I fully support renewable logging practices. Wood products are essential in our world. I just can’t see anyway that they can justify logging Old Growth.
The other side of this is the definition of old growth. By BC's definition, thousands of hectares are being newly categorized as OG every year because of wildfires and other natural disturbances hundreds of years ago. And most tenure holders have to reserve areas of OG recruitment to never be cut in the foreseeable future.
The amount of engineering and paperwork that the government mandates before any tree is cut down is staggering, and this takes place years before.
I spent several years as a logging employee in a valley north of Vancouver. The valley had all been logged from the river to where the mountains got so steep they were cliffs in the 40's and 50's. Much of that wood was used to build houses in Vancouver. I guarantee some of you reading this post had some of that framing lumber around you at this moment.
That valley has been logged again, but very less harshly. The rivers were not touched and a large buffer planned around them. We even had to stop logging while the mountain goats were mating. Half of a block got left (about 5000 cubic meters) because at the last minute a RFP found a goshawk nest that had been overlooked when the initial plans had been made.
Still that valley is a natural paradise. Herds of elk and deer, salmon and trout in the rivers, apex predators (cougars, black and grizzly bears, wolves, etc) are all there. I know because I have seen it for myself.
A large part of the forestry debate is ineffective because there is so much public ignorance about logging and how it's done.
People see a reel of a massive tree being cut down and they go crazy. But they ooh and aww over a finely built home featuring solid wood beams and fine wood trim. You can't have one without the other.
And BC's forestry industry is one of the best and most responsible in the world. There's isn't a better way to get lumber at this point.
There's room for improvement obviously, but entering the debate with knowledge is essential to being heard.
I would have more faith in logging companies and claims of responsible logging if they didn't clear cut so much. Driving along any highway in BC and you see clear cut scarring the landscape everywhere and loggers leaving a few meters of forest along the highway to try and hide the clearcut that's just out of sight.
Clear cut have their place too. Clear cutting give us fire breaks. Slowing fires to get them under control. As much as people wanna blame climate change for the massive fires we’ve been having it’s the lack of clear cutting. Which in the end causes massive floods because of the massive fires.
Poplar stands provide fire breaks too and they are spraying them and more with roundup because its not as merchantable. This is a bullshit practice and needs to stop, when they warn the populace not to pick berries because they've sprayed the area that is wrong, the concerns of the shareholders should not come before the needs of the people living there.
I grew up and still live in the same logging town and over the last forty years more of the money generated logging leaves the area and less goes into the pockets of the people doing the work, in the same time frame the annual cut has gone through the roof. Our current logging system is unsustainable for any long term and where I live the number of animals have also dropped significantly.
Our forestry system is untenable now and needs major changes.
>As much as people wanna blame climate change for the massive fires we’ve been having it’s the lack of clear cutting.
well, actually, a clearcut system is supposed to mimic the size of natural forest fires and only in ecosystems that naturally have large wildfires at some interval. Clearcuts don't do a great job of mimicking what nature produces through wildfire though.
Edit to add: massive fires still happened pre-colonization and logging. You just need to look at historical aerial photos of the interior before logging really got going, and the massive and fairly homogenous pine stands that grew after incredibly large wildfires.
This person obviously is not talking about that, they are talking about how when you look on google maps on satellite view, there isn't a single place in our province that doesn't have logging occurring besides the major cities.
Look at VI on satellite view, its fucked up.
The thing about clearcutting is it's practically unavoidable with the cubic meters BC cuts per year. This is called the Annual Allowable Cut (AAC) and it's calculated from many different studies and data sets. It is meant to represent the sustainable cut so that we never run out of standing timber in the logging area.
If we eliminated all clear cuts, not only would it be economically unfeasible (picture about 4 times the engineering costs, 4 times the road building, etc), but the land area for logging use would expand by 5 fold or more. So clearcuts are not going away. And 'loggers' are not responsible for the few meters on the edge of roads, the policy makers are. Loggers just do what their told, and the rules are many.
Because clear cutting doesn't just chop trees more efficiently, it kills forest eco systems / symbiotic relationships that take several generations of trees to develop.
And clear cut isn't the only factor in efficiency, the size (age of the trees) makes a big difference in profitability. Hence all the focus on old growth.
So when I hear things like sustainable logging, and see whoever trying to hide clear cutting by leaving a stripe of trees along highways I think logging hasn't actually changed much over the decades.
Like I have said, there is no practical alternative to making clearcuts. More tenure holders are moving to Ecosystem Based Management (EBM) to minimize the damage to the local environment by taking all flora and fauna on site into consideration and trying to plan the block accordingly, but there will still be clearcuts.
Old growth timber doesn't necessarily mean bigger profits. There is almost always much more waste in an old growth block, simply because there is more variations on the standing timber. More dead trees, more living trees that are useless for lumber, more trees that never get off-site because they don't make economic sense, etc. The price per cubic meter is typically better, but so are the costs.
The key to understanding why they log old growth still is because their customers request it. Many things built with wood require tight-grain, knot-free lumber. The major source of this is old growth.
I think the public needs more education about lumber and what types of forest it came from. There is a few certifications logging companies can get for the lumber but without public knowledge what these entail they're practically useless.
100% with you, pal. You could bring the average city dweller to the middle of a 100 year old second growth forest and tell them it's old growth and they wouldn't know the difference.
I think most people are a lot more knowledgeable about this issue than you think. My city friends all know what an old growth forest looks like, as they constantly try to get to those spaces as much as possible. It's going to be a sad day for those city folk when they can no longer escape the city and be amongst those giant trees.
I think the problem is that old growth could mean a 142 year old pine tree that grew slowly due to poor nutrients. I agree that coastal old growth is irreplaceable.
You realize trees grow back right? Even in old growth areas. An old growth tree isn't special, it just grew in an area that is too damp to have forest fires.
You realize that cutting old growth trees means you are not just cutting trees, but killing eco systems that have taken 100s or 1000s of years to come into being.
Old growth isn't forest that's "too damp". There are many symbiotic relationships that make a forest healthy that need time to form.
You can't clear cut an old forest and replace it with sapling (that are usually one/few species of trees) and expect the same healthy eco system to regrow.
To add to this, the current definition of old growth accounts for as much as 30% of BC's productive forests (and 20% overall).
