Stop the Spray BC founder James Steidle says the B.C. government and professional foresters continue to promote monocultures when they allow forests to be replanted with conifers and that their “war on deciduous” is eliminating species diversity and hurting wildlife habitats.
Steidle is demanding a meeting with Minister of Forests Bruce Ralston and Chief Forester Shane Berg, who will be at the Prince George Civic and Convention Centre Friday to address the Association of BC Professional Foresters Conference and AGM.
“It is clear that our forestry institutions, from the professional association to the highest levels of bureaucracy, even our Forest Practices Board, are in complete denial about the failures of plantation forestry and the harm of anti-deciduous forestry policy,” said Steidle, a former tree planter and sawmill worker who now operates his own woodworking company in Prince George.
Steidle said the B.C. government, in its Forest and Range Enhancement Report No. 14, published in 2008, found a nine per cent increase in monocultures (forests dominated by one plant species) compared to 1987. Since that report, he says years of logging, spraying and pine-dominated reforestation have contributed to the prevalence of monocultures.
“You can drive down the Blackwater to Quesnel and you will see a sea of pine plantations,” Steidle said. “It wasn’t all pine before. We probably have more pine on the landscape than we did prior to the pine beetle.
“Central to the simplification of our forests is the war on aspen, cottonwood and birch. The rules are draconian and extreme. They require a minimum of 95 per cent conifer domination and have no requirements to maintain any deciduous patches for firebreaks, moose habitat, cattle range, biodiversity, or their vastly superior albedo and carbon sequestration for climate change mitigation.”
He said pine seedlings are cheap to produce and are more likely to survive being replanted and that drives what gets planted after forests are harvested. That leaves replanted areas at an increased risk of wildfire and weakens the ability of forests to survive beetle attacks.
“Aspen and birch can fight off pine and allow spruce and Douglas fir a chance to come in underneath, to mix up the age and species classes, to create resiliency,” Steidle said. “Forestry doesn’t understand this. All they see is a computer model that demands maximum conifer production to maintain the maximum level of clearcutting we are seeing today, which, as we’ve seen, has not been sustainable and is failing our communities and our workers.”
Steidle says if he can’t arrange a meeting with government officials he will be outside the Civic Centre Friday morning carrying signs in a visible protest.
