Daily Archives: April 2, 2018

The spread of a fatal neurological illness affecting elk, moose and deer in eastern Alberta is reminiscent of the onset of Canada’s mad cow disease crisis, says an Alberta legislator.  Liberal MLA David Swann warned that chronic wasting disease  — a prion disease in the same family as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), scrapies and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which affect cattle, sheep and humans respectively — needs to be contained before irreparably harming the environment, agriculture industry and human health. “This provincial government is negligent,” he was recorded as saying in Hansard last month. He called on the NDP to implement more stringent policies to restrict the movement of animals in an effort to quell the spread of the disease.

We have already suffered a few grassfires so far this year, so it is a good time to remind ourselves that wildfire prevention is everyone’s responsibility. The FireSmart manual published by the provincial government provides useful advice that can help reduce the risk of losing your home to wildfires. While there is no guarantee against fire damage, you can take steps that can make a world of difference. Most preventative measures cost very little and can significantly reduce the risk of fire damage. The FireSmart manual provides all the information you need to know for a well thought-out fire protection plan.

Bruce Gordon

An Edmonton company that has fought forest fires in Western Canada for more than 50 years hopes to spread its wings to more business in countries around the world. Air Spray Ltd., bought in the early 1970s by the late aviation pioneer Don Hamilton and now owned by his daughter Lynn Hamilton, supplies the air tankers that drop cascades of colourful fire retardant or water to contain blazes until ground crews put them out. The company has had long-term contracts with the Alberta and B.C. governments since 1967 and also works in the Yukon and Northwest Territories, said chief operating officer Paul Lane, Hamilton’s husband. But in recent years it has boosted American operations as well, winning contracts with such agencies as the U.S. Forest Service and several states including California, where it has set up a base in the northern California city of Chico.

News that the local Catalyst Paper Corporation paper mill is facing potentially fatal anti-dumping duties courtesy of our trade “partner,” the United States, is discouraging. …Canada signed the first free-trade deal with the United States in 1989, and NAFTA in 1993, precisely to rid ourselves of such arbitrary attacks on our exports. But it was not an agreement between equals. It was like signing a peace treaty with a schoolyard bully. …In the longer term, the provincial government needs to revisit just how we do forestry in this province. We have an incredible resource yet over the last couple of decades and more we have been receiving fewer and fewer community benefits. …It’s time to press the NDP/Green government to do the right thing.

Cosmin Filipescu, a research scientist with the Canadian Wood Fibre Centre of Natural Resources Canada, is leading a series of projects to answer key questions about the future of British Columbia’s Western redcedar, one of the province’s most valued trees. Although Western redcedar has served a multitude of uses to society over thousands of years, scientists know little about it. at’s the main reason a multi-year research project is looking at Western redcedar from a range of viewpoints covering economics, ecology, diseases, quality and value of forest products, and climate change. Recently published, An Economic Assessment of the Western Redcedar Industry in British Columbia, shows Western redcedar is a $1.3 billion annual industry, providing 1,900 jobs across B.C. It is also important for its cultural value to First Nations and for its ecological value as wildlife habitat and for biodiversity.

Re: “Once there was a forest” by Ross Muirhead, Letters, March 23. Ross Muirhead must know, being familiar with the last 80 years of published forest science research, that logging clearcuts create open space that many plants and animals need to flourish. Yet he and ELF will not publicly accede to this fact of nature. Because a clearcut receives more sunlight, it creates optimal growing conditions for shrubs, herbs and grasses that provide forage for animals such as deer, elk, and black bears – you can go and look – as well as habitat for pollinators such as moths, butterflies and bees. The number of different vascular plant species in clearcut openings is usually double that of mature forests, something confirmed over and over in both North America and Europe. What is so upsetting about this that it must be denied or kept out of sight?

The Chapman watershed has been a site of conflict for 50 years. This watershed, our primary source of water, has been logged extensively. The park created at the headwaters was the only means of protection available to stop further logging in the high elevations. It was not a recreational initiative, it was a legal measure to prevent logging company access and ensure our water supply remained viable. If you look at Google Earth you can see what happened to the valley downstream. It is now the site of landslides, regrowth of alder and stream degradation. This has certainly affected the quantity and quality of our water supply. Our provincial government took stumpage fees from this shortsighted behavior and legislated that the flow of wood take precedence over our need for water.

When a final agreement to protect the Great Bear Rainforest was announced in February 2016, it was hailed as a major victory for First Nations and environmental activists.  …But while protests and blockades were halting loggers’ work in one valley, the next valley over might be razed to the ground — and this fragmentation of the forest was jeopardizing the health of the ecosystem as a whole. …Such campaigns are now quite common and seen as increasingly influential. Through them, NGOs seek to pressure a target — usually a corporation, a government, or a governmental body — to adopt some policy or course of action intended to increase forest conservation. These campaigns employ a variety of tactics and make different demands of their target. …So how effective are advocacy campaigns at driving permanent policy changes that lead to forest conservation results?

Port Alberni city council got a grounding in TimberWest’s public access policy Monday. Domenico Iannidinardo, the forest company’s chief forester and vice-president of sustainability, gave an overview at the invitation of the city. Access to the backcountry has become a hot-button topic in recent years due to the frequent closure of gates on forestry roads on the Island. MLA Scott Fraser is preparing a report on solutions to the issues after hosting a pair of stakeholder consultations. Most of TimberWest’s forest operations are spread along eastern Vancouver Island rather than around Port Alberni, Iannidinardo noted. “Public accessibility on our lands is a community responsibility,” he said. The company prefers to work with organizations and groups to provide that access.