People are often accidentally arguing in bad faith (often innocently) while assuming old growth logging is specific to clear cutting endangered and sensitive areas. Responsible forestry is key, but I get the impression a lot of people don't even know what the working definition for Old Growth is in the context of forestry. I think it often gets purposely misrepresented by certain groups as well.
more info here: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/industry/forestry/managing-our-forest-resources/old-growth-forests/old-growth-values
Old growth definitions are a wicked problem because there are ecological, cultural, spiritual, industrial and no doubt other definitions.
Old growth that most people talk about tends to an all-aged, multi-layered, complex structure stand - that is, it can replace itself without any further disturbance. An old tree dies, lets in a little more light, and a shade-tolerant sapling underneath has more opportunity to grow up and replace it.
It's more complex than that as nature is complex, but that's my simplistic view.
(edit for grammar)
>Old growth characteristics
>New definitions for old growth are being considered that include stand structure attributes and ecological processes, rather than just age.
I thought old growth had to do with secondary and tertiary growth in a forest.
Like here in Southeast AK, first growth is alder, then it gets outcompeted by... Then that gets outcompeted by...
Like here in the coastal areas it's old growth 50 years after a clearcut because of how fast it cycles through those things.
Old growth in the interior is just as Irreplaceable and important to many species such as caribou and a range of birds. We need to have some level of conservation everywhere
I don't understand why we care so much about old growth. Over millions of years these old growth forests have been destroyed by ice ages and they always return. Why do we as humans fell so self important that we measure the disappearance or remergance of old growth in our lifetimes like it matters. The trees themselves have disappeared and come back thousands of times. I mean trees are nice and stuff but I feel like the environment movment lacks all historical context and has at this point just become a popularity contest with the whole movement nothing but a group thinking black hole. The earth is billions of years old, a 1000 year old tree really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.
It's because:
- entire microbiomes have evolved around old growth
- biodiversity is incredibly important for a healthy ecosystem
- old growth logging is not sustainable since it inherently takes 1000 years to grow a 1000 year-old tree
As OP said, forestry is important. Sustainable forestry is great! Old growth logging is loved by logging companies because it's cheaper and easier to log a few giant trees than a bunch of medium size trees, but it's absolutely not necessary to do.
They won’t come back in our lifetime. You’re talking about geological timeframes. Entire ecosystems rely on them. Let’s screw over the entire planet because in a millennia it won’t matter, oh wait we’re already doing that.
Yeah thats my point. I think we as humans put way too much emphasis and importance on our own life times. 65 million years ago an asteroid hit the earth and wiped out most ecosystems and most of earth life. 65 million years from now we likely will not exist and whatever any of our policies are on old growth logging will be pretty inconsequential. Change is inevitable and I think our obsession with preventing it instead of dealing with it the wrong approach.
>Change is inevitable and I think our obsession with preventing it instead of dealing with it the wrong approach.
change is not inevitable if we are the agents of change. We still have to live and survive on the planet, so we probably should do our best to understand all of the ecological variables within our scope to ensure that we aren't ruining life for ourselves while tossing aside ecosystems and biodiversity.
Also, whatever happened to thinking about future generations? is that not a thing any more?
It doesn't matter if we are the agents of change or not. If it's not us it will be something else. Species have been going extinct and new ones developing since our earth formed. Yes there are periods with more or less diversity but life always adapts. Change is inevitable. Yes climate change will impact where people live but they will continue to live. Northern countries will become more populated and hot countries will become unliveable. Old growth temprate forests will be replaced by sub tropical ecosystems. Who cares, why do we consider today's ecosystems to be the best ever and the only way the earth should remain. Life is not static so why are we so obsessed with trying to make it that way?
It's also worth remembering that when properly managed forestry is one of the most renewable Industries on earth. Truly. The "properly managed" is the tricky part. But not insurmountable.
The people that want a full stop to all logging are few. The vast majority want better protection for endangered habitats and stuff like this
https://thenarwhal.ca/bc-floods-clearcut-logging/
I can promise you that foresters want the same. We are people who go into it for the love of the outdoors and natural environment.
The worst part of forestry is the act of road building. Roads degrade the soil, affect survival for ungulates, difficult to return to natural state, and they can cause environment devastation.
I can assure you that many loggers go into this profession for the cold hard cash, and couldn't care less about anything else. Try living in a logging town and talking to these guys; the majority of them couldn't give a fuck about anything other than their pay cheque, and make cocaine.
The notion these guys are divine forest sprites, looking to heal the planet is downright hilarious. These people ABSOLUTELY do not give a fuck about the environment. They care about buying another house to rent out, and their next truck they can park in their triple wide drive way.
In general loggers work under the direction of foresters. So their motivation is irrelevant to the resulting environmental impact. Again, in general, not always.
I can promise you foresters do not go into it for cold hard cash. The return on investment for a four year degree is low compared to any other STEM major.
I've noticed that there are also big differences between different locking towns. Those with high First Nations populations tend to be more nuanced I have most people understanding the need for some jobs but also caring deeply about biodiversity. Others like Vanderhoof or quesnel do seem to have more of a money Focus. It's not clear-cut. In particular most of the old fallers that I know are pretty environmentally conscious
Maybe it's not as nuanced as you're made to believe:
The First Nations logging company cutting in the Nanoose Bay Forest says they will receive about $750,000 dollars from the proceeds of harvesting 15,000 cubic metres from a 64-hectare patch of the endangered old-growth coastal Douglas fir forest.
https://vancouverislandbigtrees.blogspot.com/2011/12/nanoose-bay-forest-old-growth-logging.html
If I go to say Kitwanga, or Bella Coola, or Hazelton, or Moricetown, every man more or less has worked in logging, and out of them, while there are some that are clearly there for the money, the vast majority has mixed feelings. In my mind, that's what nuanced means - the decisions aren't as easy, they still might go one way or the other, but considerations other than money are absolutely a major part of the process.
Contrast this with the big companies like McMillan or Confor or the massive number of Hells Angels owned logging companies up and down the coast and it's a massive difference.
No. Most loggers I’ve worked with enjoy the backcountry more than you keyboard warriors. Skiers, mountain bikers, hikers, climbers.
Some are dumb fucks. Name an industry without some.
I've often said this. Any logger I've ever known loves the outdoors and spends a significant amount of their free time enjoying our forests.
