Twenty-five years ago, after the collapse of the Atlantic cod fishery, Jeffrey Hutchings, a preeminent fisheries scientist and professor at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, sounded the alarm that Canada’s federal fisheries department was allowing “nonscience influences” in critical decision-making. Writing at the time, he said, “There is a clear and immediate need for Canadians to examine very seriously the role of bureaucrats and politicians in the management of Canada’s natural resources.”

Today, a new crop of researchers is once again imploring Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) to change its ways. At the core of their concerns is a number of systemic and structural ways in which Fisheries and Oceans Canada gathers, parses, and handles scientific information, and how that advice is passed on to decision-makers.

“DFO has a legal duty to protect and conserve fish for Canada,” says Gideon Mordecai, a researcher at the University of British Columbia who specializes in fish viruses. “We’re saying that legal duty is not being met.”

In a new paper, Mordecai and his colleagues lay out their critiques of how Fisheries and Oceans Canada handles—or mishandles—scientific advice.

One of their prime criticisms is aimed at the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat, which coordinates scientific peer review and science advice for Fisheries and Oceans Canada, including on fish stocks, marine ecology, and aquaculture. The problem, according to Mordecai and his colleagues, is that industry representatives sit on the secretariat and participate in debates on science advice to government. The fear, the paper states, is that “vested interests can manipulate the science policy process,” including “by seeding doubt about scientific consensus.”

The researchers are clear that science should not be the only consideration in fisheries management. “We understand that someone like the fisheries minister has a really difficult job,” Mordecai says. “But our thesis is that the science that leads into that process needs to be unfettered,” adding, “there’s always going to be a need for some involvement from industry with their data, with their knowledge, but it’s that vote at the table we take issue with.”

Researchers call for new, independent science advisory body

To highlight long-standing concerns that the federal government is failing to ensure it is making decisions with scientific “quality, integrity, and objectivity” free of political influence, the scientists put special focus on British Columbia’s highly controversial salmon aquaculture industry.

In particular, they highlight Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s long-criticized dual mandate. The department is tasked with both protecting wild salmon and promoting salmon farming. In British Columbia, where the presence of open-net-pen salmon aquaculture is associated with the spread of disease and pests, these two mandates can butt heads.

Mordecai and his colleagues’ concerns have a precedent: in 2012, a federal inquiry report recommended Fisheries and Oceans Canada focus on meeting its “paramount regulatory objective to conserve wild fish” and no longer promote “salmon farming as an industry and farmed salmon as a product.”

Similarly, a 2018 report by the Office of the Auditor General of Canada said Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s “commitment to advancing aquaculture” raises questions about precautionary fisheries management and how much risk the government deems acceptable to wild stocks. The litany of concerns continues. Mordecai and his coauthors also critique the aquaculture industry’s funding of federal salmon aquaculture research, which they argue can lead to biased results. “The research within DFO that is funded or coauthored by the salmon farming industry has often painted the activities of the industry in a positive light or as posing low risk,” the scientists write.

That Fisheries and Oceans Canada senior aquaculture officials and other staff routinely switch jobs back and forth with the salmon farming industry—the researchers describe it as a “revolving door”—“raises obvious questions about the impartiality of DFO employees charged with regulating an industry in order to safeguard wild fish populations,” they write.

Mordecai and his colleagues have recommendations they think could help resolve the problem.

Creating a new advisory body—a “politically independent organization of fisheries scientists” with a strict conflict of interest policy—would help, they say, in offering impartial, evidence-based, transparent, and independently reviewed scientific advice.

As a model, Mordecai points to the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, a body chaired by the late Hutchings from 2006 to 2010. This independent science group advises government on the conservation status of wild species. While its recommendations are not always adopted by the federal government, Mordecai says the presented science is at least sound and defensible.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s scientific processes have faced longstanding concerns

Not everyone agrees Fisheries and Oceans Canada should be keeping industry experts at arm’s length, however. That’s the stance taken by Brian Riddell, a science adviser with the Pacific Salmon Foundation — a British Columbia–based nonprofit focused on protecting and restoring wild Pacific salmon.

Riddell spent 30 years working in fisheries science at Fisheries and Oceans Canada, including in salmon aquaculture. He was not involved in Mordecai’s paper, but the Pacific Salmon Foundation currently employs or funds three of the paper’s five authors.

Barring industry participation in Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s scientific processes, Riddell says, “would continually call into question the balance and objectivity of a council that excluded that perspective.” If industry scientists commit to accepted scientific research procedures, they should be allowed to sit on an advisory board, he says.

Riddell also opposes Fisheries and Oceans Canada separating its dual mandate, though he does have some stern advice for the agency’s current employees. With aquaculture one of the many pressures on wild salmon, he says it’s something the government must address. (The Canadian federal government already has plans to end open-net-pen salmon farming in British Columbia by 2025.)

Other experts who were not involved in the paper support Mordecai and his colleagues’ assertions that Fisheries and Oceans Canada has structural problems, though they’re skeptical of the government’s determination to take strong action.

The paper’s authors “are spot on,” says Marvin Rosenau, a former provincial fish biologist and instructor at the British Columbia Institute of Technology who has offered expert fish testimony for and against Fisheries and Oceans Canada over the years in court cases ranging from gravel extraction to dam water releases.

“We need these independent reviewers, independent mechanisms to force the agencies to do the right thing,” he says.

Asked for comment, Brenda McCorquodale, Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s senior director of the aquaculture management division, referred questions to the department’s media relations office. In an emailed statement, the office says that “the department continuously reviews its peer review processes to ensure objective, impartial, and evidence-based science advice. This includes reviewing the recommendations in this study.”

The Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat involves “expert review and critical evaluation” of scientific information, and hears from a range of experts both from within and outside the government, the statement says, noting as well that Fisheries and Oceans Canada continues to “reinforce transparent, impartial, and evidence-based peer review and scientific advice for decision-makers.” To this end, in June, the department launched the Registry for External Science Experts, inviting authorities in relevant fields who do not work in government to participate in the review process.

“Debate among researchers is a normal and healthy part of the development of scientific knowledge and helps contribute to better research outcomes,” the statement says. In conclusion, Fisheries and Oceans Canada “continues to stand behind its science.”

Still, pressure is mounting to bring major changes to Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s foundations, including from politicians.

In March 2023, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans made 48 recommendations related to Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s handling of science, including requests for the department to engage in “robust peer-reviewed, non-biased science”; for all Fisheries and Oceans Canada research and data to be publicly available; and for an investigation into the extent to which management is influencing the work of departmental scientists.

It all harkens back to Hutchings and his coauthors. In 1997, they wrote that a body of independent fisheries scientists operating outside of Fisheries and Oceans Canada represented a “timely idea that merits immediate, serious, and open debate.”

A quarter century later, researchers are still waiting.

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The B.C. Cattlemen’s Association paid trappers more than $500,000 for killing nearly 700 wolves in just over four years under a provincially funded program designed to reduce livestock predation, according to a document obtained from the province. 

The association’s Livestock Protection Program allows trappers to kill entire wolf packs, including juveniles, if the predators kill, injure or harass even one cow or sheep.

“We are already seeing some positive results in the areas where we have had persistent predation issues,” according to the program’s latest status report. “Undeniably, targeting problem packs and eliminating them have reduced producer losses.”

A total of 684 wolves and 314 coyotes were killed on provincial Crown lands and private ranch lands between Jan. 1, 2016, when the program started, and March 31, 2020. 

Trappers typically receive $350 plus gas mileage to set their traps and $750 per wolf on the condition they take out the entire pack (typically five or six animals) and destroy the hides, according to Kevin Boon, the association’s Kamloops-based general manager. Coyotes, which hunt solo or in pairs, are worth $250 each. 

The Ministry of Agriculture contributed $450,000 to the program in the fiscal year ending March 2019 and slightly less in previous years, according to the report. 

“We are confident that we are providing a necessary service that is well developed, responsibly delivered, and, to the majority, socially acceptable,” the program manager wrote in the status report, which calls the program “very responsible and effective.” 

Not everyone agrees.   

News of the Livestock Protection Program came as a shock to a leading wolf advocate.

“The numbers are staggering, unbelievable,” said Ian McAllister, co-founder of Pacific Wild.

McAllister is calling for an immediate suspension of the program pending an independent review and the implementation of an education campaign.

“There is so much evidence and information that shows that education and best practices  and animal husbandry in the ranching community will allow wolves to coexist with livestock,” he said. “We know that’s the case.”

Province handed over livestock predator management due to time constraints

The B.C. Conservation Officer Service typically responds to public complaints about predators, including bears and cougars, but handed over wolf and coyote livestock predation issues to the B.C. Cattlemen’s Association in 2016.

“It didn’t rank high on their priority list of things to do,” Boon said. “It kind of got fit in if they could do it.”

According to the status report — which covers Jan. 1, 2016, to March 31, 2019 — 1,293 livestock were killed, injured or harassed by wild predators, including 819 calves, 170 beef cows, 138 lambs, 91 ewes and 59 beef yearlings. The majority of attacks happened in the Interior. 

In just over four years, 170 beef cows were killed, injured or harassed by wild predators in B.C. Photo: Amber Bracken

The report suggests declining deer and moose populations are driving predators to hunt livestock and says the program “does not address the much more serious problem of how wildlife is managed.” 

“There will be no successful recovery of the deer and moose, that are the traditional staples of the predator’s diet, until we do a better job of managing predators,” it says. “Until this is realized, the problem we face with livestock will continue and there will never be an opportunity for the other wildlife species to recover.”

‘Wildlife specialists’ typically dispatched within 48 hours to kill wolves

When ranchers discover livestock that has apparently been killed, injured or harassed by predators, they notify the B.C. Cattlemen’s Association’s Livestock Protection Program, kickstarting a process to verify if the livestock was indeed killed by a predator.

