Every spring and typically in May the Kettle River hits peak flow.

A gauge placed in the water downstream of where the Kettle is joined by the Granby River has recorded those peaks for nearly ninety years, and in most years the peaks range between 20,000 and 30,000 cubic feet of water per second.

That’s enough water to fill an Olympic size swimming pool every four seconds, give or take. But for decades it has caused little concern in southern British Columbia’s Boundary region or the City of Grand Forks, which is located at the confluence of the two rivers.

In 2017, however, the Kettle’s peak flow hit 33,000 cubic feet per second, its highest point in 60 years.

Floods occurred.

Then last year all hell broke loose in “the quickest and fastest spectacle of nature” local resident Donovan Harris says he’s ever seen.

As the snowpacks melted, the small feeder creeks high up on the forested slopes behind the community swelled with water.

As the creeks merged with streams and later the Granby and Kettle rivers themselves, water levels rose frighteningly fast. By May, the swollen Kettle’s flow was a monstrous 48,500 cubic feet per second.

A graph tracking peak flow of the Kettle River since 1930 puts into historical perspective the incredible surge of floodwaters experienced in 2018. Data from the United States Geological Survey. Graph: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

For Jennifer Houghton, the difference between flood years was stark: a waterline on the walls of her home of 1.5 feet in 2017 and more than 4 feet the following year.

She now believes that the loss of her home and those of many of her neighbours had much to do with the relentless logging that has occurred in the region.

The highest point of floodwaters in Grand Forks, B.C. in the spring of 2018. Photo: Graham Watt

‘Our watershed needs a rest’

“Am I concerned that the flooding is going to get worse? Yes,” says Houghton. “Am I concerned that the logging is going to continue and make it worse? Yes.”

She adds, “I think our watershed needs a rest. And I think the government should seriously be considering putting a moratorium on logging in our watershed in high-risk areas until more assessment is done.”

Houghton is not alone in her concerns.

Widespread, disastrous flooding in the Fraser Valley was narrowly averted last spring when the Fraser River swelled. Many older forests in the valleys draining into the river’s upper reaches are gone due to clear-cut logging, raging wildfires and insect attacks, all of which can increase peak water flows.

Despite this, British Columbia’s Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development continues to approve high logging rates while doing little to understand their cumulative effects.

This has prompted a former ministry employee and professional forester who served in numerous senior positions over a 40-year period to warn that further calamities may lie ahead.

Jennifer Houghton stands outside her unfinished tiny home, November, 2018. Houghton, whose main home flooded twice in the last two years, was the first Grand Forks resident to apply to the city for a new tiny home permit. Houghton said she will move her tiny home should flood waters threaten her property in the future. Photo: Louis Bockner / The Narwhal

“The way in which the ministry operates is doing irreversible harm to the environment and to British Columbians,” says Anthony Britneff, who follows events in the Grand Forks area closely.

Since last fall, when The Narwhal visited the Grand Forks area to profile how local residents were faring in the aftermath of the flood, Houghton has spearheaded efforts to raise awareness about how accelerating forest losses may have contributed to the calamity — a delicate task in a community with a longstanding forest industry presence.

Her efforts culminated in a public meeting in January at which ecologist and professional forester, Herb Hammond, and local woodlot owner, Fred Marshall, spoke.

Grand Forks residents prep for winter in sheds, RVs after catastrophic flooding

A proliferation of clear-cuts

At the meeting, Hammond used maps prepared by Dave Leversee to highlight his concerns.

The Seattle-based mapping expert has documented declines in old-growth forests on Haida Gwaii, Vancouver Island and portions of B.C.’s vast interior.

Leversee’s maps graphically captured the logging in valleys draining into the Kettle and Granby rivers, especially the spider’s web of clear-cuts higher up on the slopes where the air is colder and deeper snowpacks naturally occur.

Mapping showing the location of clearcut logging in high elevation areas in the Kettle River watershed. Map: David Leversee

Hammond likened the proliferation of clear-cuts to “a bad case of the measles” and said they have altered the natural movement of water through the landscape.

In clear-cuts, all the trees in a forest are cut down. The logged lands accumulate up to 40 per cent more snow than in an unlogged forest, Hammond said. When temperatures warm, the melting snow and runoff from the clear-cuts occurs far faster than in the forest.

“All of that adds up to degraded hydrology and things like floods and the droughts that will come next,” Hammond warns.

Trees in a healthy forest, transpire somewhere between 500 and 700 millimeters of water per year, says Allan Chapman, a hydrologist and professional geoscientist who retired in 2017 after a 30-year public service career including stints with the forests and environment ministries and the Oil and Gas Commission. That’s water that is taken up from the tree roots and released back into the atmosphere — water that does not accumulate in the soil to later enter streams and rivers.

In the absence of trees, “soils become wetter,” Chapman says. “Why is that important? Because when you log an area, the ability of soil to store water is reduced, therefore more of that water runs off quicker.”

Trees in unlogged forests also capture one quarter or more of falling snow. Through a process called sublimation, much of that intercepted snow returns to the atmosphere as a gas, skipping the liquid phase all together. In clear-cuts there is nothing to intercept that snow. It just builds and builds.