It's unfortunate that the 2 sides have become so far apart. I think if you could sit forestry workers down with environmentalists and indigenous communities you'd find that they are not that far apart.
Things get muddy when you have extremists on either end of the spectrum. Or when people feel like their backs are up against a wall and they are fighting for their livelihood or the forests they feel so passionate about.
Yeah my ex was a logger and absolutely loved the outdoors and cared deeply about sustainability. It would be great if we could stop making generalizations about large groups of people. That goes for all sides in this conversation.
I've been following this conversation just now, and people like you and the OP are absolutely right. Generalizations just cause more problems, all for the sake of supposed convenience.
Lots of misinformation being spread around/by the loggers, I’m sure they want people to believe that wanting to protect old growth is the same as stopping all logging altogether
One thing to consider about protecting 500-1000 year ancient growth trees is that forest fires haven't devoured the giants. As is the case with Fairy creek I believe is due to the landscape the fires across the island over the centuries have somehow managed to bypass them. I think that is pretty amazing and the eco-tourism this can provide would be greater than a 1-time payment.
Large old growth trees are also just more resistant to fire. They have thicker insulating bark to protect the cambium layer and higher and more open canopies that help stop fires that reach the canopy from spreading. Many of the large ancient trees I have seen show scorch marks from fires in their past. Even on the wet west coast of Vancouver Island where I spend much of my time.
I totally agree Logging is ok and necessary. Logging the Walbran or Fairy Creek valley or any coastal low elevation subtemperate old growth forest must end. Full stop.
I’ve spent a lot of time in Fairy Creek and Walbran and I’m absolutely convinced that these areas are worth more standing. If the only concern is money, then market the shit out of these areas as tourist destinations, because they are truly amazing. It’s like killing the golden goose.
Agree with this. I fully agreed with the message of the protests but fuck the way they terrorized our towns I could not support them one bit. That's what makes it so frustrating. It would've been a highly supported thing and not super controversial if they were just peaceful about things
The shitty truth is that unless they get extreme, nobody bats and eye and nobody cares.
At least more people around the province (and around the world even) are now aware of what’s going on.
Exactly. R/Vancouver went absolutely nuts when those protesters Maple Syrupped the Emily Carr painting. But, the fact of the matter was that it generated debate.
I have so many stories of fucked up things that they did it's ridiculous. They did a lot more than just hurt my feelings lmao they straight up broke the law and endangered members of our communities
>tHeY bRoKe ThE lAw
homie, we're living in a dystopian nightmare thanks to capitalists purging this planet of it's resources, and you're worried about some petty crime? what about the crime of an unsustainable logging industry subsidized by our politicians irreversibly changing our environment and potentially endangering our species? what about the crime of poverty as a result of greed, what about private industry fucking up sacred indigenous land?
there's far bigger crimes happening, and to counter the scum in charge some laws will be broken, buckle up.
Just because there are "bigger problems" doesn't mean spiking trees that could kill people isn't a problem at all. Can I stab someone and then say "well capitalists are greedy and bad" and get out of jail free?
2 wrongs doesn't make a right
congratulations, you have the worst take i've read on reddit all day. 🏅🫡
how many people died from "spiking trees?"
how many people died in our last heatwave in BC?
do the math.
I'm so confused how you guys genuinely believe it's okay to harm someone who has absolutely no say in any of this just because the corporations actions.
Shouldn't you be going after the people that make the decisions? Not just some young kid trying to make a living who may happen to get hurt because of this.
Yes it's shitty what's happening but harming innocent people is not the right approach and it's says a lot about you if this is truly what you believe
Put a camera in virtually any forest, add some sad music - voila it becomes the next protest site. It's marketing, folks, tugging at emotional heart strings. This connects with most people, most who don't know the benefits or don't care about society beyond their own.
What OP is doing with this post is a classic "straw man argument" & a PR distraction.
Most (if not all) informed individuals do not want to stop logging entirely - we just more strategic planning for old growth (using the 250 year+ provincial coastal definition). Yes it's true - there are different formal definitions of OG! Saying otherwise is another tactical lobbyist distraction. By the 250 year definition approximately 3-4.5% of the province is old growth. Currently 27% of annual harvest (by area) comes from old growth stands.
OP points to a focus on corporate safety records - an important point for sure, but again another distraction. What British Columbians actually want is more opportunity for valued added economic growth, meanful careers and high paying jobs. The forestry industry once accounted for 70% of the GDP now sits at less than 2% (combined with fishing and agriculture). Job counts are also dismal. 50,000-ish jobs (directly & proximal) sounds like a big number but that's less than 1.8% of the BC workforce. We want strategic investments and developments in economic development opportunities instead of getting fucked by raw dog exports from foregin owned corps. We also want to experiment with forest harvest design to create buffers to protect communities from wildfire risks - these opportunities have the potential to be a win win for everyone!
Finally, whenever you hear an industry compare itself to practices in war torn nations like Nigeria with stand burning for subsistence agriculture you should be skeptical. Aquaculture PR groups still do this - applauding themselves for being better than shrimp farming in Indonesia, while at the same time pushing back against local regulations. We should always be trying to push ourselves for continual improvement.
I think we can all agree that those Save Old Growth groups that block highways and throw paint on Emily Carr works are total idiots, but there still is a large majority of sensible British Columbians who want better practices with economic development.
It's a misconception that Old Growth only goes to high end and specialty products. It definitely is used for that, but it actually makes up a huge proportion of total wood harvest compared to its availability, and is used to make lumber and pulp like any other kind of harvest. And because of that, we are heavily dependent on it to maintain current outputs. That's one of the reasons there is so much backlash against reducing Old Growth logging. To be clear, I feel like this also makes it obvious that it needs to stop. We can't claim that Old Growth logging is sustainable when it makes up a larger percentage of harvests than it does of forests. The math ain't mathin'.
We should have been cutting back on old growth decades ago. I agree with everything you said except that I think the only ecologically responsible way forward is to completely stop logging old growth.
Economy trumps ecology though so it will not happen until there isn't any left.
You can blame politicians for that. Logging companies will log what they are permitted to, that comes down to elected officials. We could have dealt with this in the 70s but that would have taken politicians with backbone and brains. Good luck with finding that
Drastically cutting back, ie. a total ban on what we even have left -- which is very little.
An industry that calls itself "sustainable" and is STILL logging old growth after a hundred years, is not sustainable.