Ranchers can verify kills of their own livestock if they have completed a one-day training course offered by conservation officers. Almost 800 individuals are trained verifiers, according to the status report. Photos must be taken to help substantiate claims.  

More than 50 trappers working under contract with the Livestock Protection Program — known as “wildlife specialists” — can also verify kills. To earn a trapping licence in B.C., one must complete a three-day education course.

Once a predator kill is verified by a rancher or a wildlife specialist, the coordinator of the Livestock Protection Program, a representative of the Conservation Officer Service and a Ministry of Agriculture staffer review the file. The goal is to complete the multi-level case review within 48 hours. If everything checks out,  a trapper is assigned to take out the pack. 

Wildlife specialists bait their traps with meat the wolves would naturally eat, such as deer, and set them within a 500-metre radius of a kill site. They’re required to check them daily.

Padded leg-hold traps are mostly used because they allow for the potential release of wildlife accidentally captured, Boon said. Provincial conservation officers are often called to tranquilize and release larger animals. 

The report says 81 “non-target” animals were released or dispatched through March 2019, including bears, cougars, foxes, badgers, lynx, bobcats, deer, raccoons, eagles and even nine domestic dogs. Of 68 cases in which specifics are provided, 45 animals were released while 23 died.

In some cases, wolf trapping has been suspended due to grizzly activity in the Kootenay region. “One guy caught the same bear three times,” Boon said.

The B.C. government’s census of wolves estimates the population falls somewhere between 5,300 and 11,600. Photo: Ian McAllister / Pacific Wild

Ranchers are compensated for losses but must take preventative measures

As part of the program, ranchers are expected to be proactive about reducing predation on their livestock, adopting at least “one or two” of several best practice measures, according to Boon.

Those measures include: disposing of livestock carcasses where scavengers do not have access; bringing in injured livestock to discourage further attacks; riding the range to identify predator problems as soon as possible and using guard dogs, fencing and repellents such as bells, radios, night lighting and motion sensors.

Under a separate program, funded 60 per cent by the federal government and 40 per cent by the province, B.C. ranchers receive compensation for livestock lost to predators. More than $900,000 in government compensation was paid out from January 2016 to March 2020. 

But Boon said ranchers are typically only compensated for five to 10 per cent of actual losses because some animals can’t be found and some kills can’t be verified.

Province says program has measures to avoid conflict of interest

Doug Donaldson, minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, declined to be interviewed, but the ministry provided a statement saying most wolves avoid livestock, even in backcountry areas, so conflict is not inevitable but rather occasional.

B.C. ranchers frequently graze their cattle in the backcountry during the growing season to access forage, then return to their home ranches for winter. Last year, 57 wolf kills occurred on Crown land compared with 66 on private land. 

The ministry said taking out entire packs is the most effective strategy since packs are thought to “function as fully integrated units,” rather than just one or two members preying on livestock.

As for program oversight, the province points out that all files are reviewed to ensure “accurate evidence to support an attack by a predator.” 

The ministry statement said conservation officers may also conduct compliance inspections to ensure wildlife specialists are operating in accordance with permits. 

The province said the use of the “producers themselves to undertake verification is essential because they are the people who, in areas that are often remote, are positioned to collect evidence in a timely manner.”

It added: “To avoid conflict of interest, the verification process is just an application; government staff make the final decision based on available information.”

One way to distinguish a predator kill — as opposed to scavenging livestock that died of other causes — is to look for bruising, which suggests “the animal was alive when it happened,” Boon said.

Cattle may die on the range for various reasons unrelated to predation, including diseases, rustling or even lightning strikes. Ravens are also capable of killing newborn calves. 

Trappers are encouraged to kill entire wolf packs because they are thought to “function as fully integrated units,” rather than just one or two members preying on livestock, according to the B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development. Photo: Patricia van Casteren / Flickr

Scientist raises concerns with program oversight, ecological impact of taking out apex predators

 Paul Paquet is a senior scientist at Raincoast Conservation Foundation and adjunct professor at the University of Victoria who has studied wolves around the world, including in B.C., since 1979. 

His concerns with the cattlemen’s program are numerous: level of program compliance and oversight; the ability of individuals to distinguish between predation and scavenging; humaneness of trapping and the ecological impact of taking out apex predators.

Killing an entire pack may provide ranchers with temporary relief, he noted, but it opens up an area for colonization by a new pack. 

“Wolves, being resilient and looking for new areas, move in right away,” he said. “It keeps repeating and repeating.” 

Paquet added: “There is predation. It’s real. On the other hand, maybe that’s a cost of operation, a risk you face, particularly on public lands.”

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Editor’s note: Travel to the village of Tahsis for this article was concluded before physical distancing and recommended travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic were put into effect.

Residents of Tahsis treated Martin Davis with suspicion the moment he moved there two decades ago.

The remote village on the northwest coast of Vancouver Island had survived off logging and milling over the decades, until the last mill closed in 2001, around the time Davis arrived.

Davis, an environmentalist, caver, tree planter and former underground radio-station operator, spent his spare time exploring the area’s caves and went on to play an important role in local conservation initiatives, including the creation of the 316-hectare Weymer Creek Provincial Park.

Also in the Weymer watershed, on the east side of Tahsis Inlet just beyond the village, he played a key role in the establishment of the 29-hectare Wildlife Habitat Area in 2000. 

For Davis, these decisions represented important wins for Tahsis’ rich biodiversity and landscapes, including six bat species, Roosevelt elk, old-growth trees, and caves and karst features containing the bones of mammals dating back 1,300 years.

But for long-time Tahsis residents, the new protected areas were simply part of the town’s growing economic problem. “People thought I was trying to shut down all logging in the area,” Davis recalls. “They were looking for scapegoats.”

“I was afraid I was going to get lynched.”

Mayor Martin Davis stands above the Tahsis Inlet. Photo: TJ Watt

A town founded on logging

The trip to Tahsis requires a 150-kilometre journey across the girth of Vancouver Island. From Campbell River, the nearest commercial hub, you head due west. Once you hit Gold River the pavement stops and it’s another 65 kilometres on a gravel logging road.

Tahsis is at the end of the line, and it can also feel like a town at the end of the world.

I arrive for the first time in darkness in torrential winter rains, navigating dimly lit streets through a heavily fogged windshield. The main drag is South Maquinna Drive, but it does not directly connect with North Maquinna Drive, where my Airbnb is located — and the village has no cell service (although that changed a few days after my departure).

I pull into Sally’s Grill at the far end of town, greeted by a “please dont (sic) touch the dog” sign on the front door. Tonight’s home-cooked special is “redneck lasagna” which, I’m told, is a reference to the huge portions and certainly not the ownership or clientele.

Co-owner Sally Taylor is preparing to close early due to lack of business. “Go back, cross the bridge, turn left at the store, and follow the Tahsis River,” she says.

In the morning, I have a whole new outlook. The rains have called a temporary truce; sun pours across the mountain tops and puts a much-needed shine on the tarnished little town that forms part of my family history.

My late father, Art, and older brother Brian were employed here in the 1960s, as a millwright and labourer, respectively. Brian recalls the “town’s smell of lumber, the big heavy timbers in the hold of the ocean freighters, getting a sore back and having to quit, and, of course, sitting at dad’s table in the bunkhouse room in the evenings playing crib.”

Some 2,500 people lived and worked in Tahsis in its heyday, drawn by the booming timber industry.

“You used to get $18 an hour to start just to push a broom, back in the ’90s,” Davis tells The Narwhal. “There were Italian and Sikh communities. People came from all over. Pretty amazing, actually.”

Today the town’s population has dwindled to one-tenth its historic numbers, and only a handful of people are still employed in the forest industry.

A welcome sign for the Village of Tahsis. The village once supported a population of 2,500 with many working in the forestry industry, supported by a local mill. The population has now dwindled to around 250 people. Photo: Larry Pynn

A building in Tahsis. Ideas for economic revitalization for the village include ecotourism, fishing, small-scale logging and support for local and visiting artists. Photo: Larry Pynn

The industry’s changing fortunes have led to a recent shift in attitudes within the town. Long after Davis’ early days of environmentalism, his ideas for a new economy — which include extending seasonal sports fishing to wider ecotourism and moving to small-scale selective logging — are catching on. Those ideas carried him successfully through a 2018 mayoral campaign.

“It’s amazing — the transition of this town,” he acknowledges. “It’s quite ironic that I’m the mayor now.”

At 112 votes, you’d be hard pressed to call Davis’ win a landslide, but he captured half the vote and left his two competitors in the dust.

Mill closures, layoffs, reduced operations and labour strife hit rural communities especially hard in 2019. Four mills, including Canfor’s in Vavenby, Tolko Quest Wood’s in Quesnel, West Fraser’s in Chasm and the Errington Cedar Products mill in Errington, are now permanently closed.

And a strike at Western Forest Products, one of the major employers on Vancouver Island, came to an end in February in its eighth month.

In January, B.C.’s Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development estimated 4,686 workers were affected by B.C.’s forestry crisis, including 725 workers impacted by the United Steelworkers’ strike against Western.

Almost two decades after its last mill shut down, Tahsis offers a glimpse of the challenges small resource-dependent communities face as they try to reinvent their economic futures.

‘Economic basket case’

Today, the community’s mill-town legacy, an industrial wasteland distinguished by rotting wood and rusting steel, is best viewed near the mouth of the Tahsis River. Locals ignore the ‘No Trespassing’ signs and crawl around the chain-link fencing to walk their dogs.

In an area known as the “flats” are single-family dwellings and a trailer park with mobile homes, some protected from the rain beneath tarps. I found one single-wide mobile home selling on-line for just $5,000 plus a $275-per-month pad rental.

Over breakfast, back at Sally’s diner, Davis lays out the opportunities and challenges involved in getting Tahsis back on its feet.

