.

Working together, provincial and Indigenous governments can protect old-growth forests through immediate logging moratoria in endangered ecosystems, followed by a series of long-term solutions. This could include the creation of new Indigenous protected areas, amendments to close loopholes in provincial forestry laws and agreeing on what funding and support is needed to realize a vision for intact forests, thriving communities and respect for the rights of Indigenous peoples.

Increased protection for old-growth can be enabled through COVID-19 economic recovery initiatives supporting Indigenous-led solutions, value-added wood product manufacturing, restored government stewardship, ecoforestry and restoration. Investing in forest conservation and improved forestry is an opportunity to create jobs that reduce carbon pollution and strengthen B.C.’s climate action plan, CleanBC, through targets and strategies for reducing forest emissions. 

As we have learned from COVID-19, ignoring evidence and delaying action can quickly make matters worse. Right now, the B.C. government has the opportunity to show the same leadership we have seen from the province in response to the pandemic by safeguarding these natural life support systems. For the sake of our collective health and well-being, it’s time to protect the last remaining old-growth forests in B.C.

B.C. opens Sunshine Coast forest — home to some of Canada’s oldest trees — to logging

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“Climate change is now reaching the end game, where very soon humanity must choose between taking unprecedented action, or accepting that it has been left too late and bear the consequences.”

These are the recent words of Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, a leading German climate scientist and senior advisor of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the European Union.

The reason for his warning: new research highlighting that the world might be closer to dangerous thresholds of uncontrollable climate change than previous studies have suggested.

One of the starkest examples of worsening climate impacts that speed up global warming are B.C.’s wildfires. Both the 2017 and 2018 wildfires have now burned more than 1.2 million hectares of the province, eight times more than the 10-year-average. B.C.’s 2017 fires caused an estimated 190 million tonnes of CO2 emissions, essentially quadrupling B.C.’s official annual emissions. This year will be similar.

“BC is just 4.5 million people sharing a planet with seven billion others. We have to be realistic about what our impacts would be,” said B.C. Premier John Horgan on August 21 when asked how the province can justify supporting the LNG Canada project, which will enable a massive increase in global greenhouse gas emissions from burning gas and leaking methane in B.C. and abroad.

This statement is a huge letdown for British Columbians. All parts of the international community consist of nations or regions with a few million people. What if all of them followed the same argument?

You would think all heads of governments would understand the term “tragedy of the commons.” This describes a situation in which individual users act according to their own self-interest — contrary to the common good — and destroy their own life support systems (such as a stable climate and a healthy environment) through their collective action.

The only path to break through the problem is leadership, particularly from those who fully grasp the threat for the entire planet, who bear most of the responsibility and who have the freedom to choose an alternative path.

Climate action must correspond to the scope and scale of the threat. Being so close to dangerous thresholds means insufficient actions in the fight against climate change will lead to similarly devastating outcomes as no action.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what we are seeing so far from the B.C. government in terms of climate action.

This is reflected in the three provincial intentions papers shared by the government in July for public comment on the topics of transportation, buildings and industry. Although they generally describe steps in the right direction, the intentions papers are seriously lacking in detail when it comes to expected reductions, timelines and an overall path toward meeting targets (see Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Pembina Institute, Guy Dauncey and Eric Doherty for more analysis).

Even more concerning is that the first set of intentions papers (and by the look of their titles, the next set too) are ignoring three elephants in the room. These elephants will completely overshadow the potential of solutions discussed in the papers, if left unaddressed. A meaningful climate action plan requires that the province addresses them.

The first elephant: Insufficient B.C. emissions reduction target

The first elephant in the room is that the new proposed target (40 per cent reduction by 2030 compared to 2007 levels) is a roadmap to climate hell, not climate stabilization.

All realistic remaining global emissions trajectories with the goal of preventing warming higher than 1.5 or 2 degrees require rapid movement toward zero emissions by 2040, and successfully reaching halfway to this goal by 2030. Richer countries with higher emissions per capita must move faster than poorer nations with lower emissions per capita.

Graphic: Stefan Rahmstorf / Global Carbon Project

The second elephant: New fossil fuel projects incompatible with meaningful climate action

The lack of a meaningful emissions reduction target leads directly to the second elephant in the room: the NDP government continues to pursue new LNG terminals, ignoring that new fossil fuel export projects are incompatible with coherent climate action and renewable energy progress that shows that truly clean, affordable and job-creating alternatives exist. In early August, Bloomberg reported that producers of renewable energy have installed their first trillion watts. Bloomberg New Energy Finance expects the next trillion watts will cost $1.2 trillion by 2023, only half the price of the first trillion watts.

Both the LNG Canada project and the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion would massively increase provincial and national emissions and make it impossible to meet even our current, insufficient targets. Both projects have similar overall greenhouse gas footprints during their lifetimes (100 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in the case of LNG Canada and 120 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year in the case of Trans Mountain when considering extraction, transportation, processing and burning in other nations after export).