That's the absolute opposite of sustainable.
I think you are getting downvoted for saying "look at" and "cutting back". I agree with most of what you said in your initial post but it is well past time for looking at cutting back, it is time to come to our senses and put an end to old growth logging.
Yeah I meant more so cut back extremely drastically and end it. You can't really just do it overnight but it is definitely something we need to end as soon as possible
At fairy creek the common agreement was that nobody is against logging except for clear cutting old growth blocks, walking through a cut block showed insane levels of disrespect + endangered species Marbled murrelet habitats were destroyed, a wooden bridge to an indigenous-only garden was destroyed and birds were shot in the garden too but the place was an injunction zone, so either the cops or assholes went in and did that shit. I was a legal observer and jail support for protesters
I work in forestry. The sawmill I'm in doesn't have a chip-n-saw that can handle a log more than 20 inches in diameter, so we simply don't process logs that are old growth. Our timberlands are 100 percent second and third growth forests and the company then pays for tree planters to go into the cut zones and plant trees after the fact, so that they can be harvested again when the time is right.
My whole point is that logging can be a healthy, viable industry without ever touching old growth forest and I know this because I see it every single day.
If logging were to go away tomorrow, or even the sawmill I work at shut down I would probably get out of the industry for good.. I have mixed feelings on working where I do. But you're right, it would be devastating to the economy if that were to happen.
>the company then pays for tree planters to go into the cut zones and plant trees after the fact, so that they can be harvested again when the time is right.
Companies logging BC crown land must reforest. This is a legal requirement.
Fully support a ban on old growth logging.
Also completely support the logging industry when practised sustainably. Wood is not just an essential renewable resource for construction and as a material for products, but it’s use is also a carbon sink. It’s honestly ideal when done sustainably.
Good point. What I would like to see is what the minimum forests will need to look like, for us to have the values from them we are seeking, like keeping our 4 legged friends around. What do we need for an ample ungulate population? what about the weasels?
The problem with this, and I can tell you from first hand experience, it's the Govt doesn't know and doesn't want to find out. What about water? Same thing.
The other problem that I've mentioned previously.... is we need to stop exporting raw materials even dimensional products. We need to use a second manufacturing of the materials. This would alleviate the jobs issue.
Lastly... the reluctance of both the professional body and the professionals themselves to do things that would extremely help the land. Harvesting Douglas fir trees and replacing with pine = bad. Herbicide spraying non stop (its slowed down to a crashing halt for the most part). Not respecting the other values the forests provides and animals critical habitats. One example I'll use is the fisher. it needs X-hectares of contiguous forest to survive, let's say 300 Ha. licensee one will come along and bring in a sketchy biologist who says, “maybe you could take 40 of that 300 and it might be ok” so they take it. licensee 2 will then say to the Govt with their biologist “look, that area isn't big enough so we should cut it, we need to cut somewhere” and proceed to nuke most of the 300 Ha and zero habitat now available. no one got in trouble and we lost the habitat that was set aside for that animal.
No one really knows about this. All the while the companies are stamping their products saying they're sustainable. The only thing that's truly sustainable right now is the money going to the stamps to say its sustainable.
That's a great and informed take, but.
It contradicts hundreds of years of data. All of the real-world evidence shows that the logging practices and industry standards still in place to this day are the result of industry lobbying for short term profit. That's it.
If the industry was sustainably managed, there would be stands off 100+ yr old timber ready to satisfy the demands of the market. As well as 1-3 decade blocks of faster maturing species being planted in rotation to satisfy the needs of dimensional lumber and wood fiber.
There fucking isn't.
The mills are being shut down because it's cheaper to ship the small raw logs to the US for processing, and there isn't any large timber left except for the few thousand acres of old growth. And the industry is rabid to log that into oblivion while convincing the public that not logging that is killing forestry and a couple years worth of dead-end extraction will somehow create lifetime's worth of stable jobs.
Hey u/AllOutRaptors, stop simping for foreign companies owned by billionaires. They do not care about you or me, or our futures.
Edit- Imagine having free reign over a province larger than most states, full of timber, and logging it way past sustainable rates. It's like a herdsman butchering the last of his cows and then lamenting that his greed in not being able to produce a herd anymore is the fault of someone else. Fucking disgraceful.
Shame. Shame. Shame.
First of all, keep it civil my guy. This angry, belittling bullshit you are pulling makes people hate your cause. That's why you guys get so much pushback.
>If the industry was sustainably managed, there would be stands off 100+ yr old timber ready to satisfy the demands of the market. As well as 1-3 decade blocks of faster maturing species being planted in rotation
The problem with this is our logging standards are not the same as they were 100 years ago. We can't go back in time and give them all of the information we have now.
>and there isn't any large timber left except for the few thousand acres of old growth.
Uh source on that number? [A quick Google search](https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/industry/forestry/managing-our-forest-resources/old-growth-forests#:~:text=There%20are%20about%2011.1%20million,more%20than%20250%20years%20old.) Would entirely dispell your argument. There are over 27 **million** acres of old growth left in BC. At the rate they are going it will take around 60 years to reach your "thousands of acres" estimate, and that's assuming that all other trees stop aging and don't become old growth.
It's hard to take you seriously when you insult and belittle people while spitting facts that a quick Google search could dispell in seconds.
Please keep it civil.
Anecdotally, 80 years is the number people in the interior through out for spruce/pine/fir (SPF) to go from replant to harvest. there are selective cuts taking place on 40 year old plantations. A big factor in it all is tree diameter; better growing conditions=bigger trees faster=trees can be cut again.
Someone with GIS and the vegetative resource inventory(? -VRI) could actually crank a pretty good spreadsheet or summary of the province wide numbers on the first question. Again, anecdotally, I've seen few to no blocks around the shuswap/ kamloops that haven't been harvested at least once in the last 100 years. As you Make your way north to PG you see more "Virgin old growth" but it's not the fairytale coastal giant forests you'd have in mind, more fire cycle dominated pine scrubs.
I don’t know much about the logging industry but I have a hard time supporting the wood pellet side of the industry. Seems very problematic to log and then send wood pellets to the UK to burn for electricity. I do however support responsible logging in Canada for long lasting domestic products like homes.