“This town should never have existed here,” Davis says of the flats. “This was an estuary that was filled in with hog fuel, cedar chips, whatever, and then they threw a bit of gravel on top and built houses. There’ve been a lot of settling issues and problems. We’d like to phase out this part of the community, but that’s a tough thing to do.”

A consultant’s 2019 report on flood risk found the flats lies within the floodplain of the Tahsis River. The report noted that due to climate change, the area also faces the prospect of rising sea levels and 12-per-cent wetter winters.

More than $41 million is needed for flood-proofing projects, including raising dikes, according to the report. The village’s current annual operating budget is about $2.5 million.

“The town as it is isn’t sustainable,” Davis says. “We’re kind of an economic basket case.”

A former mill site in the flats at the mouth of the Tahsis River. Mayor Davis said the area is subject to flooding and he is concerned about legacy contamination from the mill. Photo: Larry Pynn

Locals skirt no-trespassing rules and sneak through this opening in a fence to walk along the site of a former Western Forest Products mill. Photo: Larry Pynn

Explanations for the demise of the local mill in 2001 range from globalization to falling Japanese demand to reduced timber supply. Two decades later, Davis says, “people don’t even remember the mill time and the big-money jobs.”

Today, Tahsis attracts people seeking cheap housing, including younger folks, seniors and those on disability incomes. Homes here sell for about $90,000 and up, making the village one of the most affordable communities in B.C. 

Davis is eyeing the old mill site, currently owned by Western Forest Products, as a potential development property. But first he wants to know whether any legacy pollutants are leaching into the environment. He’s asked the provincial government to require Western to conduct the necessary tests. Former mill sites are known for contamination, including heavy metals and petroleum products.

Western owns two former mill sites in Tahsis, totalling 45 hectares. When contacted, company spokeswoman Babita Khunkhun declined to comment on any contaminants that may linger on the properties.

Diner owner Sally Taylor and her partner, councillor Bill Elder, have been around Tahsis long enough to remember the mill years. The couple left town for a few years after the mill closed, eventually returning to start new in the restaurant business and reclaim the slow pace of life.

“Nobody’s in a rush to go anywhere,” Elder says. “A traffic jam is two bicyclists.”

There’s so little crime in Tahsis that the RCMP has no permanent presence; rude Facebook posts are about as nasty as it gets.

And the weather forecast couldn’t be easier. “You wake up and it’s either rainy or sunny,” Elder says.

But Taylor points out the slow village life isn’t enough to support two restaurants, especially in winter. Her competition is the Ocean View, a community hub at the other end of town, offering a cafe, liquor store, gas station and small grocery store. There’s not enough disposal income in the town, she says.

“When the mill was running, everyone who lived here had a job.”

A community vision for McKelvie Creek logging

The Tahsis River drains a mountainous 78 square kilometres. About one-third of that is the major tributary, unlogged McKelvie Creek valley. 

In 2019, Tahsis council passed a motion supporting the “complete preservation” of McKelvie, urging the province to remove the watershed from Western’s Tree Farm Licence (TFL) 19. Based on company statements from 2017, council feared logging could begin in 2020.

From the village you can see the towering ragged peaks of the McKelvie. “It’s a hanging valley, 100 metres above sea level,” Davis says. “It’s never been touched.”

An old cedar, flagged for logging in a cutblock near Tahsis. Photo: Troy Moth

Tahsis council argues that “less than 10 per cent of productive old-growth forests remain on Vancouver Island,” pointing to their importance for biological diversity, ecotourism, and good drinking water. The village gets its drinking water from a well but uses McKelvie Creek as a back-up source. McKelvie Creek helps feed the aquifer that fills the well.

The Village’s concerns may be paying off. Davis says recent discussions with Western suggest the company is prepared to look at the establishment of a network of Old Growth Management Areas and Wildlife Habitat Areas in the McKelvie Valley, which would also protect nesting habitat of the threatened marbled murrelet.

“That would effectively keep them out of there, which is great,” Davis says. “It’s not a provincial or national park, but it’s a pretty high level of protection.” The company is also discussing increased riparian protection along the Tahsis River. “They’re being pretty generous.”

Western remains coy about its plans as it undergoes a timber supply review. “Our harvest plan for the area is still under development in order to take feedback into consideration,” says Khunkhun.

Davis is also seeking to establish a community forest covering perhaps 2,000 hectares of provincial Crown land in the Tahsis valley. The designation would protect viewscapes for tourism and water quality, while permitting selective, small-scale logging to support a potential small local mill or local artisans.

Mayor Davis touring the old growth in the McKelvie Creek watershed. Photo: TJ Watt

Tahsis falls within the traditional territory of the Mowachaht/Muchalaht. Like other First Nations around B.C., they are asserting greater control across their traditional territory following favourable court decisions and in a promised era of reconciliation. The Mowachaht/Muchalaht and Tahsis councils have met and discussed the village’s desire for a community forest licence.

Dorothy Hunt, lands and economic development manager for the Mowachaht/Muchalaht, released a short statement to The Narwhal, saying: “We are aware of the concerns that Tahsis has with logging in and around the township of Tahsis and more specifically McKelvie Creek.” Hunt added that the Mowachaht/Muchalaht presented solutions to B.C. and Western, but did not provide details.

“These types of initiatives and solutions can take many, many years to accomplish,” the statement says.

In the more immediate term, Davis says he has “kernels of a lot of good ideas that need to be fleshed out.”

The Tahsis Inlet. The surrounding region contains stands of unprotected old-growth forest, including ancient Douglas firs. Photo: Troy Moth

The community is well-suited for a shellfish processing plant or closed-containment salmon farm. There are scenic hiking trails, excellent kayaking opportunities and the “largest known concentration of caves in Canada.” B.C. recently declared a 511-hectare Wildlife Habitat Area for Thanksgiving Ridge, about 15 kilometres from the village, which features the deepest cave on Vancouver Island, old-growth habitat, bat colonies and small rare crustaceans.

The Canadian Coast Guard is giving the economy a small boost with construction of a search-and-rescue station in the village as part of the federal government’s $1.5-billion Oceans Protection Plan. The station will cover northwestern Vancouver Island and employ eight people across two shifts, utilizing a 14.7-metre Canadian Coast Guard lifeboat and rigid-hull inflatable.

There are also plans to reactivate old logging roads and create a two-day, round-trip all-terrain vehicle route between Tahsis and Zeballos — another one-horse town located one inlet to the north. Tahsis has already posted signs declaring its streets open to ATVs and requires operators, in part, to travel on the right-hand shoulder and not exceed 20 kilometres per hour. “It’s a whole chunk of tourism we don’t really have access to right now,” Davis explains.

On the edge of town, a couple in their 30s, Troy Moth and Celine Trojand, represents a new generation of residents who can work from anywhere with a reliable internet connection.

They are converting a 75-hectare former logging camp and its smattering of buildings into Art Tahsis, a retreat for learning and creativity in everything from the arts to technology. The idea is for guests to immerse themselves in their subject area and to gain inspiration from the landscape while enjoying local foods.

Artist supplies on the creative campus of Art Tahsis. Photo: Troy Moth

Art Tahsis places an emphasis on local foods. Photo: Troy Moth

Moth is an accomplished photographer — Vogue, Rolling Stone, GQ — who bought the property with two partners in 2016. “We found this property by chance and immediately fell in love with it,” he says. 

Trojand, who settled in full-time about a year ago, has worked for various environmental groups, including Dogwood and Organizing for Change. She is captivated not only by the natural beauty of the area but also by its cultural and historical significance: British Captain James Cook made first contact with coastal Indigenous peoples not far from here at Friendly Cove in 1778. 

“Tahsis is unique in B.C., a place where monumental things have happened,” Trojand says. “It’s impossible to live here and not feel that.”

Residents are generally united in their desire to see Tahsis back on its feet, but opinions vary on how to get there — or if the village can get there, at all.

Carla Haywood, a young musician and tree planter who calls Tahsis home, on the campus of Art Tahsis. Photo: Troy Moth

‘It’ll never change’

During my visit, I find the few Tahsis residents who still make a living at logging trying to stay warm on the Western Forest Products picket line in Gold River. 

I wade in with a sympathetic handshake and a bag of fresh butter tarts from Uptown Cappuccino just up the road. “You don’t have to be from Tahsis to be a brother,” jokes faller Rusty Turner.

I ask them about Davis’ vision for the community, and get a mixed reaction. The timber industry has always been the economic backbone of the community, they remind me.

“Logging has opened up all these towns and all these mountains,” says Tim Greer, born in 1971 and a life-long resident of Tahsis. “People want to go to the top of the mountains, the viewpoints, but how did you get there? You drove there.”

At the same time, the sport-fishing sector is precarious and tourist services in the village are almost non-existent. “There’s no bank machines, nothin’,” says Greer, who currently works in logging road construction and maintenance. “It’ll never change.”

Airbnb offers the most certainty for accommodation. The Westview Marina is only open during fishing season and the Maquinna Resort, at the far end of town, is physically collapsing upon itself.

Steve Choquette, who works heavy-duty equipment loading logs on Nootka Island, says there’s no significant source of employment to attract people and help rebuild the place.

“There’s really nothing there for the people,” he says. “You have to go to town (Campbell River) to do your major shopping. I’ve thought about these questions for 25 years. What do you do here?”

A logging road deferred? 

To witness one of the village’s logging concerns, Davis leads me to a scenic ridge above the east side of town. It’s the site of a potential new logging road for Western Forest Products.

“I should be making a caving suit for someone right now,” he says as we make our way up a steep incline along the so-called Maquinna Trail. “My life is a series of distractions.”

Tahsis has refused to allow the company to drive loaded logging trucks through the village, in part due to concerns about damage to local roads. The company is considering options.

“There’s a magnificent stand of old-growth Douglas firs up there and their road line goes right through the middle of it,” Davis says. “Part of the problem is the instability up there.”