While logging companies must “reforest” what they clear-cut — something typically achieved by hiring tree-planting crews to do the brutal work of sinking new seedlings into the scarred earth — it will take 30 years or so following planting before the new trees transpire healthy volumes of water once again, Chapman says.

Assuming, that is, that the young trees survive. Increasingly, many of them do not — they’re dying prematurely in wildfires and from pest and disease outbreaks.

Retired forester, Fred Marshall, walks through cutblock 04Q-09, a 454-hectare clearcut logged by Interfor above the Boundary Creek drainage. Marshall believes questionable logging practices are one of the main causes of the Grand Forks floods. Photo: Louis Bockner / The Narwhal

Burned forests exacerbate problems

In Baker Creek, a watershed near Quesnel, 90 per cent of the trees are either killed by mountain pine beetles or clear-cut. The result, Chapman says, is “larger volumes of runoff in Baker Creek that will persist for decades.”

Bob Simpson, a former MLA and forestry critic, is Quesnel’s mayor. The city boasts the biggest forest industry investments per capita of any community in B.C. and has two pulp mills, sawmills, panel mills and value-added mills.

Quesnel is also at the epicenter of the most dramatic changes to forests in the province, particularly on the sprawling Chilcotin plateau west of the Fraser River.

“It’s a blown-out landscape. It’s either dead from mountain pine beetle, or other pests and diseases, or burnt,” Simpson says, adding that the critical test for his community, the forest industry and the province is to make that landscape more “resilient.”

In 2017 and 2018, out-of-control wildfires burned more than 2.4 million hectares of forest in B.C., roughly four Prince Edward Islands. Many of those infernos, which cost $700 million to fight, were near Quesnel and in the greater Fraser River watershed.

During last year’s record wildfires, Premier John Horgan called the devastation “the new normal” of climate change. But Simpson says such comments are unhelpful and divert attention away from essential questions about how B.C.’s forests are managed.

Wildfire control near Clearwater B.C. in the Chilcotin region, July 2018. Photo: B.C. Wildfire Service

For example, logging companies typically plant more lodgepole pine trees than they log. Why? Because pine trees thrive in open, sunny settings — precisely what you get when you clear-cut a forest. Such planting then sets the table for the beetles that are building in number due to climate change. Many of those trees then burn in wildfires, which forest scientists have predicted for decades will increase in frequency and severity as temperatures warm and drier conditions prevail.

Our forests are “just not managed in a way that is resilient to endemic pests and diseases and is resilient to wildfires that are part of the natural cycle,” Simpson says. “We have a simplified landscape that cannot, does not, have the natural breaks, does not have the natural stopgaps to stop these massive epidemics that we’re experiencing and then these massive fires.”

Burned forests then exacerbate problems, potentially increasing flood severity.

“For some period of time after a hot fire occurs, the upper levels of soil have a waxy layer that is hydrophobic and a decreased volume of water enters the soil. It just runs off,” Chapman says. That increased runoff may last for years.

‘This town relies on Interfor’

In a presentation to Grand Forks city council in early January, Jeff Becker, forests and woods manager for Interfor, one of the largest lumber producers in the world, noted how wildfires are increasing in severity in the Grand Forks area where the company operates a sawmill.

Wildfires burned more than 24,000 hectares of local forest in the last four years — more than twice the area burned in the 30 years before that.

During his presentation, Becker said he knew about the meeting that Houghton was organizing for the following week. He wanted to make sure that council members had certain “facts” before them prior to that meeting.

“There’s been a bit of misinformation on exactly what happened and how it happened,” Becker said. “We just want to make sure that there’s a balanced kind of view on it.”

Becker said the key reason for the flood was “unusual” weather including a snowpack that was 230 per cent above normal, warm spring weather and rains that accelerated the snow melt.

“We know that happened,” Becker said.

An aerial view of Grand Forks flooding, courtesy of Sergeant Mike Wicentowich, one of many RCMP officers dispatched in response to the significant 2018 spring flood. Interfor’s property can be seen centre left. Photo: Sergeant Mike Wicentowich

While Becker did not deny that “forestry isn’t part of the issue” when it comes to altered water flows, he claimed that roughly only one per cent of forests in the Grand Forks area were logged each year.

Becker’s remarks clearly resonated with Grand Forks councillor Chris Moslin who singled out Becker’s employer for praise. “This town relies on Interfor, not just for employment but…for flood protection,” Moslin said, adding that the company had donated heavy equipment and personnel to battle the rising waters.

Eight days after Becker’s presentation, people attending the meeting organized by Houghton heard a different story. They learned that 18 per cent of the total land base in the valleys draining toward the Granby and Kettle rivers had been logged since 1990, an amount not far removed from what Becker said.

But they also learned something else. That the vast amount of that logging was concentrated at higher elevations where more snow accumulated. In fact, 44 per cent of the “harvestable” timber — industry jargon for available to log — had been clear-cut in such forests.

Interfor’s lumberyard across the Kettle River from downtown Grand Forks. Some residents believe that dykes built to protect the forestry giant’s property made flooding worse for neighbouring communities because the water had nowhere else to go. Photo: Louis Bockner

And they learned of a sprawling network of roads in the watersheds that outside of the clear-cuts themselves totalled 13,000 kilometres, the equivalent of driving a car from Victoria to St. John’s Newfoundland and then back across the country again as far as Winnipeg. The ditches alongside those roads filled with snowmelt during the spring, channeling water toward Grand Forks just as surely as the watershed’s creeks and streams did.