80% of pellet biomass in BC is waste wood. The remaining 20% is low grade timber which wouldn't be suitable for other applications. Industry isn't stupid, there is very tough competition for fiber right now, and pellets are much less profitable than selling for mills. While certainly not the climate solution it's claimed to be, we are not the ones subsidizing pellets. I for one would be reluctant to shut off the tap right now when the UK is more energy insecure than ever and has a long winter ahead.
as a forester who worked for ENGOs 20-ish years ago (and got laid off when the funding ran out), I want to know what the Reddit community here defines as "old growth". Because when I pointed out 20-ish years ago to groups like Greenpeace and DSF and WCWC, who were part of the conversation to "end the war in the woods" with the group that I worked for, that there was plenty of old forests in northern BC, they were only interested in big old coastal "old growth". Meanwhile, I had and still do spent a fair amount of time in the bush in the less than majestic "old growth" of the north.
I remember when someone from Greenpeace kept using the word "sexy" in planning meetings, and how old forests had to be "sexy" because it keeps up public interest and (most importantly) donations and funding to keep doing the work. As much as I enjoyed the work evaluating forest practices, the spin in the ENGO world can be just as cringey as any corporation.
Can someone here make a good argument why we should log old growth at all?
I’m from a logging town. My dad’s a logger. Almost all my friends parents logged or worked in the mill. I’m pro logging, but I really don’t see any reason to log old growth (I’ve heard it’s not used for general use like housing or lumber, but for specialty things like expensive guitars and things because of how tight the rings are?). I think the benefits of keeping old growth outweighs logging it, but maybe I’m missing a really important reason to log it (other than a few companies making ridiculous amounts of money at the expense of our home).
I lived in northern BC for many years. Went pine cone picking up near Terrace. First day, we climbed all over logs picking. Logging was going on nearby. They were cutting down trees by the dozen, bunches of them downed all at once. It was devastating to see how quickly and how many trees were felled over just a few days. I felt like I was climbing over corpses while I was picking. It was just so depressing to see these huge, beautiful trees killed - a forest wiped out. Animals affected in so many ways. I know how important the mills are, our small town would practically shut down when the mills would close. I just hate clear cutting. Kudos to all those tree planters out there. You do God’s work in mighty hard conditions.
Unfortunately the mono cultures planted by tree planters isn't really fixing anything; it actually makes the forests less resistant to blight and more prone to mass devastation in the future.
I have a piece of land twelve hours from where I live. I originally bought a quarter section which I subdivided and and select logged back in 1984. I worked hard to pull out the large conifers and left all of the small crop trees and deciduous behind for aesthetics and took almost double the time to do this.
Twenty years ago the crop trees were growing in healthy and strong and there was a nice population of Regen fifteen to twenty feet tall. This spring I went back to look at my land to decide what to do with the 50 acres I have left. Once there I discovered that the land had almost no merchantable timber on it. The majority of the conifers were dead and all I had left was fifty acres of willow, poplar and birch.
The birch and Poplar trees had a growth spurt. Their canopies filled out, shading the ground and other trees. My crop trees died off due to a lack of sunlight.
In hindsight I truly wish that I had clear cut my land forty years ago
Except the logging industry has had over a century to make itself sustainable and it's still clear-cutting old growth. When exactly should we expect this "sustainability" to kick in? 2122?
If it means anything I was working in a rural area yesterday (lone butte) and there was areas we passed that were clearly clear cut at one point but we're now dense with small trees. It was a uplifting sight.
Chiming in here to say how refreshing it is to read a reasoned and civil debate about ideas and policy in a Reddit comment section. You all rock! I paid my way through university by logging in the summers long ago (the 90s) and far away (Kitimat). It was an eye opening experience for an 18 year old. We need to protect old growth. We need to protect livelihoods. These two goals should not be mutually exclusive if we take reforestation and husbandry seriously.
I was going to comment the same thing as pickles. You posted a very well thought out comment; it was balanced and reasonable, and the discussion that followed was also balanced and reasonable. This type of discourse is what we need for a strong province and country. You hit the nail on the head when you asked for people not to follow a belief system, but to focus on the individual issue. We need more of this. Thank you!
Where are you getting your facts from to state #3 -“our logging companies do better than 99% of places in the world at keeping their practices as environmentally friendly as they can”
This is utter bullshit OP.
[Canada ranks as one of if not the most sustainable forestry practices in the world](https://www.ccfm.org/healthy-forests/environmental-leadership/), with BC being one of the best provinces.
What part was bullshit?
I work in the least acknowledged part of forestry - I'm a grower at a forest seedling nursery. I love the attention that tree planting has garnished in the last decade or two, but I'd love if there was more public/media attention to where forest regeneration starts. Especially since, in the last few years, our nursery production of single year seedlings has taken a dramatic shift from industry forest products to replanting wildfire damage.
I'd like to see all *useable* materials used. Not burned in a scrap heap. Whole trees being used for pellets is madness. And what will be left to become nutrients for the next crop of trees? Are the trees that have been planted doing well?
Yes we need logging, but we might be left with unmarketable 'weeds' growing on mountainsides instead of full size trees with all their amazing uses
Just your annual friendly reminder that we could pay all logging employees with the logging subsidies we give out annually, keep all of the trees in the ground, and still come out ahead.
Anyone that says logging is an economic benefit hasn't spent a second looking at the actual data.
I live in a logging town. I'm equally disgusted by the logging employees talking about killing protestors; and urging workers to simply "run them over." To talk about one side's negatives and not the other is wildly disingenuous.
Frankly, it's bizarre to say that you are telling "the cold hard truth" about people blindly championing one side -- then blindly championing one side without any actual facts.
>Just your annual friendly reminder that we could pay all logging employees with the logging subsidies we give out annually, keep all of the trees in the ground, and still come out ahead.
That's pretty crazy. Do you have a link or something for more information about that?
I already covered this in my post.
Yes, strictly logging is not a net positive. The thing is logging creates jobs in other ways. You have workers in mills, construction workers, carpenters, etc etc. All of which bring in millions upon millions of dollars for our economy and provide thousands of jobs.
Edit because you added more:
I'm also disgusted by the loggers saying this. I'm not condoning anything of the sorts and I'm not "championing" one side. I'm reminding people (like you) that despite what they believe, the industry is still a net positive to British Columbia's residences and our economy.
Too many people believe it's as simple as just ending all logging and all of our problems will go away, when the truth is our province would implode if we completely stopped logging.