Davis is a fit 62-year-old and it’s a difficult hike — think Grouse Grind, without the nice wooden steps. We pass through a mixed forest of Douglas fir, western hemlock and western red cedar. The understory is salal, sword and deer ferns and rocks carpeted with vibrant green mosses.

Storm-felled trees mine our route. I grab exposed roots to propel myself upward and eventually we reach a forest distinguished by big firs and pink ribbons reading “road location.” 

The terrain certainly does seem steep for a logging road. Davis kicks a rock downhill and it continues rolling out of audible range.

Davis poses beside a boulder on a steep hillside directly above Tahsis. Residents have voice concern about slope instability and rockslides should logging take place on steep hillsides such as this. Photo: TJ Watt

He is hopeful that in light of Western’s new conservation initiatives being discussed for the McKelvie Valley the company will abandon this option and even enhance protection for the trail through here.

“I’ve brought them some pretty nasty publicity in the past. I don’t think they want to go there again.”

We leave the trail and bushwhack along the planned road route then steeply downhill. I wince as I grab the barbed stalk of devil’s club, then repeatedly slip and fall — once skidding a metre on my belly down the bannister of a greasy fallen log. The thick brush around my legs makes it impossible to know where I’m placing my feet.

A tree flagged for removal to make way for a logging road. Photo: TJ Watt

The round trip takes four hours. Back in the village, I find an internet connection and book two physio appointments for my aching 64-year-old back. In that regard, I am leaving Tahsis in the same state as my brother more than half a century ago.

Family ties are only one reason that drew me here. I have always been intrigued with end-of-the-road towns. They can be filled with rich history, fascinating people and unexpected experiences. Tahsis is no exception.

Whether it remains a geographic and social oddity or manages to forge a new sustainable future built on ecotourism remains unclear — except to one person.

Davis is betting that Tahsis has a promising future. His own transition from eco-pariah to eco-mayor is proof enough that the end of the road can also be a place of new beginnings.

Update Monday, May 11, 2020 at 12:57 p.m. PST: This article was update to remove a reference to arbutus growing in near Tahsis. There is no arbutus growing in the region. A photo caption was also updated to indicate the image shows the Tahsis Inlet and not the McKelvie Creek watershed as previously stated and another photo caption was updated to remove a reference to a building being boarded up.

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On April 7, 2012, Brian Cecil Parke ignited an enormous burn pile on his property near Pavilion Lake, west of Cache Creek, B.C. 

The fire burned for two days before he left his property without extinguishing it.

The fire spread 140 hectares over the next 36 days before a call came into the RCMP, which notified the Kamloops Fire Centre of the blaze. 

Parke’s actions landed him in front of a secretive, quasi-judicial body under the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations that, in 2017, ordered him to pony up almost $1 million in provincial firefighting costs, according to freedom of information documents obtained by The Narwhal.

The documents shed light on the little-known work of the ministry to track down firestarters and hold them accountable for their role in creating costly wildfires, which have become increasingly ferocious in recent years due to climate change.

The provincial Wildfire Act allows the B.C. government to recover “fire control costs and related amounts” from those who start wildfires. Those considered responsible have the right to an “opportunity-to-be-heard” proceeding before a “delegated decision maker” in a secretive process known to few outside the system.

The details surrounding the Ministry of Forest’s investigations and resulting wildfire penalties are not made public.

It’s not just individuals who are being held financially responsible — corporations have received the lion’s share of firefighting bills, with one penalty totalling more than $16 million.

And while seeking compensation for damages may be fair and good, some are raising concerns about the need for greater transparency around the penalties and who, ultimately, is responsible for handing them out.

‘No efforts were made to suppress the fire’

Parke’s hearing found he ignited a Category 3 fire — defined as larger than two metres high by three metres wide — and left his property while it was still smouldering. 

According to regulations outlined in the Wildfire Act, a fire of that size requires a fuel break (a gap in vegetation to slow a fire), someone monitoring it to ensure it doesn’t spread beyond its intended size and an official burn registration number with the province. 

Parke did not meet any of these requirements.

Crews fought the resulting blaze for more than a month until June 16, although it wasn’t officially declared extinguished until Sept. 1. 

For his role in the blaze, Parke was eventually handed a penalty of $921,958. 

The government’s itemized claim against Parke included $299,448 for wages and overtime, and $237,733 for helicopters. The smallest amount, $616, was to cover the repair and replacement of equipment. A mandatory overhead fee of 20 per cent of expenses was included in the total.

An itemized list of wildfire fighting expenses charged to Parke under the Wildfire Act. These details were released to The Narwhal through a freedom of information request.

In early 2019, the Forest Appeals Commission, an independent body that allows alleged firestarters to dispute decisions, permitted Parke to appeal the fine. He successfully negotiated an agreement with the province to reduce the amount by close to half, down to $500,162.

During his opportunity-to-be-heard hearing, he complained that it took the province 3.5 years to notify him of its intention to recover costs, raising issues of procedural fairness. He also theorized that trespassers lighting a campfire or arsonists may have been to blame for starting the wildfire. 

The documents note an investigation found Parke had a loader tractor, buckets, a hose, pumps and hand tools on site, but “no efforts were made to suppress the fire.”

Parke’s fine is on the higher side, but the general circumstances that led to his financial penalty are by no means unique. 

The documents reveal that other cases involve private landowners like Parke who got careless burning debris piles or waste in a metal barrel. 

In one case, campfires at a multi-day rave on private property attended by around 50 people got out of control, growing to 1.7 hectares. Provincial staff from the Clearwater and Kamloops fire zones attended the scene, and the unnamed owner of the property and party organizer was ordered in 2017 to pay $12,463 to cover firefighting costs.

Other cases involve major companies, deemed responsible for causing fires from train sparks, flaring at oil and gas operations or shoddy wiring at an outdoor work area.

But just who decides if people and companies are responsible — and how?

B.C.’s natural resource officers unequipped to deal with forestry and wildfire crimes: special investigation

More transparency needed surrounding penalties, ‘informal’ hearing process

Under B.C.’s Wildfire Act and wildfire regulations, the fines associated with causing and failing to extinguish a fire are clearly laid out. 

The province touts some of the highest fines in Canada.

And yet the process through which cost recovery for fighting wildfires is handled remains comparatively opaque. 

Delegated decision makers run hearings where the accused have a chance to defend themselves. These decision makers, who tend to be regional forest centre managers or deputy managers, act like judges, determining responsibility and the firefighting costs to be recovered. 

The fact that these individuals generally come from forestry, rather than legal, backgrounds isn’t necessarily a bad thing, according to Kevin Kriese, chair of the Forest Practices Board.

“The whole idea was not to plug up the courts,” Kriese told The Narwhal. These decision makers receive special training and have access to legal advice to help guide them in the process.

“If you look at fairness and access to justice, it’s a pretty efficient process,” Kriese said, adding the hearings tend to involve a mixture “of law and facts” and “a matter of some professional opinion” as to whether or not there was harm and its significance.

“It’s not a bad idea to have an actual professional or someone with knowledge of the topic making those decisions.”

In a written statement, the Ministry of Forests told The Narwhal an opportunity-to-be-heard hearing is not meant to resemble a civil court process. Rather, the hearing is “an informal fluid process” without pretrial discoveries or pretrial applications.

Kriese said he would welcome greater openness around the process because the prospect of bad publicity could result in fewer wildfires caused by negligence. 

“If a company knows that someone else got fined $25,000 for doing X, that may have deterrent value,” he said. “Companies don’t like these on their books.”

As of April 16 “most open burning activities have been prohibited throughout British Columbia,” according to the BC Wildfire Service. Photo: BC Wildfire Service / Facebook

Vancouver lawyer Steven Wallace, who represented Parke, said there may be a perception that the hearings are biased since they are run by a provincial official seeking to recoup firefighting costs for their own ministry.

Even so, he said, the Forest Appeals Commission, where individuals and companies can fight against fines, is a separate and independent body. 

Further appeals to decisions made by the Forest Practices Board can be brought to the B.C. Supreme Court.

The Forest Practices Board recommended in 2014 that the province create a publicly available, searchable database of penalties that have been handed out by the Ministry of Forests, including those under the Wildfire Act, to increase transparency. Currently, fines are only made public if they’re challenged at the Forest Appeals Commission. 

But the province has been slow to act. 

In its statement, the Ministry of Forests said the recommendation is being considered in light of legislative reform to the Forest and Range Practices Act “to enhance transparency and the public trust.” 

(In light of this opportunity for reform, the Forest Practices Board reissued an appeal in 2019 for greater public disclosure.)

Parke had insurance to cover his bill, but that’s not always the case for landowners, putting them at serious financial risk. 

“Frankly, some [fines] are going to bankrupt people,” Kriese said.

And not all appeals are as successful as Parke’s.

In 2017, the Forest Appeals Commission rejected Madeline Oker’s appeal of an order to pay $113,777 in firefighting costs and a $600 administrative penalty after her debris piles torched 8.7 hectares of Crown land near Fort St. John. 

The commission said in its decision that “although Ms. Oker was experiencing financial hardship and may be unable to pay those costs, the legislation does not recognize an inability to pay as a basis for not ordering a person to pay for fire suppression costs.”

The overriding message from these hearings is that anyone conducting burns in or around a forest must appreciate the serious financial consequences should that fire get out of control, Wallace said. 

“Anybody who is a major landowner with forests or who is working out in the forests must be very mindful of the requirements when dealing with fire.” 

‘Indicative of a truly corrupt system’: government investigation reveals BC Timber Sales violating old-growth logging rules

Corporate offenders make big showing on firestarter list

The freedom of information documents show corporate firestarters are by far the worst — and most stiffly penalized — offenders.

On the morning of June 11, 2015, CN workers cutting a rail line on the tracks near Lytton in the Fraser Canyon sent sparks into nearby grass. The fire danger rating that day was extreme, and rail-cutting is considered a high-risk activity.

