B.C. Forest Manager Rebuked for Ignoring Endangered Plants

VICTORIA, British Columbia, Canada, August 17, 2005 (ENS) - No further logging approvals should be awarded in the coastal Douglas fir ecosystem on southeast Vancouver Island until site assessments for endangered plants are completed, the Forest Practices Board recommended Tuesday.

The Forest Practices Board is an independent public watchdog that reports to the people of British Columbia about compliance with the Forest and Range Practices Act and the achievement of its intent.

The recommendation is the result of a board investigation of a complaint by the Carmanah Forestry Society. The small nonprofit society based in Victoria, complained about an April 2004 approval of a BC Timber Sales Program plan to log on southeast Vancouver Island.

This old-growth Douglas fir forest, located in the city of Victoria’s reservoir watershed, has been harvested to enlarge the reservoir. (Photo courtesy Canadian Forest Service)

The approved logging involved two different ecosystems: the coastal Western hemlock and the coastal Douglas fir, which was of most concern to the board.

The provincial Conservation Data Centre has identified 20 endangered or threatened, or red-listed, plant communities that are likely to occur in this ecosystem. The coastal Douglas fir ecosystem is very rare as a result of urban development and past logging.

“Very little coastal Douglas fir remains on Crown land, and this small land base has a strong potential for endangered plant occurrences,” said board chair Bruce Fraser. “That’s why the board believes a comprehensive site assessment must be conducted before logging is approved in this area.

"For these reasons, the board found the district manager’s decision to approve logging in the coastal Douglas fir ecosystem, without such an assessment, was not reasonable."

The cutblocks at issue are young mature forests, now being considered for logging since all old growth and older mature coastal Douglas fir forests on southeastern Vancouver Island have been logged.

The endangered plants include trees such as the trembling aspen and the Pacific crabapple, shrubs such as the the dull Oregon grape and the ocean spray, and grasses such as Junegrass, an Idaho fescue.

Pacific crabapple, malus fusca, is one of the endangered plants that prompted the Carmanah Forestry Society's complaint to the board. Althought tart, these endemic apples were an important food for native peoples. (Photo courtesy VOLWS)

"The Board found there was insufficient information for the district manager to approve logging, as no site assessment was done to verify whether the red-listed plants were actually present in this part of the plan area, or how important occurrences of these plant communities might be for conservation purposes," the report states.

"There is very little of this particular ecosystem remaining in this area, and the red-listed plant communities within it are at very high risk of becoming extirpated. For these reasons, the Board finds that the decision to approve harvesting in the CDF [coastal Douglas fir] ecosystem was not reasonable."

Sterns is criticized by B.C. environmentalists for permitting logging in areas that government wildlife biologists consider critical to the existence of critically endangered spotted owls in Canada. Only eight nesting pairs are believed to remain.

In this case, Sterns was placed in "a difficult situation," the board said. "On the one hand there was policy direction for biodiversity and timber objectives both supporting approval of the plan. On the other hand there was expert opinion that red-listed plant communities were at very high risk of extirpation in the area of the plan."

Although government has a number of options for protecting these red-listed plant communities, "they are greatly restricted by current government policy," the board said. The provincial government policy, set in 1998, is that impacts resulting from application of the Integrated Wildlife Management Strategy not exceed a maximum of one percent impact on provincial timber supply.

As one of its recommendations, the Forest Practices Board said it "reiterates and supports: the November 17, 2003 recommendation from the provincial Coast Inter-Agency Management Committee to the provincial Ministry of Environment that "the government review and consider increasing the one percent timber supply cap."

The majority of the coastal Douglas fir ecosystem in this area is located on private land, where government is not able to control logging practices in order to protect endangered species.

Logging by TimberWest near Lake Cowichan, southern Vancouver Island, 2003. Certified by the timber industry's Sustainable Forestry Initiative. (Photo © Garth Lenz courtesy Rainforest Action Network)

The board said staff from the South Island Forest District and regional Ministry of Environment staff should jointly develop a conservation protocol for red-listed plant communities in the Douglas fir ecosystem before any further harvest plans are approved. In the interim, assessments should be done by qualified staff, the board said.

The board also recommended put a "high priority" on designating the endangered plant communities as "species at risk" and establishing wildlife habitat areas for those species.

The board requested a response from the provincial government by October 31 on implementation of its recommendations.

Haskell was pleased with the board's response to his organization's complaint. "Carmanah Forestry Society applauds the complex and detailed report released today. We now know beyond any doubt that the Coastal Douglas Fir moist maritime ecosystem is at the tipping point of species extirpation," he said.

"The report captures the full problem of not only the red listed Coastal Douglas Fir moist maritime plant communities," he said, "but the peril that all sensitive species requiring habitat in valuable forests find themselves up against."

"The government is balancing the budget and creating a positive spin in the economy at the cost of the ecological capital of this special province marketed as Supernatural BC," Haskell said. "Future generations are being robbed of their resource inheritance."