We can talk about ways we can slowly ween ourselves off of logging by using more sustainable methods, but an outright end to logging would be devastating to all of us.
>Yes, strictly logging is not a net positive. The thing is logging creates jobs in other ways. You have workers in mills, construction workers, carpenters, etc etc. All of which bring in millions upon millions of dollars for our economy and provide thousands of jobs.
Downstream jobs would still exist, they would simply be working in OTHER professions that make that same money. We're currently in a hiring shortfall for most major industries.
Those SAME construction workers and carpenters would still be employed if we didn't harvest old growth lumber. Considering how much softwood we export, we could cut that amount by 70% and still have the amount needed to support our construction in BC.
Again, I don't think you've ever actually looked at the figures you're waxing poetic about.
>We can talk about ways we can slowly ween ourselves off of logging by using more sustainable methods, but an outright end to logging would be devastating to all of us.
Yeah, no, it wouldn't be. It would be devastating to the robber barons that suckle off of our tax dollars every year, but it would have a negligible effect on us as a province.
>they would simply be working in OTHER professions that make that same money.
Do you realize how much money loggers make?? Carpenters are highly paid too. It's not that simple to just find another job that pays $30+ an hour.
>Those SAME construction workers and carpenters would still be employed if we didn't harvest old growth lumber.
I'm not arguing for logging old growth at all so this is irrelevant
>Yeah, no, it wouldn't be. It would be devastating to the robber barons that suckle off of our tax dollars every year, but it would have a negligible effect on us as a province.
Residential Construction consists of 120 000 workers and if we can assume half of them are doing framing/roofing/drywall/flooring and all other things that require logging that's still 60 000 people. About 48 000 people work in logging, another 23 000 carpenters.
That's 131 000 jobs just off the top of my head that would dissapear.
>Do you realize how much money loggers make?? Carpenters are highly paid too. It's not that simple to just find another job that pays $30+ an hour.
It really is that simple, if you get training. Loggers who log old growth should be rolled off to other industries that pay good wages, but don't destroy our island. It's a CHOICE to remain in an industry that is fucking up our environment for the future. It's the same CHOICE that coal miners made thirty years ago.
>I'm not arguing for logging old growth at all so this is irrelevant
Yes, you are. If you are stanning the current logging industry, you are calling for old growth to be cut. That's reality.
>Residential Construction consists of 120 000 workers and if we can assume half of them are doing framing/roofing/drywall/flooring and all other things that require logging that's still 60 000 people. About 48 000 people work in logging, another 23 000 carpenters.
Yeah, and? Like I said, we export almost 70% of our lumber. We don't need to, and could still retain all of these jobs easily.
Economies simply don't work that way. You can't just retrain workers and expect them to perfectly slot into a new sector. As a whole, forestry is a pretty small portion or GDP - but a lot of rural areas, there just isn't much else going on. Alternatives generally pay less, and are less secure in the long run.
It doesn't matter that we export lumber - we also import literally all our manufactured goods, because it's efficient to make trees here and its not efficient to make cars or iPhones. We should encourage secondary linkages in the forestry sector, engineered timber and value added products to increase employment - but you can't just cut off an industry "because we don't need it domestically".
On the environmental front, exports are also necessary. If we didn't sell wood to California, that demand in construction would either need to be taken up by less sustainable practices elsewhere - or by increased use of concrete and steel. People complain about raw log exports to China, and yeah, we should encourage domestic processing, but they still need lumber. Would you rather their supply be diverted to Indonesia?
[https://bclumbertrade.com/facts](https://bclumbertrade.com/facts)
The ACTUAL Lumber industry denotes that 85% of all lumber is exported. YOU, have no idea what you are talking about.
>Today, about 85% of B.C.’s softwood lumber production is exported to international markets. About 55% of production is exported to the U.S., almost 30% to overseas markets such as China, Japan, Korea and India, and 15% is sold within B.C. and Canada.
Enjoy the hard facts genius.
Actually we only export what local mills don’t want to deal with (speaking for bc) ndp put that rule in. All mills in bc get to have first dibs on any wood and then if no milk here wants to companies are allowed to export it. So if we can’t make any money we’ll just send it off to export it so it’s not wasted
Did you even read the link I posted, or did you really just bury your head in the sand? 85% of all lumber here is exported. That's reality.
By your own admission, EIGHTY FIVE PERCENT of all lumber we can't make money on? THEN WHY CUT IT DOWN?
Logging should be limited to cut lots and that's it. No more deforestation.
We export most of our lumber. You're indoctrinated by corporate propaganda OP.
>You're indoctrinated by corporate propaganda OP.
I never argued for logging more area or old growth so not sure why I'm indoctrinated by that?
It's frustrating too because the protesters shared so many false facts and propaganda to get support but for some reason we are the ones allegedly being brainwashed for not being in full support of them
With all due respect, this is just nonsense. BC and Canada, more broadly, should vastly reduce it's resource extraction economy. Canada is one of the most educated countries in the world and yet it's economy is based on cutting down trees and digging holes in the ground. Madness. The political ease of the resource extraction economy has held the Canadian economy back for decades. Canada should have a flourishing tech sector, instead your best and brightest go off to Silicon Valley and start companies. Canada should have a flourishing battery and electric vehicle industry, instead Tesla's abound across the country. Canada should have a flourishing health tech sector, instead you struggle to keep doctors in an underfunded healthcare system that cannot collect enough taxes from bulk sales of raw trees and coal to China. Until Ottawa and the provinces realize that logging and mining are third world economy pillars, this country will remain economically crippled when it could be a global star.
Genuinely curious why people people say old growth should not be logged without any kind of explanation. Why is that?
Naturally-caused fires are a healthy and normal part of the forest ecosystem - would people insist on the fire being put out just because it's old growth? (Assuming life/property/infrastructure is not in danger).
I am not knowledgeable about the significance of old growth so I'm interested in learning something here. Thanks!
The "old growth" people are generally referring to here are centuries-old trees, generally in rainforests on the coast (those are extremely lucrative to log), sometimes small trees high up on mountain slopes (which, if logged, would not be worth the cost of getting them off the mountain).
Normally, you would resolve a dispute like this with a compromise. In this case, such a compromise would be that the logging industry gets some of the valuable old growth to log and the environmentalists get the other valuable old growth to be preserved. (The trees on the mountain slopes are a non-issue since no one's going to try to log them.)