Fuelled by dry conditions, strong winds and steep terrain that hampered firefighting efforts, the so-called Cisco Road fire grew stronger. It eventually ravaged 2,200 hectares of Crown land — more than five times the size of Stanley Park — and prompted an evacuation order for the Lytton First Nation.

The blaze wasn’t considered fully extinguished until October but continued to smolder for years — ending with a very pricey outcome for CN. 

In May 2018, CN was ordered to pay the province a whopping $16.28 million in cost-recovery fees and penalties for the fire.

CN disputed the amount to the Forest Appeals Commission, which actually increased the amount on March 20, 2020, to $16.61 million due to new information presented on the extent of wildfire damage.

The upgraded penalty included $169,065 for silviculture and reforestation, a $75,000 administrative penalty, $52,189 for loss of Crown timber, $9.37 million for other forest and grassland resources and $6.94 million for firefighting costs.

CN did not provide The Narwhal with a response.

The penalty against the railway may be the biggest of its kind in B.C.

Fighting forest fires takes a ton of time, resources and money. If you start a blaze in B.C., you could be on the hook for hundreds of thousands — even million — of dollars. Photo: B.C. Wildfire Service

“It’s certainly the largest one I’ve seen,” said Vancouver lawyer Ryan Morasiewicz, who specializes in law related to outdoor adventure. “People have to take these things seriously. I don’t think people realize, holy shit, if you’re negligent, you can be on the hook for a lot of money.” 

In 2013, Telus was found responsible for a tree falling on a power line along a forestry service road in 2006, which created a 380-hectare fire. The company was forced to pay in excess of $2.1 million for fire-control costs and the loss of Crown timber.

The documents also show CN’s problems were not isolated to the Cisco Road fire. The company received a penalty of $321,929 after one of the company’s trains ignited a wildfire that burned 171 hectares of winter habitat for mule deer and an old-growth management area near Williams Lake in 2014.

Forty-four per cent of that fine was for mature Crown timber damaged or destroyed by the fire. The rest was to cover other affected forests and grasslands. 

The Forest Appeals Commission reduced the company’s penalty to $203,597 in 2017.

CN was also ordered to pay $142,974 in 2017 for three wildfires within a span of about two months near Spences Bridge, Chetwynd and Hansard — a railway point northwest of the junction of the Fraser River and Bowron River. 

The company paid an additional $199,727 in 2019 for six fires — near Houston, Burns Lake, Kumsheen, Boston Bar and two near Lytton.

CP has also had its troubles. In 2019, the company was ordered to pay $155,247 for two fires, about two months apart, north of Spences Bridge and south of Lytton, the latter caused by rail-cutting.

Climate change making fires worse and more expensive to fight

British Columbia stands to face an ever-growing threat from wildfires due to global warming. 

The last decade was the hottest on record. Warmer temperatures mean drier forests, more dead trees from drought and beetle infestation and more frequent lightning strikes. These conditions are causing bigger wildfires that burn hotter and faster. 

The province got off relatively lucky in 2019, when 21,138 hectares burned at a firefighting cost of $182.5 million.

That came as a relief after two back-to-back record-breaking wildfire seasons. In 2017, 1.21 million hectares at cost of $649 million and in 2018 an estimated 1.35 million hectares burned at a cost of $615 million.

In those two years, humans caused 41 per cent and 25 per cent of the fires, respectively.

Fighting climate change is a tough uphill battle. Taking personal and corporate responsibility for ensuring fires do not get out of control is well within our reach.

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.

WorkSafeBC has fined a forest company $29,049 for the deaths of three workers in a “high-risk” railway accident on northern Vancouver Island. That’s barely five per cent of the $514,991 fine levied against one municipality for a separate work-place violation related to traffic-control practices in which no employees were injured, much less killed.

Details posted this week on WorkSafeBC’s website reveal that workers with Western Forest Products Inc. were moving railcars loaded with logs on a railway siding, near Woss, in April 2017. Eleven loaded cars on the Englewood Railway rolled out of the siding and onto the main line and struck a maintenance vehicle, pushing it into a backhoe. Three workers died, two were seriously injured.

Western Forest Products reported a net income of $69.2 million in 2018.

The WorkSafeBC investigation determined that a derail device intended to stop free-rolling railcars had not been installed with proper ties and ballast. “The firm is being penalized for failing to ensure the health and safety of all workers,” WorkSafeBC states. “This was a high-risk violation.”

A Western Forest Products train derailed in 2017 near Woss, B.C., killing three workers and seriously injuring two more. Photo: RCMP / WorkSafeBC

A separate report by the federal Transportation Safety Board in December 2018 concluded, in part: “If emergency procedures relating to hazards during switching operations, including radio communication procedures, are not practised on a regular basis, there is an increased risk that the procedures will not be followed in an emergency situation.”

This isn’t the only case in which a relatively small fine was levied against a company for a worker’s death.

This week’s web postings by WorkSafeBC also show that Craftsman Glass Inc. was fined $2,500 after a worker fell almost four metres from the unguarded edge of a mezzanine. Temporary guardrails had been removed for the worker to perform the work task, and no other form of fall protection had been in place. The firm had also not conducted a risk assessment, established safe work practices, or provided the worker with fall protection equipment or training to safely perform work at heights.

These two cases involving work-place deaths contrast sharply with the $514,991 fine levied against the Township of Langley in May 2018 for a work-place violation having far less serious consequences.

Asked to explain the wide discrepancy, Craig Fitzsimmons, director of government, community and media relations for WorkSafeBC, said in a written statement that the amount of a penalty is based on the nature of the violation, an employer’s history of violations and the size of the employer’s payroll.

“The investigation determined that the violation was specific to the Englewood forestry operation,” he said. “Consequently, the calculation of the penalty to Western Forest Products was based on the payroll at its Englewood location.”

The primary purpose of an administrative penalty is to motivate the employer receiving the penalty — and other employers — to comply with occupational health and safety rules, and to keep their workplaces safe, Fitzsimmons added.

Subsequent to the three deaths, Western Forest Products ceased all rail operations at its Englewood forest operation. All logs are now hauled by truck.

Babita Khunkhun, spokeswoman for Western Forest Products, said in a written statement: “The safety and security of our employees has and always will be our number one priority. This was a tragic incident that will forever impact the families of those lost and injured, all of those who worked alongside them and our company as a whole. We continue to work to ensure that families, workers and all affected by this tragic incident are supported in any way we can.”

‘That’s not even $10,000 per life’: Union

Steve Hunt, a western Canada director with the United Steelworkers, representing forest workers, said the fines are insufficient and he would like the RCMP to consider charges of criminal negligence causing death in the case.

“Not enough done,” he said. “That’s not even $10,000 per life. They were negligent.”

Bill C-45, the so-called Westray Bill, named after a coal mining disaster took 26 lives in Nova Scotia and enacted in 2004, established new legal duties for workplace health and safety, and established serious penalties for corporate offenders in cases of injury or death.

In the Langley case, WorkSafeBC concluded that traffic-control plans at three sites operated by a contractor “were inadequate or were not being followed correctly.” One worker, rather than the required two, was employed at certain locations, adequate escape routes were lacking and one supervisor was not “adequately trained or certified in traffic control.”

WorkSafeBC found that the municipality “failed to ensure that effective traffic control was used whenever traffic could be hazardous to workers, a high-risk and repeated violation.”

Langley has requested a review of the fine.

In another recent public-sector case, North Cowichan was fined $133,926 in January 2018 after an employee was seriously injured while working on the vertical chute of an ice-resurfacing machine.

WorkSafeBC determined that the equipment was not locked out while maintenance work was done, no written lockout procedures for the ice resurfacing machine were available and the worker had not been properly trained.

In another timber-industry case, WorkSafeBC fined West Fraser Mills Ltd. $637,415 in March this year after a worker with a subcontractor’s firm was seriously injured while vacuuming ash at a fibreboard plant in Quesnel.

The investigation cited an adequate assessment of the risks associated with accumulated hot ash, adding: “Safe work procedures had not been communicated to the subcontractor firm, and the subcontractor’s workers had not been trained in the work task.”

West Fraser is seeking a review of the fine.

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.

Imagine a complex forestry violation. Say a timber company fails to adequately replant a logging site or to ensure that the contours of a clearcut are not visually jarring from a distance. Now imagine the provincial law-enforcement officer assigned to investigate those violations of provincial laws has no training in how to gather evidence.

Or, think about a suspicious wildfire. Nearby there’s a vehicle that may be connected to the blaze but officers in the field are so poorly equipped they can’t even conduct a check on the vehicle’s registration.

This is the state of affairs for natural resource officers in B.C., the individuals who patrol the province’s forests to enforce a broad suite of natural resource rules, covering everything from trail maintenance to fire bans to monitoring wildlife closures to inspecting logging operations.  

According to a “special investigation” by the Forest Practices Board, a government watchdog on provincial forest operations, oversight of two key pieces of legislation — the Forest and Range Practices Act and the Wildfire Act — is suffering due to major gaps at B.C.’s Compliance and Enforcement branch where natural resource officers are housed.

Kevin Kriese, chair of the Forest Practices Board, said there is a concern that officers responsible for monitoring forestry are catching the small, easily handled infractions and missing the big-picture investigations.

“It’s almost like you’re hiring a cop when what you need is a detective,” Kriese, who served eight years as an assistant deputy minister with the province, told The Narwhal.

“Forestry is complicated and you need a mix of people with different skills. They need more of the professionals to handle the complexity of forestry.

“We don’t want to worry about jay walking, to be honest … stepping over the dollars to pick up the pennies and nickels. We’re more worried about the more complex transactions. That’s where the energy should be focussed.”

The Forest Practices Board, a government watchdog on provincial forest operations, emphasizes that the public has the right to expect regular inspections of forestry operations to hold logging companies accountable for their practices.

