Government spin on forest industry not new

Unlike many jurisdictions, B.C. has Crown or public forests to protect the public's interest. One hundred years ago, the Fulton royal commission recommended that our forests be kept out the hands of timber interests. A wise system of stewardship was to take precedence over ownership or private holding. The B.C. government was charged with ensuring independent professional management and conservation of the forests. The intended outcome was sustainable forest-dependent communities.

The situation facing many forest communities today is a strong indication that something has gone amiss.

The Fulton royal commission warned of the danger, noting that the sustainability of B.C.'s public forests could go awry if political administrations in Victoria were not mindful of the need to ensure a wise system of sustainable stewardship.

Unfortunately, the prediction has come true.

What went wrong? After the Second World War, the B.C. government got into forest management partnerships with lumber and pulp manufacturers. These were really early public-private partnerships.

One of the main aims of the system of public ownership had been to keep forest management out of the control of timber companies. However, the partnership made the government a partner with timber interests.

Forest professionals employed by industry or government were not truly independent, but working for timber interests.

Under the current system, the government first sees to the interests of its private timber partners. The public, the shareholders in our forests, only get a few opportunities to comment from the sidelines.

Coleman just provided the forest industry partners with their expected entitlement to leniency or sympathetic administration.

The government and timber interest partnership has creamed B.C.'s forests in the last 60 years. (Although not with complete abandon; there have been considerable efforts in forest management.)

The government-industry partnership tells us that the forest sector's present woes are due to external pressures and markets beyond their control. Some of this is true, but it is not the whole story.

The forest resource is not as robust as before. The coastal forest sector is having difficulty running on the forests left after decades of logging that removed the best trees and is therefore more vulnerable to external pressures. In the Interior, the forest industry faces a double whammy. We have been told that the massive mountain beetle epidemic is a natural disaster caused by mild winters and global warming.

The Montreal Process, an international agreement on sustainable forest management, would classify the 13-million hectare epidemic as "an area of forest affected by a biotic agent beyond reference conditions."

In other words, an epidemic that is larger than a natural event or disaster.

But few events in the forest can be explained by only one factor. Mild winters were favourable to beetle populations, but they need habitat. Mountain pine beetles find prime habitat in pine forests that are more than 80 years old.

The Interior has become filled with old pine because the government suppressed forest fires and its forest industry partners did not compensate by harvesting sufficient pine.

Lodgepole pine was always regarded as inferior and forest industry did not ramp up its consumption of the species to reduce the amount that would be available to the beetles.

The government and forest industry public relations spin on the epidemic covers up avoidable waste valued in tens of billions of dollars.

We, the owners of B.C.'s public forests, need better stewardship arrangements. We need sustainable forest communities and a more diversified and competitive forest economy. Visit the B.C. Forests Society -- www.forestssociety.com -- to learn more.

Andrew Mitchell is a retired professional forester living in North Saanich.