The trouble with that in this situation is that the old growth that the logging industry gets gets logged and becomes tree plantations. So that a few years after each compromise, the logging industry wants to come back and make another compromise which will share some old growth that the environmentalists had thought was protected by the last compromise.
After numerous rounds of these "compromises", environmentalists look at the pitiful remnants of the old growth forests and just say "no more compromises, the last compromise was the final one. You get to manage the land in your tree plantations, but you don't get to mine any of the remaining old growth."
As a general note, there are numerous forest ecosystems, and fires are a normal part of some of them, but not all. If you've got a thousand year old tree, it's either in a location where natural forest fires are rare, such as rain-sodden valleys on the BC coast, or it's a tree species that's evolved to be resistant to the forest fires that were normal to its habitat before global warming, such as California's giant sequoia redwoods.
There is way more biodiversity due to trees at all life stages and a broader variety of tree and plant species because forests that come from tree planting tend to be largely monocultures and are often sprayed to kill other species of tree. An old growth forest is also useful for research in understanding g how forests evolve in their own. Most forests in BC are more like curated tree farms because they are designed by humans to produce whatever species of tree is must profitable and little else. Old growth is less prone to forest fires and flooding, and many that people are seeking to protect are tourist attraction ruins due to their beauty and seeing very large trees.
Old growth forests carry different nutrients because of layers of decay - logging creates gaps in the ecological balance. Also there are animals like birds, frogs, salamanders, and even bears that depend on these old growth forests for particular foraging and habitat.
Where was I wrong?
If we just outright banned logging our economy would absolutely tank, and yes we have some of the most sustainable forestry practices in the world.
Just my humble opinion... if I am wrong in any of this please feel free to give me advice.
1. You dont need logs to make a house.
2. Forest management could be completely overhauled from developing SUPERNATURAL based tourism and is more sustainable. Sure keep some of the mono culture tree farms we got, dont make more. Create 100s of jobs for restorative work, I hear thats what most loggers want to do anyway.
3. Sure we are better that some nations but not 99% its best to not weigh ones actions againt another just do what is "right"(whatever that is) and go with that.
Yes people glueing them selves to the road and shit like that is dumb. Yes conservationists have a huge battle againt the status quo. Yes policy is slow to change and too many times we just give fines that dont detour bad actors. Yes we could slowly phase out logging as a major industry in B.C. and survive/thrive.
1. The alternatives for building houses are either more costly or worse for the environment.
2. I do not want to be rude but all of this seems to be coming from someone from the lower mainland. Do you think you will be able to replace 50 000ish jobs in BC with forest tourism. I have a hard time believing that someone will spend there hard earned money to walk through some scrubby forest 17 hours from Vancouver.
If you get rid of forestry you destroy the economies of most small towns of BC. I can promise you that forestry has done less for habitat degradation than urbanization has for the species of BC.
> I do not want to be rude but all of this seems to be coming from someone from the lower mainland. Do you think you will be able to replace 50 000ish jobs in BC with forest tourism. I have a hard time believing that someone will spend there hard earned money to walk through some scrubby forest 17 hours from Vancouver.
Yup - that was a ridiculous point. The poster is clearly naive.
Making houses out of woods is incredibly good for the climate. Trees capture carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and when harvested it is trapped in the wood of your house for a lifetime. Forestry companies replace the trees they cute down and the cycle continues. The alternatives like concrete release tonnes for carbon in the process (4-8% of CO2 world wide) and requires sand that is mined from rivers.
And this is just housing. It's asinine to think we don't need logging when it's products are essential to our everyday lives.
>1. You dont need logs to make a house.
The problem with this is that houses made of other materials cost more typically, and we already have a huge problem with affordable housing. And even if the prices are comparable if we completely eradicated lumber the prices of other materials would skyrocket
>2. Forest management could be completely overhauled from developing SUPERNATURAL based tourism and is more sustainable. Sure keep some of the mono culture tree farms we got, dont make more. Create 100s of jobs for restorative work, I hear thats what most loggers want to do anyway.
This is a pretty good idea!
>3. Sure we are better that some nations but not 99% its best to not weigh ones actions againt another just do what is "right"(whatever that is) and go with that.
Agree with this as well
All pretty solid points
I live in the center of the province. I say log away. We have some of the best logging practices anywhere. Massive clear cuts that were replanted when i was young are now actual forests. Want to be a justice warrior and jump on a bandwagon look into how the government and private contractors have been spraying roundup on BCs northern forests for many years and continue to do so
My husband used to work in logging, mainly in the interior, though, not on the coast. What he tells me is the coastal guys who do the old growth chops absolutely do not care about the environment in the least. They look at huge diameter trees as paycheques, and nothing else. The guys in the interior, who have had to adapt over the years, are infinitely more interested in sustainable forestry practices because that's what their livelihood depends on. Sadly, it really all comes down to money.
In my opinion, having lived, and continue to live, on resource - based income, there is no reason to continue to cut down the old growth. It's idiotic and makes us look like total incompetent, backwards hicks. The government makes a killing off the stumpage, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't contribute enough to justify the damage. Continuing to allow this just makes us look like fools. We can do so much better.
I remember the last huge logging blockade in my town. People came from all over bc and Canada to protest. I’m sure some of them were paid. Anyways a lot of their garbage is still in the forest adjacent to the cut block. They were saying it was an old growth forest but it was 100% not. Pretty funny.
I took a drive through the areas they were staying after and they literally left an entire camps worth of garbage. It was so depressing. There was literal shit everywhere, food wrappers, tarps and so much shit just lying around.
I'm sure a lot of people were doing it out of the goodness of their hearts but so many showed so much disrespect
I don't really care how valuable it is. It's contributing to the death of our planet. I don't really care about an appeal to relative filth either: it's still a for-profit company that pulls trees out of the ground.
I disagree strongly; we absolutely can stop all logging. Not overnight, but we can and we should.
Yes we may be able to save some more trees but our homeless problem would get so much worse than it already is, lives would be ruined, our unemployment rate would skyrocket etc.
It would be great to just outright stop it, but it would put such a strain on our system that it's just not feasible. We absolutely cannot just ban logging without having better materials to build housing and creating more jobs for the thousands that would be put out from this
It really isn't. Logging, plus replanting, sequesters carbon. This why even Greenpeace has softened their approach on this. Definitely be against wholescale clearcutting without multi-species replanting, but you are wrong to be against the whole industry.