But there’s no evidence of this happening — despite repeated warnings to government.

The public ‘cannot be confident’: report

“It’s cause for concern,” Doug Donaldson, Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, said in response to the report.

“Forests are a publicly held natural asset and the public wants to feel confident there’s proper oversight on the activities we approve on the land base,” Donaldson told The Narwhal.

In 2013 the Forest Practices Board complained about a reduction in forestry inspections, and in 2014 reiterated problems with the compliance and enforcement program — both during BC Liberal administrations.

This latest report concludes that the public “cannot be confident” with the branch’s enforcement actions and that “major weaknesses and gaps” still exist.

“Unfortunately, this most recent investigation finds that the situation has not improved and the concerns raised in those earlier reports remain,” the board finds.

NDP plans for improvement

Donaldson said his ministry is already implementing a new “delivery model” in which some duties of natural resource officers such as campfire bans, recreation site and trail patrols, and wildlife area closures — are transferred to the Conservation Officer Service, within the Ministry of Environment.

Twenty new conservation officers with the environment ministry were sworn in one year ago, bringing the total to 164 around the province, including those in administration.

“[Natural resource officers] will move away from patrol work and focus on inspections and investigations … rather than just waiting and reacting to potential violations,” he said.

“This is legitimately what the public wants to know about: are the major licencees in compliance?”

4,000 complaints between 2017 and 2018

B.C.’s Compliance and Enforcement Branch employs about 150 staff province-wide, including 83 natural resource officers conducting inspections, patrols, and investigations.

The officers received almost 4,000 complaints in the 2017-18 fiscal year — virtually all of those involving four pieces of legislation: Wildfire Act (1,185), Land Act (1,060), Water Sustainability Act (930), and Forest Resources Practices Act (722).  

B.C.’s Natural Resource Officers spent nearly two-thirds of their time enforcing the Forest Range and Practices Act and the Wildfire Act, 2017-2018. Source: Forest Practices Board. Graph: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

Officers spent relatively little time investigating woodlots, archaeology and foreshore issues despite these being listed as among the board’s priorities for 2017-2018.

As part of its special investigation, the board heard from natural resource officers that the Compliance and Enforcement branch “has not fully committed to being a fully equipped enforcement agency with all the training, tools and policies needed for all types of enforcement issues they may encounter.”

Little resources, little training for officers

Forestry laws are complicated and natural resource officers can join the branch without knowing how to properly conduct investigations — and they don’t necessarily receive proper training on the job, either.

Donaldson puts the blame on the former Liberals for gutting the B.C. Forest Service.

“I take the report seriously,” he said. “The legacy of the last government was a decrease in oversight in the forest sector. We’ve got to turn that around for people to feel we’re managing the forests for the benefit of the public.”

Natural Resource officer Denise Blid posts a seizure notice to poached timber. Photo: B.C. Compliance and Enforcement Branch

A report by Sierra Club BC and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in 2010 noted that in less than a decade, the forest service had lost 1,006 positions, or roughly one quarter of its workforce, and that from 2001/2002 to 2004/2005 field inspections by compliance and enforcement staff fell by 46 per cent.

This latest Forest Practices Board report reveals that new natural resource officers often “do not have experience in natural resource management” and are not supported with adequate training opportunities.

“They do not possess the knowledge and experience to identify and investigate the more complex aspects of provincial forestry legislation.”

Eye should be more on the forestry ball: board chair

With experienced staff retiring, mentorship opportunities are also diminishing.

New officers “prefer to issue violation tickets for straight-forward non-compliances, rather than investigate complex non-compliances,” the report says, adding there is a perception among some officers that forestry and wildfire investigations “are too complex, time consuming and difficult to pursue.”

The investigation also found officers have trouble connecting with specialists within the ministry who can help gather evidence and decide if a contravention has occurred.

During summers when patrols are busy reacting to wildfires, oversight of forestry infractions is put on the back burner.

“We think they need to keep their eye on the forestry ball more than they have,” Kriese, who was appointed by Minister Donaldson, said.

The board’s investigation also found the branch “does not have a transparent compliance and enforcement program. It does not regularly or comprehensively report its activities, enforcement actions, outcomes or compliance rates to the public.”

Kriese said the board is not suggesting more money and staff for the branch because there is not enough information available to make that conclusion.

“Without data to analyze compliance rates we don’t know if that’s enough,” Kriese said.

He did note that when the board itself conducts audits of individual forest company operations, it observes “fairly high industry compliance with the legislation.”

Fewer inspections causing frustrations all around

In February this year the board audited BC Timber Sales and licensees in the Dawson Creek timber supply area and found practices generally complied with Forest Range and Practices Act and the Wildfire Act.

The audit also found room for improvement to BC Timber Sales’ bridge maintenance, and found problems with two timber sale licence holders related to excessive soil disturbance and the need to complete fire hazard assessments.

Mina Laudan, vice-president of public affairs for the Council of Forest Industries, said in a written statement: “The B.C. forest sector is one of the most highly regulated industries in the province, with the majority of industry’s operations meeting internationally-recognized criteria for environmental management systems.”

However, the Forest Practices Board report makes it clear that industry has its own beefs when it comes to compliance and enforcement issues.

Forest companies see natural resource officers less often in the field these days, resulting in fewer inspections of their operations. When issues do arise, officers are more likely to write enforcement tickets rather than seek a resolution over the phone. Logging companies, the board found, would appreciate being notified when an inspection reveals they are doing a good job.

The board report is troubling news to B.C.’s environmental movement.

Joe Foy, co-executive director of the Vancouver-based Wilderness Committee, is not impressed that under-resourced, inadequately trained officers are tagged with protecting B.C.’s forests, water and wildlife from illegal acts.

The report noted not all officers can query police systems to identify the owner of a motor vehicle or the background of a person of interest in the field.

Foy allows that the NDP minority government inherited a ministry “decimated” by the former Liberals, but says he is still waiting for change.

“Even under the new provincial government the big timber companies are still running the show,” he laments.

The board has asked the Ministry to report back on efforts to improve forestry compliance and enforcement by December 31.

Update: Thursday, May 2 9:21am PST. This story’s first paragraph was updated to clarify the nature of violations under the Forest and Range Practices Act. 

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Fish scientist Eric Taylor wanted to make a difference.

He was more than happy to toil behind the scenes if it helped to save a slew of at-risk Canadian species, be they the iconic Pacific sockeye salmon or the obscure Acadian redfish.

After chairing the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) for the past four years, however, Taylor departs a frustrated, anxious man.

While the federal Species at Risk Act (SARA) has done some good since it took effect in 2002, including increased monitoring, assessments and public awareness, the legislation remains too cumbersome, is riddled with political loopholes and is failing Canada’s most vulnerable species, such as salmon and steelhead populations in B.C.

“A long, winding and never-ending road,” is how Taylor, professor of zoology and director of the Beaty Biodiversity Museum at the University of British Columbia, describes the federal process of formally listing a species.

“It just takes too damn long.”

Action plans with no action

COSEWIC is an independent body of scientists established to impartially assess the status of at-risk plants and animals and make recommendations to the federal government for SARA listings, including endangered, threatened or special concern.

Take a deep breath — the listing process is a cumbersome one.

First, COSEWIC makes a recommendation, then government provides a response statement, followed by a round of public consultation, a recovery-potential assessment, a regulatory impact statement analysis, more public consultation and, ultimately, a ministerial recommendation to cabinet — which then has nine months to list the species, to not list or refer back to COSEWIC for further consideration.

“There are several steps in the process, and all it takes is one of those steps … to hold everything else up,” Taylor laments.

Eric Taylor, professor of zoology and director of the Beaty Biodiversity Museum at the University of British Columbia. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Freshwater fish specimens, stored at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum where Taylor is the curator of fishes. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Once the government finally decides to list a species as endangered, the process of developing a recovery strategy begins, including more public consultation and, finally, an action plan. Of the latter, Taylor snorts: “It’s a stupid term. It’s a plan to do something. Why not just frickin’ do it?”

When all is said and done, he adds: “There’s nothing in there, nothing mandated, that actually says you have to do anything to help the animals and plants on the ground.”

“They have to report on what they’ve done, and that report could say, ‘we haven’t done anything, yet,’ ” Taylor says.

Critical habitat ‘can be destroyed with impunity’

Indeed, lack of protection for critical habitat is another key weak point in the legislation.

Mike Pearson, an independent biologist and expert in endangered freshwater fishes and amphibians in the Fraser Valley, notes that the vast majority of species listed under the Species at Risk Act are threatened primarily by habitat loss.

The act protects the residence of an endangered species — say, a nest or den — and protects against the animal being killed or harassed.

At least, that’s the theory.

The Oregon spotted frog is the rarest amphibian in Canada and listed as endangered; critical habitat has been mapped and the recovery strategy completed.

Yet Pearson watched helplessly the other day as an Agassiz farmer torched a riparian area within the frog’s known breeding site — and in the middle of breeding season, no less.

A scorched riparian area at an Agassiz farm. Photo: Mike Pearson

Since biologists are not permitted to survey for the frogs on the farmer’s private land “there is no way to prove that the frogs/eggs were present at the time” of the fire, Pearson says.

“Essentially, a lot of endangered species’ critical habitat in B.C. can be destroyed with impunity.”

Few convictions for breaking species at risk laws

There’s been fewer than one conviction per year on average under the Species at Risk Act.

In October 2018, a World Wildlife Fund report concluded that at-risk populations continued to decline by an average of 28 per cent since the act took effect in 2002.