The cumulative effect of all that disturbance was the loss of older forests on fully one quarter of the land base. An undetermined amount more forest was also lost to insect attacks and disease outbreaks.

Chapman says that once the total area of older forest lost to disturbances reaches about 30 per cent, there will be “measurable” signs of that in water flows.

If the forests in and around Grand Forks are not yet at that tipping point, they are perilously close to it.

The new era of deregulation

Shortly after Gordon Campbell led the BC Liberals to their first of four successive electoral victories in 2001, a new era of deregulation was ushered in. The government scrapped B.C.’s highly prescriptive Forest Practices Code, which spelled out in detail what logging companies must do, and replaced it with the Forest and Range Practices Act. The new regime was grounded in a philosophy that government should not tell companies precisely what to do but set broad objectives instead and let professionals working for the companies decide how to meet them.

The era of “professional reliance” was born.

Prior to that, Chapman said, foresters were required to do hydrological assessments and “cumulative impacts assessments” in community watersheds and watersheds with higher fisheries values. Those requirements are now largely gone.

The result, Chapman said, is that “there’s probably nothing going on in B.C. that highlights the cumulative effects on hydrology of land-use activities.” This at a time when climate scientists predict more droughts and more floods.

Britneff says he is very concerned about the size of some clear-cuts in the Grand Forks region and their impacts on water flows. The long-time civil servant and professional forester notes that some logged areas above Grand Forks are up to 11 times larger than what the province’s chief forester recommends. Ironically, many of those larger clear-cuts were approved by BC Timber Sales, a Crown agency that promotes the “safe, sustainable development and auction” of publicly owned forests.

Fred Marshall shares Britneff’s concerns. He says BC Timber Sales’ current plans call for more than half of all new clear-cuts to be 40 hectares or more in size. Yet BC Timber Sales is only supposed to allow such clear-cuts if there is a compelling “forest health” reason to do so.

In an emailed response to questions from The Narwhal, Britneff said that a moratorium on logging higher elevation forests in the Grand Forks region is warranted and should remain in effect “until the Ministry has obtained independent, third-party assessments for the Kettle watershed for cumulative effects.”

Britneff added that the ministry’s cumulative effects analysis must include an assessment of how logging and other forest losses may impact peak water flows and increase flood risks.

The damage done: cumulative effects

While a moratorium does not appear imminent, Houghton’s efforts and those of others in the community have been noticed. Cumulative effects finally appears to be on the government’s radar.

Cassidy van Rensen, an ecosystems biologist with the ministry of forests’ regional offices in Kootenay-Boundary, confirms that the ministry is now committed to doing a cumulative effects analysis of the Kettle and Granby watersheds. The analysis “will involve a number of different policy-makers, experts, industry and public at different stages,” van Rensen said.

In a conversation with The Narwhal, van Rensen said that the analysis, which could result in recommendations as early as this summer, came at the request of BC Timber Sales. The Crown timber auctioneer is ultimately responsible for approximately 40 per cent of all the logging in the timber supply area or TSA outside Grand Forks.

Location of the Kootenay Boundary Region’s Timber Supply Area. Graphic: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

Left: The Kootenay Boundary Region Timber Supply Area surrounding Grand Forks, B.C. The TFL 8 or Tree Farm Licence 8 areas are regions where exclusive timber harvesting rights are held by companies. Right: the “timber harvesting land base” as identified by the province of B.C. Graphic: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

Marshall says he believes the devastation unleashed by last spring’s floods “stimulated” the government to act. He hopes that van Rensen and others will “heavily focus on the clear-cuts at higher elevations” as they do their work.

‘I don’t think people realize the danger we’re in’

Meanwhile, residents of Grand Forks continue to grapple with harsh realities nine months after the flood.

Donovan Harris, his wife Dayna, their 10-year-old son Julien and infant son Harlon lost pretty much everything in the flood, which destroyed their double-wide mobile home and adjacent log cabin.

There was still $70,000 outstanding on the mortgage when the waters came. Their house insurance did not cover flood damage claims. The couple eventually purchased a house on higher ground for $215,000.

The new mortgage payments are an additional $1050 a month.

“It’s straight up paycheque-to-paycheque now,” says Harris, who works as a kitchen manager at Silver Kettle Village, a retirement home. “If I get sick one day we’re not paying the bills.”

‘We have been ill-prepared’: B.C. offers flooded Grand Forks businesses disaster relief six months in

In late January, the City of Grand Forks through its Boundary Flood Recovery Team applied to the federal government’s Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund for nearly $50 million in funds to protect local homes and businesses from future floods.

“The local Boundary flood team is working really hard to get money for berms, buyouts and changing infrastructure. But that’s not going to happen in time for this year,” Houghton says.

Until the money comes and until the work is done, Houghton says the provincial government and BC Timber Sales in particular need to look at the “social and economic wellbeing” not just of the logging industry, but the communities downstream. And they need to do so quickly.

“Every single day I wake up and I see my destroyed home. Every day I see the walls that were wrecked,” Houghton says. “I don’t think people realize the danger we’re in. I don’t think they understand the gravity of the situation we’re in.”