True leadership requires following the example of France and banning all new fossil fuel extraction projects, combined with a phase out of existing projects by no later than 2040. The rationale for this urgently needed step is summarized in the Lofoten Declaration signed by more than 800 civil society organizations. It calls for a “managed decline of the fossil fuel sector in line with the Paris climate goals. The Declaration demands a just transition, it demands leadership in this phase-out from the countries that can afford it first, and it confirms that the movement to stand up to dangerous fossil fuel development must be led by those on the frontlines.”

Both B.C. and Canada belong to those parts of the world that remain among the most polluting on a per capita basis (British Columbians emit close to three times and Canadians more than four times more than the global average).

We live in a relatively rich part of the world, we happen to control resource extraction across vast lands with a relatively small population and we have many clean alternatives to the extraction and export of fossil fuels.

A number of countries have already committed to net zero emissions targets by 2040 or 2050. They include France, Iceland, New Zealand, Costa Rica and Bhutan. Driven by an alliance including Sweden and the UK, the European Union is heading in the same direction. In response to the wildfires, California just revised its targets for renewable energy to meet 50 per cent of its demand by 2026 and 100 per cent by 2045.

Without B.C. and Canada joining other nations in leading the fight against global warming, there will be little hope of inspiring others to follow and an increasing danger that those nations who have led the fight will give up and abandon hope.

The third elephant: Forest emissions

The third elephant in the room is the increasing amount of emissions from destructive logging, slash burning and wildfires. These emissions are often ignored because forest emissions are not counted as part of our official emissions — instead they are somewhat hidden as a memo item in provincial inventory reports.

This is a grave concern. For more than 10 years, instead of functioning as a carbon sink that helps fight global warming, B.C.’s forests have now lost more carbon than what they absorb. This means they are now a source of emissions. These emissions have grown even further in the past two years as a result of B.C.’s record-breaking fires.

A 2015 analysis of B.C. government data by Sierra Club BC showed net forest emissions of a quarter billion tonnes of carbon dioxide between 2003 and 2012 (equivalent to more than four times B.C.’s official annual emissions). This is in contrast to the 441 million tonnes of carbon dioxide they still absorbed between 1993 and 2002.

The shift from carbon sink to carbon source is caused by a number of climate-related factors including the mountain pine beetle outbreak and an increasing number of forest fires. However, during the period 2003 to 2012 the largest contributing factor was poor forest management.

Destructive logging practices, such as clear-cutting of old-growth rainforest and slash burning, are huge contributors to the carbon emissions from B.C. forests. Between 2003 and 2012, emissions from logging were a whopping 520 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (after accounting for carbon stored in wood products). Logging of old-growth forest on Vancouver Island alone causes millions of tonnes of additional annual carbon emissions. Emissions from logging carbon-rich old-growth could be reduced quickly by using some of the solutions developed in the Great Bear Rainforest as promised by the NDP in its 2017 election platform, combined with support for First Nations land use planning and a rapid transition to improved management of second-growth forests.

The province should also end the large-scale spraying of thousands of hectares of deciduous stands (e.g. aspen, alder and birch) with glyphosate, to promote the growth of purely coniferous forests. This step can help reduce the risk of wildfires, reduce emissions, increase carbon sequestration and provide benefits to wildlife and several environmental services hit by climate impacts.

The government must also ramp up the Fire Smart program, which promotes preventative measures such as forest thinning and fire-resistant building materials to reduce the impact of fire and modernize all warning systems firefighters and governments depend on to control dangerous fires.

B.C. forest management is making climate change worse — an alarming situation when our forests should instead be our best ally in the fight against climate change. Unless the B.C. government wakes up and takes far-reaching action to strengthen conservation and improve forest management, our provincial forests will continue to contribute to climate change instead of slowing it down. Despite the outstanding role of forests in the fight against climate change, there is no intentions paper on forests.

It’s time for real, coherent climate action

These three elephants in the room do not cover all of the areas of climate action the B.C. government must take to become a true climate leader. This will require setting aside the majority of our fossil fuel reserves as unburnable carbon and regularly updating carbon budgets by sector based on science, ramping up the price on carbon faster than currently planned and including a climate test in environmental assessments. It also requires a paradigm shift to preserve biodiversity, natural carbon banks and ecosystem services on which our economy and human health depend and all hands on deck to speed up the transition to an equitable post-carbon economy that leaves no one behind.

The policies are outlined in Sierra Club BC report The Future Is Here, which provides a reality check on the climate challenges B.C. faces and a coherent set of recommendations the B.C. government should use to inform the next provincial climate action plan.

There are few jurisdictions in the world with a greater opportunity to lead and inspire others than British Columbia. We need Premier Horgan and his government to act with courage and speed.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.