There are 451 vertebrate species in Canada experiencing population declines. Between 1970 and 2014 these species showed an average decline of 83 per cent. Source: Living Planet Index, WWF-Canada. Graphic: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

There are 64 vertebrate species listed under the federal Species at Risk Act (SARA) as of 2017. Between 1970 and 2002, when the act was adopted, these species showed a decline of 43 per cent. Source: Living Planet Index, WWF-Canada. Graphic: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

After the Species at Risk Act (SARA) was introduced in 2002, the 64 species listed in its registry showed a decline of 28 per cent between 2002 and 2014. Source: Living Planet Index, WWF-Canada. Graphic: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

In some cases, the federal government moves only after being hauled to court.

Ecojustice, a charity that advances environmental litigation, has achieved a handful of successes, forcing the federal government to act on critical habitat of endangered species, including the greater sage-grouse on the Prairies and both the Nooksack dace and southern resident killer whale in B.C.

Ecojustice lawyer Sean Nixon says one of the big problems is that provinces — not the federal government — own most of the land, yet Ottawa is reluctant to force provinces to protect habitat. “It’s jurisdictional timidity, just not willing to step on a province’s toes.”

Marine fishes less likely to be listed

In 1996, the provinces and the territories and the federal government signed an accord on bringing in legislation to protect endangered species. But 21 years later, Alberta, B.C., Saskatchewan and the Yukon still have no stand-alone legislation (PDF) on endangered species.

In February 2018, a University of Ottawa study concluded that the Species at Risk Act’s failings included inadequate funding, insufficient incentives for stewardship among private landowners and industry, patchy efforts to protect the act on provincial and territorial crown land and private land and a lack of information on effectiveness of recovery actions.

The process of listing has been especially problematic for marine fishes. It’s no exaggeration to say you could fill an aquarium with all the species recommended for listing by COSEWIC that are still awaiting federal protection under the Species at Risk Act.

Ottawa is reluctant to list a species if doing so may have serious economic and social implications.

And when it does act, Taylor says, government tends to choose the least protective option, listing these species as of “special concern” — a category that avoids no-take, no-harm directives.

“It is a well-known fact that things hunted and fished tend not to get listed by the minister.”

As of 2018, he noted, almost 100 per cent of birds recommended by COSEWIC had been listed compared with fewer than 40 per cent for marine fishes — the lowest of 10 categories ranging from birds and mammals to molluscs and mosses.

“If you’re a bird and you get a recommendation for listing by COSEWIC, it’s almost always a slam dunk,” Taylor says.

“If you’re a marine fish, chances are you will not get listed.”

Government action not guaranteed for listed species

Typically, it takes two years for COSEWIC to reach a recommendation, but emergency assessments can be made much faster when there is an imminent and dire threat.

Even in those cases, there is no guarantee of government action.

In January 2018, COSEWIC recommended emergency listing for endangered Chilcotin River and Thompson River steelhead runs after the number of returning adults dipped to just 58 and 177 individuals, respectively.

Steelhead trout spawners over the last threegenerations have declined 79 per cent (over 15 years) for the Thompson River unit and 81 per cent (over 18 years) forthe Chilcotin unit. Source: Canada Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Graphic: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

Fisheries and Oceans Canada has still not acted.

“They could do it in 24 hours if they wanted to,” Taylor says. “If the political will is there, they can do these things. SARA for salmon and steelhead? It’s a major disappointment. It’s done very little for those animals.”

COSEWIC strictly looks at the species’ conservation status, while Canada must consider the greater implications of a listing.

“Protecting species under the Species at Risk Act, even on an emergency basis, is a regulatory decision with potential impacts on Canadians,” federal fisheries spokeswoman Janine Malikian said in a written statement. “We want to ensure that decisions support sustainability and the best results for Canadians.”

“SARA for salmon and steelhead? It’s a major disappointment. It’s done very little for those animals.”

While a decision has yet to be made on Thompson and Chilcotin steelhead, Malikian said: “Conservation of these steelhead populations remains an extremely high priority and will be a focus of decisions with respect to fisheries management plans for the year ahead.”

Canada, Taylor argues, wrongly believes it can have it all.

“They don’t want to protect them because they have this crazy notion that you can somehow grow the economy and protect the environment at the same time. In most cases, they’re two opposites. You can’t have both at the same time.”

Endangered stocks can migrate upstream with larger healthier mixed-stock runs and become caught in fisheries, including First Nation gillnets in the Fraser River.

“I don’t really care who you are,” Taylor says. “No group has the right to fish something to extinction. Fisheries can be a very important part of reconciliation, but these fish shouldn’t be sacrificed to reconciliation and I don’t think any First Nation would want that.”

More public engagement, stricter timelines needed

Taylor asserts that the federal decision to list a species is influenced by business, jobs and votes. Climate-change related events, such as destructive floods and fires, may help to change public minds and pressure their government to act more quickly, including for marine fishes, he adds.

COSEWIC designated the Cultus Lake sockeye endangered in an emergency listing in 2002. The federal government decided against listing the population, citing “significant socio-economic impacts on sockeye fishers and coastal communities.”

Taylor said the public needs to be more engaged.

“You need millions of people to care about these animals and plants and most people just don’t. It’s sad but it’s true.”

Taylor at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Beaty Biodiversity Museum, University of British Columbia. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Freshwater fish samples, collected in B.C. in the 1950s and stored at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Little has changed on the ground since the Liberals took power in 2015, Taylor argues.

“The bottom line, I’d say that the state of our biodiversity in Canada hasn’t changed much since they’ve come in,” he says, noting it will take more than a single four-year term of office to reverse a “legacy of inaction.”

“You need millions of people to care about these animals and plants and most people just don’t. It’s sad but it’s true.”

The federal government announced several measures Tuesday to help protect depressed chinook stocks on the Fraser River, which prevents sport anglers in southern B.C. from taking chinook until July 14, followed by a daily limit of one per person through December 31. Season limits drop to 10 chinook from 30.

Commercial troll fisheries for chinook are closed until August 20, while First Nations’ food, social and ceremonial fishing is closed until July 15.

In 2017, Richard Cannings, a prominent naturalist and NDP MP for South Okanagan-West Kootenay, introduced a private member’s bill to amend the Species at Risk Act to impose stricter timelines on the government.

The bill would have required that after receiving a COSEWIC recommendation, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change would have one year to recommend to cabinet that the assessment be accepted and the species added to the list, the species not be added or the matter be referred back to COSEWIC for further consideration.

Cabinet would have one month to act or the minister would by order list the species, or provide reasons why not or what action is planned.

Under the current situation the clock only starts ticking on action once the minister informs cabinet of a COSEWIC recommendation — a loophole the former Conservative government of Stephen Harper exploited to ignore COSEWIC.

“It was a very reasonable bill,” Cannings told The Narwhal. “The whole point is to make it a timely, open and transparent process.”

A skeleton of a blue whale, on permanent display at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Cannings withdrew the bill after Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna agreed that as a matter of government policy a decision on listing a species would be made within two years — or three years for commercial/hunted species.

“To give them the benefit of the doubt, they’re facing a very big backlog of species that have been ignored during the Conservative years,” Cannings allows.

Taylor’s solution is “very firm time limits” on when the minister must make a decision on recommendations for endangered species listing.

The feds should automatically accept COSEWIC recommendations for listing to avoid the “active harming or killing” of species at risk. Then “take all the time they want” to consider the social and economic consequence of maintaining or tweaking the listing.

“They should automatically go on the list, right away.”

Simply pouring more money into the problem is not the answer, he says.

Federal fisheries Minister Jonathan Wilkinson and B.C. Premier John Horgan announced last month that the two governments will provide a total of $142.8 million toward a five-year program to protect and enhance wild salmon.

“Come on people,” says Taylor, noting the time for concrete action is long overdue.

“They love to throw money at things … but it won’t do any good.”

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When the governments of Canada and Saskatchewan publicly squared off in court in Regina this month over the constitutionality of a federally imposed carbon tax, a lesser organization was quietly advancing its own case, on behalf of young Canadians and future generations.

The Intergenerational Climate Coalition, an intervenor in the case, argued that the Canadian government has a constitutional obligation to protect minorities, including future generations of children who stand to be negatively impacted by climate change.

“No jurisdiction, federal or provincial, should be able to use the constitutional division of powers to defeat other constitutional commitments to younger Canadians and future generations,” says Paul Kershaw, founder of Generation Squeeze, the lead of six organizations that form the coalition.

The Canadian government’s Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act of 2018 imposes a federal price on greenhouse gas emissions for any province or territory that does not adopt the federal program or implement its own carbon tax. The initial tax is $10 per tonne annually of carbon-dioxide equivalent, rising to $50 per tonne in 2022.

The preamble of the act states: “Parliament recognizes it is the responsibility of the present generation to minimize impacts of climate change on future generations.”

But does the federal tax intrude unlawfully into provincial jurisdiction? Saskatchewan went to the province’s Court of Appeal on Feb. 13 and 14 in a reference case to determine if the act is unconstitutional in whole or in part. A decision in the case is pending.

Ontario has launched its own legal challenge of the federal tax, a case scheduled to be heard April 15 to 18 in the Court of Appeal in Toronto. The Canadian government argues that the carbon tax falls within the “peace, order and good government” clause in the Constitution Act of 1867.

Young people to bear harshest climate impacts

Documents submitted into court by the Intergenerational Climate Coalition warn that global warming is poised to increase temperatures by 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2030, causing “extreme weather events, rising sea levels and droughts, as well as higher rates of heat-related deaths and cardiovascular, respiratory and infectious diseases.”

Due to political decisions made before they could vote, the documents read, children “will live their entire lives under the mounting environmental, economic, and health stresses” caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

Kershaw, an associate professor in the University of British Columbia’s School of Population and Public Health, says Generation Squeeze is meant to provide a voice for younger Canadians in their 20s to 40s in politics and the marketplace — everything from stagnant incomes to rising debts and unaffordable housing.

Supporting the federal carbon-tax initiative won’t help today’s young people get into their first homes or find better-paying jobs, but it will help provide them with the healthier future that they deserve, Kershaw argues.