Update March 14, 2018 8:26am pst. This article previously stated the BC Liberals won the first of four successive victories in the year 1991. The year was in fact, 2001. An update has been made to reflect this fact.

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It was good news all the way for B.C.’s provincial government with the July announcement of increased protection for some provincially owned patches of rare Coastal Douglas-fir forests.

For starters, who would object to an effort, however small, to protect an ecosystem under threat?

Well, pretty much no one — according to the provincial government’s news release.

“Over 1,078 submissions were received, with 98 per cent supportive of the proposal,” reads the release from the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development.

But, at the Wilderness Committee — which for years has campaigned for increased Coastal Douglas-fir protection and which in 2014 unsuccessfully challenged the province in court for failing to adhere to its own laws in protecting the endangered ecosystem — the release sent up alarm signals.

“We immediately knew this was fudged because 162 people sent in submissions through our system, calling for all of the Coastal Douglas-fir on Crown land to be protected — which is supporting protection of the ecosystem, but not supporting the government’s proposal,” said Torrance Coste, Wilderness Committee Vancouver Island campaigner.

The government will protect an additional 980.5 hectares of the ecosystem on Vancouver Island, Galiano and Salt Spring islands, but the Wilderness Committee described the proposal as miniscule, increasing protection by only 0.43 per cent, and asked the province to protect all Coastal Douglas-fir ecosystems on non-private land, which would increase the ecosystem protection by nine per cent.

So, there is no way that letters from the Wilderness Committee members should have been included in the supportive category, Coste told The Narwhal.

“We feel this sets a really concerning precedent. If government is counting public submissions that say ‘your planned course of action is insufficient’ as support for its planned course of action, there is basically nothing it can’t claim public support for,” he said.

Coastal Douglas-fir forests historically grew throughout the South Coast, covering up to 2,555 square kilometres, but the trees were readily accessible for logging and often grew in development areas, meaning only a fraction now remain.

Of the 256,800 hectares remaining in B.C. only 23,500 hectares, or nine per cent, is provincially owned and, throughout the province, 11,000 hectares are protected, including the latest additions.

The Wilderness Committee wants all provincially owned Coastal Douglas-fir ecosystems to be protected and wants the government to take action to protect Douglas-fir forests on private land, especially in areas such as Texada and Lasqueti Islands.

That is particularly true for issues where there is support for government action, but not necessarily for the route envisaged by government, said Coste, who described the system of classifying answers as shady.

“This is especially concerning as the province is working to update its climate change plans. Most people that participate in public consultation on this will be supportive of taking action on climate change and, if government uses a similar public comment classification system, it could theoretically claim almost total public support for whatever it decides to do,” he said.

NDP government consultation heavy

The NDP government has made a point of holding frequent public consultations, with 17 public engagements currently underway, and Coste said, compared to the previous BC Liberal government, it makes a welcome change, but the process has to be done correctly and people have to know how their responses will be evaluated.

In response to a letter from the Wilderness Committee, Craig Sutherland, assistant deputy minister for the coast area, said all e-mails received during the public review process were reviewed by ministry technical staff familiar with the Coastal Douglas-fir ecosystem and the protection proposal.

The regional executive director, responsible for making a decision on the increased protection, received a detailed summary outlining concerns or comments brought up in the public review process along with a summary of comments that supported each point, he wrote.

“To further clarify how we arrived at 98 per cent support, comments were categorized at a coarse level and were identified as being supportive of the proposal or not supportive,” Sutherland wrote.

“Any comment which advocated for increased protection of the CDF was classified as being supportive, even if the comment recommended additional protection above what was being proposed.”

A ministry spokesperson said individual submissions are posted online for some consultations, meaning they can be assessed by anyone who is interested.

“(But,) it’s important to note that the Coastal Douglas-fir consultation wasn’t about a policy change, it was asking for feedback on the specific proposed geographic areas for protection under a revised land use order,” she said.

‘Bad public engagement is a great breeding ground for cynicism’

Rick Kool, environment and sustainability professor at Royal Roads University and founder of the master’s program in environmental education and communication, said that, if government is going to consult people, there should be an obligation to listen to what is being said, rather than going through a pro forma exercise.

“People become cynical when government talks about consulting and then doesn’t act on it…Government can teach cynicism very well and bad public engagement is a great breeding ground for cynicism,” Kool told The Narwhal.

Ideally, good consultation should leave people feeling they have been heard and that enough common ground has been found during the process that very few people feel they have lost, Kool said.

“If there is an obligation to consult, but no obligation to be explicit about what that consultation produced, it becomes a shallow exercise.”

Unfortunately, public engagement often becomes marked by the three I’s, which puts the power in the hands of government.

“Invite — those with power get to decide who to invite. Inform — those informed are told what is going to happen and invited to talk about it. Ignore — those in power can discount what they hear,” Kool said.

One way of ensuring that data from consultations is adequately assessed would be to give the responses to a university or college class to produce a spreadsheet — something that would be an excellent class project, Kool suggested.

“And, what better way to build public trust? If you put the data out, it’s pretty transparent.”

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Even if you live on Vancouver Island you’re not likely to have seen the elusive coastal wolves that populate its northernmost corners.

