A decade of layoffs and budget cuts - combined with the recent natural resource ministries reorganization - has so thoroughly gutted the B.C. Forest Service, the door is open to abuse, says a left-wing think-tank analysis released Wednesday.
B.C. Forests Minister Pat Bell immediately dismissed the report as inaccurate and wrong-thinking, saying technological advancement has helped make the forest service more efficient and effective with less staffing.
The 16-page report commissioned by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Sierra Club of B.C. says that based on an analysis of government employment data, in less than a decade, more than 1,000 full-time forest service jobs have been cut, a 25 per cent reduction.
Ben Parfitt, the report's author, says the cuts have reduced oversight of logging practices, making it difficult to catch companies stealing logs, defrauding the public of stumpage fees or hurting the environment.
Parfitt, whose report was funded in part by the B.C. Government Employees Union, is calling for an inquiry into whether the staffing levels are adequate. He notes that 30,000 U.S. Forest Service employees are responsible for an average 2,700 hectares in the United States, while B.C. Forest Service employees are responsible on average for 20,000 hectares.
The cuts also mean the forest service doesn't have enough staff to get a good handle on the province's timber inventory, which calls into question how the chief forester can adequately set the timber harvest level, argued Parfitt.
"The deep job cuts - combined with October's cabinet reorganization that cleaved what was left of the old Forest Service in two - are completely contrary to the public interest," said Parfitt.
Bell, the forests minister, said the analysis of the staffing cuts ignores technological change which allows the province to deliver services more efficiently.
Bells said the province has also introduced third-party independent certification of forestry practices, including from the environmental-community endorsed Forest Stewardship Council.
He added that he doesn't believe you can make a comparison to U.S. forest service, as British Columbia has a vast land base with areas that don't need the same scrutiny.
Bell noted that at any one time, only one per cent of the timber land base is being logged.
"It's far more appropriate to judge us on our results," said Bell, pointing, for example, to the endorsement by the environmental community of the land-use plan in the Great Bear Rain Forest.