“Experts now identify climate change as the greatest risk to human health in the 21st century,” he says. “The health harms are disproportionately being borne by younger Canadians and future generations. Clearly, we should be thinking about pricing pollution as a health intervention.”

“Experts now identify climate change as the greatest risk to human health in the 21st century.” — Paul Kershaw, Generation Squeeze

U.S. economist William Nordhaus, a supporter of carbon taxes to slow carbon emissions, shared in the Nobel Prize in 2018 just as the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that urgent changes are needed to fight global warming and reduce threats such as heat and drought.

“Every government should have the ability to use every tool in its legislative tool box to fight off what climate change has in store,” Kershaw says.

Formed in 2011, Generation Squeeze has supported a range of government initiatives across the country, including: the push for $10-a-day childcare in B.C.; the City of Vancouver’s tax on empty homes, set at one per cent of a property’s assessed taxable value; and working with municipalities on densification issues.

Kershaw sees the need to counter publicity garnered this month by a convoy of trucks known as United We Roll driving from Alberta to Ottawa to protest federal oil policies.

Student climate strikes sweeping globe

Students strikes might just be the answer.

Thousands of students walked out of classrooms across the United Kingdom this month in a national climate-change protest called Youth Strike 4 Climate. The movement, inspired by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, is leading to a global school walkout planned for March 15.

“That’s a moment where we really do need to get students excited,” Kershaw says. “Can we repeat that in Canada?”

Canada’s big student strike is set for May 3, although there are also events planned for March 15.

Other members of the Intergenerational Climate Coalition are Public Health Association of B.C., Saskatchewan Public Health Association, Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, Youth Climate Lab and Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children.

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.

For decades, B.C. has been the wild west in terms of fossil management, with prized specimens damaged by development, exploited for commerce and winding up in private hands or in major institutions outside the province.  

Gone are dinosaur tracks from the Peace River, fish fossils from Wapiti Lake and rare plant specimens from a chert site near Princeton. The biggest prize of all? A world-record 21-metre marine reptile — an ichthyosaur, Shonisaurus sikanniensis — plucked from the Sikanni Chief River and now on prominent display in the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alta.

Protection for B.C.’s fossils has been a long time coming, but, finally, a new provincial policy is being rolled out that not only puts collectors on notice, but industrial operators whose activities might destroy fossils on Crown land.

“The days of fossils just drifting off to other parts of Canada are gone,” asserts Richard Linzey, director of B.C.’s Heritage Branch, in Victoria. “We now value fossils, and they are managed alongside other values — cultural heritage, moose and crucial fish habitat, things like that. It’s very exciting.”

The largest marine reptile ever known to swim the oceans — the 21-metre ichthyosaur, Shonisaurus sikanniensis — was removed from British Columbia’s Sikanni Chief River starting in 2000 and taken to the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alta. Photo: The Royal Tyrrell Museum

The new policy — officially, the Fossil Management Framework — applies across all natural resource ministries, and establishes the government’s ownership over fossils for their scientific, educational and heritage value.

The province is also seeking public input on designation of a provincial fossil. The short-list lacks the familiarity of the dogwood as B.C.’s official flower, our bird the Steller’s jay, or the Spirit Bear as our mammal, and includes obscure tongue-twister luminaries such as the single-celled Fusulinid foraminifera.

Fossils are defined under the Land Act as “preserved remains, traces or imprints of organisms from the geological past,” but do not include human remains or artifacts. Up until a few years ago fossils were lumped within minerals. “If you took out a mineral tenure, you had rights to the fossils,” Linzey says.

The government has now created an online map of areas where individuals and companies can expect to find fossils, including Vancouver Island, Haida Gwaii, Princeton-Merritt-Kamloops, southeastern and northeastern B.C., and the central Interior plateau. “If I am building my wind farm or housing estate, what are the chances of coming across fossils?” Linzey says.

The eosalmo-driftwoodensis is an ancient prefigure of the modern day salmon. The province of B.C. is currently asking members of the public to weigh in on which fossil should become a provincial symbol. Cast your vote before November 23, 2018. Photo: Province of B.C.

Fossil finds must now be reported to government

Under the new policy, companies should develop protocols and review the map before undertaking work. Any fossils discovered must be reported to the province’s Heritage Branch, which will determine the importance of the specimens, whether they must be removed or ways development might proceed to minimize risk of damage. If removal is required to a local museum or Royal BC Museum — the official steward of the province’s fossils — the company must pay the costs.

Going forward, if a company’s activities on Crown land require an environmental assessment within a known fossil area, then a fossil impact assessment must also be done. Any researchers seeking to remove fossils must obtain a permit.

Elisabeth Deom, in charge of paleontology for the Heritage Branch, confirms the policy is a huge advance from even a decade ago: “Let’s say there were no rules, per se, for fossil resources.”

The McAbee fossil beds, a 53-million-year-old forest east of Cache Creek, were commercially exploited for years until the site received provincial heritage designation in 2012. There are now calls for the beds to be declared a UNESCO World Heritage site.

During the first year of B.C.’s new fossil policy, the government will concentrate on education. Over the last five years, 49 investigations under the Heritage Conservation Act have led to zero fines and 13 cases in which stop-work directives were issued, none for fossils. Natural resource officers are tasked with compliance and enforcement under the new fossil policy.

While the province is also asking private individuals to report the discovery of fossils, Linzey notes “we can’t control everything” and that the goal is to “socialize people to the idea that fossils are important.” Individuals already possessing collections can keep them as custodians on behalf of the province.

Deom takes a glass-half-full approach to amateurs who’ve scooped up fossils over the decades for private collection or commercial sale. “They’ve collected, but they’ve also passed on the information on this sites so that local communities can take care of them. A lot of those collections have, in fact, been going to museums as a result. For me, it’s more happy stories than gloom-and-doom ones.”

Private collectors agree.

Wayne Sawchuk, one of the province’s leading amateur fossil hunters, based in the Peace River area, notes “there’s always been a tension between the private and scientific collectors.” In past years, Sawchuk collected fossils because they were at risk of being washed away, but that’s changed as Tumbler Ridge has emerged as a regional centre for the display of fossils, with the Dinosaur Discovery Gallery.

In 2002, Sawchuk discovered only the second dinosaur bones in B.C., in a canyon during an excursion with the Tumbler Ridge Museum Foundation. Sawchuk believes that private individuals will continue to play a role by rescuing fossils valuable in their own right, but of no interest to institutions.

“Anything out in the open deteriorates very quickly,” he warns. “Within five to 10 years a lot of these things will be destroyed.”

Eva Koppelhus, curator for paleobotany and palynology collections at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, with a collection of plant fossils obtained from a chert site near Princeton, B.C. Photo: Philip Currie

Cataloguing more than a century of finds

The other key component of the new policy is to create a database of B.C. fossils currently stored with major institutions across the country — not just Royal Tyrrell Museum, but University of Alberta in Edmonton, Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa.

Easier said than done.

Eva Koppelhus, curator of paleobotany and palynology at the University of Alberta, reckons she has about 100,000 B.C. specimens in her collection, much of those from the Princeton fossil site, but the vast majority hasn’t been catalogued onto a computer. She told the B.C. government it should consider hiring some university students to help digitalize the collection, but hasn’t heard back.

Royal Tyrell has a better handle on it, estimating 11,800 B.C. fossils in its collection, much of those from the famous Burgess Shale fossil deposit in Yoho National Park in the Rocky Mountains — federal lands not subject to the province’s new fossil policy. The museum also has dinosaur tracks obtained during construction of the WAC Bennett dam, in the 1960s. “I’m not aware of any permits that were used to collect this stuff,” says Brandon Strilisky, head of collections.

The Burgess Shale is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, located high in the Rocky Mountains. According to The Burgess Shale Geological Foundation, the area “is a record of one of the earliest marine ecosystems giving a tantalizing glimpse of life as it was over 500 million years ago.” Photo: Chloe Johnson / The Burgess Shale Geological Foundation

Site C dam construction expected to unearth many fossils

The Royal BC Museum states that “planned development of the Site C dam by BC Hydro will undoubtedly generate many specimens from multiple sites in an area well known to be rich in fossils.”

BC Hydro says it already has in place a paleontological inventory and impact assessment to record and evaluate paleontological sites, and has collected more than 1,000 specimens to date. (An inspection report from the B.C. Environmental Assessment office last year found that BC Hydro had violated its environmental assessment certificate for Site C, failing to develop acceptable mitigation measures for an aboriginal sweat lodge and suspected burial site.)

Strilisky supports B.C.’s new policy, saying “late is better than never,” and noting Ontario and Quebec also lack fossil protection.

“These are animals that are never going to walk the Earth again. This is your last-ditch effort to protect them.”

And while B.C. is not demanding the return of any fossils — at least, not yet — Strilisky notes that Alberta is represented in the dinosaur collections of Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C., and American Museum of Natural History, in New York City. “We’ve never considered asking to have those repatriated,” he says. “It’s free marketing for the province, we have a place on the world stage when it comes to the understanding of the history of animals.”

One of the biggest challenges ahead for B.C. is to find the resources to house a potential onslaught of new fossils. The Royal BC Museum already houses about 90,000 fossils, and expects the need for storage space to almost triple during the next three to five years, including from donations from private collectors. So far, no decision has been made on how that’s going to be funded.

“I anticipate the collection to grow rapidly,” confirms Victoria Arbour, the new curator of paleontology at Royal BC Museum. Some specimens, such as dinosaur bones, can fall victim to pyrite disease and decay if stored in humid conditions. “We want to hold ourselves to a high level of care.”

For fossils measured in the millions of years, it seems the wait for a permanent home in B.C will continue a little longer.

Editor’s note: The government of B.C. wants you to vote on your favourite fossil to be designated alongside the spirit bear and dogwood tree as provincial symbols. Cast your vote by Friday, November 23, 2018.

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.