These genetically unique wolves, which are distinct from their land-locked cousins, live an atypical life for a grey wolf, living in remote estuaries and consuming a diet of mostly marine life.

There are an estimated 250 wolves on Vancouver Island, according to the B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, the government ministry that is currently considering whether or not to expand the wolf trapping season in the province this spring.

The science behind the practice of culling wolves on Vancouver Island is being hotly contested by scientists and conservationists who say there’s very little evidence to support the province’s theory that wolves are responsible for a shrinking deer population.

The issue has been thrust into the public spotlight recently after a guide hunter who posted photos of Vancouver Island wolves in snares on social media offered a personal bounty for carcasses.

“Anecdotally, there has been an increase in wolf populations on northern Vancouver Island, particularly in the area around Port Hardy,” a spokesperson from the ministry told DeSmog Canada in an e-mailed statement.

“Biologists have also noticed increased wolf signs (tracks or sightings) in the area.”

That’s a far cry from hardcore evidence, Ian McAllister, executive director of Pacific Wild told DeSmog Canada.

In fact, there is no evidence that the unique coastal wolves on northern Vancouver Island kill large numbers of deer, he said. McAllister has been studying coastal wolves for over two decades.

“There’s absolutely no data or field-based research. There’s no peer-reviewed science to support this.”

Lack of science-based wildlife management across North America

An absence of data-driven decision-making in wildlife management isn’t unique to B.C.

Recent research published in the journal Science Advances found that across North America wildlife policies lacked basic scientific precepts.

Lead author Kyle Artelle, a biologist with Simon Fraser University and the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, reviewed 667 management plans for 27 species that are hunted and trapped in Canada and the U.S.

“We highlighted four foundational hallmarks that would be required for a wildlife policy to be considered science-based: transparency, external scrutiny, clear objectives and evidence,” Artelle told DeSmog Canada.

Artelle and his team found that 60 per cent of wildlife management policies reviewed had fewer than half of those hallmarks. About half of the policies examined did not rely on population data.

“You’d be hard pressed to call any given activity science if it’s missing any of those pieces,” he said.

B.C. coastal wolves are often called a sea wolves for their ocean-rich diet which includes seals, sea lions, herring and salmon. Photo: Ian McAllister

Those indicators don’t even describe the scientific process completely, he said, “they’re just foundational non-negotiable requirements.”

An absence of adequate data, analysis and evidence doesn’t stop politicians from using science to defend and promote their policies, Artelle said.

Other scientists from Raincoast have published further research on this point, finding governments at time create “political populations” of large carnivores, which are managed to meet political rather than scientific ends.

“There’s a lot of power in that term — science. Which is why we need to be careful when it’s used to defend preferred policy options,” Artelle told DeSmog Canada.

“There’s a concern that politicians might use science to defend what they’re doing without having the actual evidence for justifying the activity.”

Artelle said wolf management in B.C. is a prime example of missing hallmarks of science.

On Vancouver Island, the province is pairing anecdotal information on declining deer populations with anecdotal evidence on increased wolf populations to justify hunting and trapping practices, he said.

“It doesn’t make biological sense that if a food source is crashing, the predator population would be increasing,” Artelle said, pointing to a study in southeast Alaska that found declining deer populations were the result of logging activities rather than wolf predation.

A similar occurrence may be happening on Vancouver Island where old-growth forest is increasingly being replaced by single-age stands rotated in timber harvests, he said.

The fight to save caribou

Habitat disturbance has been identified as a key driver of caribou decline. Both woodland and mountain caribou populations require large tracts of undisturbed habitat for survival.

On mainland B.C. and in Alberta, wolf culls are used to protect rapidly declining caribou populations although the practice is seen as controversial when not paired with aggressive habitat protections.

According to the ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Development, the South Selkirk, South Peace and North Columbia area caribou herds are in dire straits.

The province’s plan for those regions is to eliminate all wolves in an effort to protect caribou that remain.

“A minimum of 80 per cent of the wolves in the treatment area need to be removed and ideally all wolves will be taken,” the ministry said in a statement.

Around 250 wolves have been shot from helicopters over the last two years as part of the province’s wolf cull pilot project, which is in the fourth year of its project five-year lifespan.

The pilot project was pushed ahead even though the province’s 2014 wolf management policy acknowledged there is uncertainty killing wolves will help caribou.

“Attempts to control wolves to reduce predation risks on caribou has been a provincial priority since 2001. Wolf densities have been reduced: however, at this time, a correlation between reduced wolf densities and caribou recovery cannot be substantiated,” it says.

Caribou recovery is mandated from the federal government under the Species at Risk Act. According to a federal draft recovery plan for caribou, the provinces are responsible for protecting 65 per cent of caribou habitat from disturbance. In 2012 Ottawa directed the provinces to develop plans for that disturbance threshold by 2017. It was a deadline every single province missed.

Mark Hebblewhite, wildlife biology professor at the University of Montana, who served on the science panel for Canada’s boreal caribou recovery, said there is reasonable evidence that killing wolves buys time for threatened species like boreal woodland caribou in Alberta and the Yukon, but no evidence that wolf control has any lasting effects on deer populations.

“The real question about wolf control in the name of caribou conservation is what is being done about protecting critical habitat for caribou. And, in short, the answer in Alberta and the oil producing areas of B.C., is not enough,” Hebblewhite told DeSmog Canada.

Hebblewhite has compiled data on oil and gas activities in caribou habitat and has identified 19,000 wells drilled in caribou ranges in Alberta since 2004.

There is no point in killing wolves while simultaneously continuing to destroy caribou habitat with oil and gas exploration and industrial logging, he said.

Paul Paquet, Raincoast senior scientist and adjunct professor at the University of Victoria, also worries about the long-term effects of the war on wolves.

Wolves prey on caribou, as they always have, but the role played in the decline of caribou is a symptom, not the underlying cause, he said.

“Quite simply, people are the ultimate cause of caribou endangerment through the ongoing degradation imposed by our resource industries on caribou habitat,” he said

“As a result, caribou are on a long-term slide to extinction, not because of what wolves and other predators are doing, but because of what humans have already done.”

Artelle said governments should be more open with the public about the scientific uncertainties of killing wolves.

“Instead of science being used as a marketing ploy, we need clarity on ‘we’re going ahead with this approach because we don’t want to limit oil and gas production’ or ‘we don’t want to limit economic production.’ ”

The public deserves to be more fully informed about the main drivers of caribou decline, he said.

“It’s rarely honestly disclosed why the wolf cull is being pursued when we know wolves aren’t the main driver.”

Policy decisions are often made in the face of incomplete knowledge.

“Given the science will often be incomplete it’s important to be very clear with the public about uncertainties in the science, and how those decisions are being made knowing that science is imperfect.”

With files from Carol Linnitt.

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A plan to form a new, independent wildlife management agency in B.C., which would relieve the provincial government from managing contentious wildlife issues such as grizzly, wolf and caribou populations, is generating anxiety among some conservation groups who fear the structure of the new program could prioritize the interests of hunters over wildlife.

The proposal for the new agency, first announced in March, was scant on details, but Steve Thomson, then minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, set a fall start-up date and set aside $200,000 for consultations with conservation and hunting groups.

“Government is afraid to manage wolves, for example, or afraid to manage grizzly bears in some cases because of the politics of that,” then energy and mines minister Bill Bennett, an avid hunter and supporter of the controversial grizzly bear trophy hunt, told an East Kootenay radio station.

“Hopefully an agency that is separate from government can make decisions that are in the best long-term interest of wildlife and just forget about the politics and do what is best for the animals,” Bennett said.

According to Thomson, the agency would receive an initial government investment of $5 million and be further funded by hunting licence revenues to the tune of $9 to $10 million annually — money which currently goes into general revenue.

The plan was welcomed by hunters as a way to increase funding for cash-strapped conservation and management programs

The NDP previously tabled a bill calling for dedicated conservation funding, so, in the flurry of pre-election announcements, the plan didn’t get much attention, even though Thomson was flanked by representatives of pro-hunting groups as he made the announcement.

Then, days before the election, five of B.C.’s pro-hunting and trapping organizations — B.C. Wildlife Federation, Guide Outfitters Association of B.C, Wild Sheep Society of B.C, Wildlife Stewardship Council and the B.C. Trappers Association — announced they had signed a memorandum of understanding to work together.

“The collaborative efforts of our five organizations will help ensure the province follows through on its commitment to enhance wildlife management,” Jim Glaicair, president of the 50,000-member B.C. Wildlife Federation, said in a news release.

The organizations emphasized that the MOU was sparked by concern about the ongoing decline of wildlife.

“This is a great opportunity for our organizations to work together for the betterment of wildlife in the province,” said Michael Schneider, Guide Outfitters Association of B.C president.

Hunter-Funded Wildlife Agency Quietly Announced Before B.C. Election https://t.co/abFaDYqvSt #bcpoli #bcelxn17 @LavoieJudith @BCNature pic.twitter.com/WqKYSfcYzm

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) May 24, 2017

Hunter-Funded Wildlife Management 'Huge Step Backwards'

But to other groups and especially those waiting to see whether the new government will stop the grizzly hunt, the MOU appeared to indicate a pro-hunting team lining up to take over the new agency.

Alan Burger, president of B.C. Nature, which represents 53 clubs, with a total of more than 6,000 members, said in an interview that it is a major concern that the only people rooting for the new agency appear to be hunters and trappers.

“If they can dominate an agency like this it is going to be a huge step backwards,” Burger told DeSmog Canada.

“The last thing we need is greater emphasis on big game. We need to focus our attention on the ecosystem,” he said, questioning how the proposal could get so far without consultation.

“Hunting and fishing licences are an important source of revenue and B.C. Nature agrees that there should be a greater share contributed to wildlife management,” Burger said.

“But there is much greater input to the B.C. economy from the non-consumptive users of wildlife — the tourism and wildlife watching industry, people selling binoculars, camera gear, field guides, outdoor gear and, most importantly, the vast majority of British Columbians that spend money travelling and camping to simply enjoy seeing animals alive in the wild,” he said.

Valhalla Wilderness Society has come out swinging against the proposed agency, calling it a thinly disguised attempt by the B.C. government to privatize wildlife management and hand over responsibility to hunters, trappers and guide outfitters.

Funding for wildlife management should not be contingent on hunting licence revenue or special interest groups, a news release from Valhalla says.

“Notwithstanding the poor job the B.C. government has been doing in growing wildlife, wildlife should be managed by government,” it says. “The above-mentioned special interest groups lack the technical expertise to make wildlife decisions based on scientific evidence and are even unwilling to apply the precautionary principle, which, in the face of climate change, is needed more than ever.”

B.C. Wildlife Conservation Funds Desperately Needed

One lesson from the growing controversy is that conservation groups need to work together and find out whether a new model could provide desperately needed funds for conservation, said Val Murray of Justice for B.C. Grizzlies.

“We need to see animals as individuals within communities rather than numbers within a natural resource group,” she said.

“We need a cross-discipline panel of conservation biologists and scientists to bridge the values of consumptive and non-consumptive residents. There is no shortage of good science — what we lack is proper funding to implement what we know, plus good listening skills to apply the ideas.”

Letters asking for more information and setting out objections to the proposal have been sent to all three party leaders, but, until the outcome of the election is clarified, none are willing to jump into the fray.

A spokeswoman for the Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Ministry said the previous government was looking at similar model to the agreement between the province and Freshwater Fisheries Society of B.C where revenue from fishing licences goes into research, conservation and education programs.

The intention is to hold public consultations before decisions are made, she said.

Image: Steve Thomson, Former Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations announcing the new wildlife agency proposal, March 22, 2017. Photo: B.C. Government via Flickr

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A precedent-setting case that could affect the ability of First Nations to protect their sacred sites and which has implications for indigenous rights worldwide, is heading to Canada’s top court Thursday.

The Ktunaxa First Nation, based in Cranbrook, in a lawsuit against the B.C. government and Glacier Resorts Ltd, is arguing the first Canadian case based on aboriginal spirituality and freedom of religion and the case has drawn interveners from faith groups, human rights organizations and business groups from across Canada.

Lawyers acting for the Ktunaxa Nation and Kathryn Teneese, Ktunaxa Nation Council Chair, will argue that, in 2012, the Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources violated the First Nation’s religious rights by approving the master plan for the proposed Jumbo Glacier Resort in an area known as Qat’muk, the home of the grizzly bear spirit, where many key Ktunaxa spiritual beliefs and practices are centred.

The argument, which also claims the B.C. government failed to adequately consult Ktunaxa on their constitutionally protected aboriginal rights, was previously rejected by B.C. Supreme Court and the B.C. Court of Appeal, but, in March the Supreme Court of Canada agreed to hear an appeal.

Teneese said both the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Constitution Act provide for traditions to be practiced and it is unfortunate the lower courts failed to recognize those rights.

“But we are confident the Supreme Court of Canada will uphold the rights of all Canadians to practice their religions and traditions free from interference and the threat of destruction of sacred places,” she said.

Qat’muk, the name of the land in the central part of the Purcell Mountains, where Glacier Resorts planned to build the massive ski resort, existed long before the Jumbo Glacier proposal and before Canada became a country, Teneese said.

“As a Nation we have spent too much money fighting in the court system to prove what we have always known. Qat’muk is vital to Ktunaxa — as well as (to) local wildlife populations and biodiversity — and must be protected,” she said.

The Ktunaxa is arguing the first Canadian case based on aboriginal spirituality & freedom of religion https://t.co/p6d1FbTw57 #cdnpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) November 30, 2016

The Nation has fought the Jumbo Glacier proposal since it first surfaced in 1991, both on the belief that Ktunaxa spirituality depends on the fate of Qat’muk and on concerns for water quality and the effect of the resort on the grizzly bear population.

Ironically, there is now little chance that the resort will be built as, last year, Environment Minister Mary Polak decided the resort had not met the “substantial start threshold,” meaning the Environmental Assessment Certificate expired.

Jumbo Glacier Resort proponent Oberto Oberti then said the company would build a smaller resort, which would not have to undergo another full environmental assessment.

But, this week, a spokesman for the Forests, Lands and Natural Resources Ministry said “the proponents of Jumbo Resort submitted a revised master plan that was smaller in scope, however this revised proposal was not accepted by the ministry.”

Glacier Resorts is suing the provincial government in hopes of overturning Polak’s decision to cancel the Environmental Certificate, but no court date has yet been set.

However, the legal battle over the principle of freedom of religion continues and legal experts believe that, whichever way the decision goes, there will be significant implications for communities whose religious and cultural practices are connected to sacred sites or animals.

Robyn Duncan, executive director of Wildsight, a conservation group that has fought against the Jumbo Glacier proposal for 25 years, said Thursday will be a truly significant day for the Ktunaxa Nation and the thousands of Kootenay citizens that are standing behind them in their fight.

“This is the first time that a freedom of religion argument will be heard in the Supreme Court on indigenous spiritual and cultural rights. The list of interveners is as long as it is diverse — from Amnesty International to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce to a number of other First Nations,” she said.

“The implications of this case will be far-reaching.”

The 16 interveners also include B.C. Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association, Attorney General of Saskatchewan and the Attorney General of Canada.

The case should concern all Canadians of faith says a blog posting from the Christian Legal Fellowship and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, who are interveners.

ELC president Bruce Clemenger wrote that the Ktunaxa case has the potential to affect all faith communities.

“The loss of religious freedom for any faith group means a loss of religious freedom for every other faith group in Canada,” he wrote.

“If a religious freedom claim can be overlooked by a government decision-maker, then the freedom becomes hollow. There will be no requirements for governments to respect religious freedom in any meaningful way or to reasonably accommodate our freedom to worship and live out our faith if it may impact others,” he wrote.

The case also puts a spotlight on the broader issue of the rights of government to override the wishes of First Nations, said Montana Burgess, executive director of the West Kootenay EcoSociety.

The EcoSociety previously argued unsuccessfully in the courts against the province’s incorporation of the Jumbo Glacier Mountain Resort Municipality, a municipality without residents or buildings.

The council, made up of a mayor and two councillors appointed by the province, continues to meet, even though there is no action on the development.

Image: Ktunaxa First Nation via ʔaq̓am

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The B.C. government is being taken to court for giving BC Hydro permission to move amphibian species along the banks of the Peace River during construction of the Site C dam.

The legal challenge, recently filed by Josette Weir and Sierra Club BC, asks for a judicial review of the government’s actions in June when a regional manager with the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations (FLNRO) granted BC Hydro permission to perform amphibian salvage without proper permits issued in accordance with the Wildlife Act.

The emergency permits, first revealed by DeSmog Canada, raise questions about the relationship between government ministries and BC Hydro, which is under pressure to keep to Premier Christy Clark's word to get the dam "past the point of no return" before the May 2017 provincial election.

“There is a lot of pressure to get this project built amid controversy,” Weir, who lives in Smithers, B.C., told DeSmog Canada. “But it’s very important that the people who are in charge apply the law.”

Documents released to DeSmog Canada, including a request from BC Hydro for last-minute permits and several e-mails between a FLNRO official and local First Nations, show ministry bureaucrat, Chris Addison, issued permission for emergency amphibian salvage without due process.

In the e-mail exchange Addison suggested he had the legal authority to do so although Jocelyn Stacey, assistant professor at the UBC Allard School of Law and expert in environmental and administrative law, told DeSmog Canada Addison violated the law when he granted BC Hydro exemption from the permitting process.

“The Wildlife Act and its regulations do not allow for exemptions from the ordinary permitting process,” Stacey said. “This means that FLNRO acted without legal authority when it issued the exemption to BC Hydro.”

Weir said she was deeply troubled by this apparently blatant circumvention of the law.

“What is shocking is that [Addison] did it knowingly,” she said. “One can only wonder about the political hierarchy that is overseeing his ability to issue exemptions or not.”

“There must be a lot of political pressure and we as members of the public must be vigilant.”

Weir and the Sierra Club BC brought the case to the provincial Supreme Court through the Pacific Centre for Environmental Law and Litigation (CELL).

“I’m very thankful for that newly formed group,” Weir said. “It’s going to be their first case and I’m so grateful the lawyers would look into this. Otherwise it would have just fallen under the radar.”

B.C. Faces Lawsuit Over Rushed #SiteC Permits https://t.co/BVRP7zl45g @StopSiteC #bcpoli #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/84CIYFYRhZ

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) July 29, 2016

Chris Tollefson, co-founder of the centre and experienced environmental litigator, said this issue is troubling from a rule of law perspective.

“This is the kind of situation that desperately needs to be brought to the courts for adjudication,” Tollefson said. “The evidence here suggests that a government official not only didn’t follow the rule of law but was actively assisting BC Hydro in breaking the law. If that’s true, that should concern all British Columbians regardless of how they feel about Site C."

Bob Peart, executive director of Sierra Club BC, said he sees the issuing of illegal permits as part of a larger government status quo, where environmental and First Nations rights are violated with impunity. 

The responsibility is left with individuals, First Nations or environmental organizations to bring legal challenges to the courts, Peart said, which is time-consuming and expensive.

"Industry and government have much thicker wallets than we have and to do these cases ourselves — we just don’t have that kind of funding, nor do First Nations," he said, adding the government appears to bet on the fact no one will challenge them when they misstep.

"It's a spin of the dice, risk analysis on their part," he said. "It's a part of the pattern of this government."

David Conway, BC Hydro’s community relations manager for the Site C project, did not respond to DeSmog Canada’s request for comment.

The Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations told CTV they were acting in the public interest.

"Given the extenuating circumstances, the regional manager…decided to communicate his comfort with the amphibian removal proceeding on a limited scope and in advance of a broader permit which has now been issued," the statement read. "The alternative would be to allow the amphibians to die."

In 2011, Weir won a legal challenge that forced Health Canada to review the impacts of Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup on amphibian species.

“It opened me up to amphibians. I have no claim that I have a special relationship with amphibians aside from being French,” she said with a laugh.

“But I do understand that they are a part of the natural web that we are eroding all the time. As members of the public we should be extremely vigilant about the health of the planet.”

Weir added Site C is a unique issue because of the political pressure to complete the project.

“There is this sense in the north that no one is looking,” Weir said. “That’s why it’s very important to follow the rules. That’s why we have laws and regulations.”

Image: Site C construction along the banks of the Peace River. Photo: Jayce Hawkins

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