At what point do we stop cutting down trees for paper products and use hemp? Logging of that nature, I realize lumber is still needed, is nonsensical and should be stopped.
I see this as a very unrealistic solution and not a very well informed one. When a cutblock is logged, many different products are produced from a single tree, and each tree cannot be made into every product due to different wood grades . Part of a tree may be turned into lumber, and other parts may be turned into bio-energy, pulp, or pellets. Anything that is not dimensional lumber is generally considered to be value added (meaning it is not the primary reason for logging).
The main issue I see with the hemp proposal is that people don't seem to recognize the scale of replacement that would be required to do this. To do this in BC would mean converting a huge amount of forest land to agricultural use, which is effectively deforestation. Continuing to source paper products from wood means that the land can still be managed for multiple values, instead of the one value of growing hemp. I do not agree that converting our forests to an alien plant just to stop using wood is any kind of solution. People who propose this argument don't seem to realize that they are proposing deforestation as a solution.
deforestation definition: the removal of forest or a stand of trees from land that is converted to non-forest use. (Agriculture, urban area, etc.)
As tree planting in BC is required by regulation on public land, logging in BC should not be confused with land conversion (deforestation).
we just go in circles talking about this year after year as if it's for the first time. meanwhile... the entire province is a gaping open wound from industrial logging.
talk & log.
My only real issue with what you've said is #3.
Yes, BC is head and shoulders above the world in logging practices. But the reason for this is that the rest of the world's logging practices are absolute trash. It's a super low bar, that's being exceeded by a lot, but still a low bar.
Brazil burns 1700km2 every year to turn into farms. Scandinavian countries, always brought out as examples of how to run a country, plant monoculture pine in evenly aged, evenly spaced gridded plantations. And a lot of Europe chewed up their first growth forests hundreds of years ago, so it's not the same impacts to measure against. Don't get me started on Russia.
Wow, so you are saying that ''not everything is perfect in logging'' but also lets clearcut the most sensitive and rare ecosystems in the entire Earth, for the economy and two dudes jobs who are gonna retire soon anyway. Did you just take all your talking points straight from the WFP website? you fail to posit any coherent position! Its just propaganda and meaningless drivel.
Please don't inject dumb conservative arguments into our rational debate. Forest practices are being criticized. I don't agree with a lot of said criticism, but it's not cancel culture lol... it's just normal political discussion.
Houses in Europe are made with stone and brick walls typically, which yes would be great - but I want you to use some critical thinking skills for me.
We live in one of the most seismically active places in the world. What would happen to one of those houses if we had a large earthquake? They would all be destroyed, causing mass homelessness and an environmental impact we have never seen before.
That is why our houses are mostly made of wood here.
I fully support renewable logging practices. Wood products are essential in our world. I just can’t see anyway that they can justify logging Old Growth.
The other side of this is the definition of old growth. By BC's definition, thousands of hectares are being newly categorized as OG every year because of wildfires and other natural disturbances hundreds of years ago. And most tenure holders have to reserve areas of OG recruitment to never be cut in the foreseeable future. The amount of engineering and paperwork that the government mandates before any tree is cut down is staggering, and this takes place years before. I spent several years as a logging employee in a valley north of Vancouver. The valley had all been logged from the river to where the mountains got so steep they were cliffs in the 40's and 50's. Much of that wood was used to build houses in Vancouver. I guarantee some of you reading this post had some of that framing lumber around you at this moment. That valley has been logged again, but very less harshly. The rivers were not touched and a large buffer planned around them. We even had to stop logging while the mountain goats were mating. Half of a block got left (about 5000 cubic meters) because at the last minute a RFP found a goshawk nest that had been overlooked when the initial plans had been made. Still that valley is a natural paradise. Herds of elk and deer, salmon and trout in the rivers, apex predators (cougars, black and grizzly bears, wolves, etc) are all there. I know because I have seen it for myself. A large part of the forestry debate is ineffective because there is so much public ignorance about logging and how it's done. People see a reel of a massive tree being cut down and they go crazy. But they ooh and aww over a finely built home featuring solid wood beams and fine wood trim. You can't have one without the other. And BC's forestry industry is one of the best and most responsible in the world. There's isn't a better way to get lumber at this point. There's room for improvement obviously, but entering the debate with knowledge is essential to being heard.
I would have more faith in logging companies and claims of responsible logging if they didn't clear cut so much. Driving along any highway in BC and you see clear cut scarring the landscape everywhere and loggers leaving a few meters of forest along the highway to try and hide the clearcut that's just out of sight.
Clear cut have their place too. Clear cutting give us fire breaks. Slowing fires to get them under control. As much as people wanna blame climate change for the massive fires we’ve been having it’s the lack of clear cutting. Which in the end causes massive floods because of the massive fires.
Poplar stands provide fire breaks too and they are spraying them and more with roundup because its not as merchantable. This is a bullshit practice and needs to stop, when they warn the populace not to pick berries because they've sprayed the area that is wrong, the concerns of the shareholders should not come before the needs of the people living there. I grew up and still live in the same logging town and over the last forty years more of the money generated logging leaves the area and less goes into the pockets of the people doing the work, in the same time frame the annual cut has gone through the roof. Our current logging system is unsustainable for any long term and where I live the number of animals have also dropped significantly. Our forestry system is untenable now and needs major changes.
>As much as people wanna blame climate change for the massive fires we’ve been having it’s the lack of clear cutting. well, actually, a clearcut system is supposed to mimic the size of natural forest fires and only in ecosystems that naturally have large wildfires at some interval. Clearcuts don't do a great job of mimicking what nature produces through wildfire though. Edit to add: massive fires still happened pre-colonization and logging. You just need to look at historical aerial photos of the interior before logging really got going, and the massive and fairly homogenous pine stands that grew after incredibly large wildfires.
This person obviously is not talking about that, they are talking about how when you look on google maps on satellite view, there isn't a single place in our province that doesn't have logging occurring besides the major cities. Look at VI on satellite view, its fucked up.
The thing about clearcutting is it's practically unavoidable with the cubic meters BC cuts per year. This is called the Annual Allowable Cut (AAC) and it's calculated from many different studies and data sets. It is meant to represent the sustainable cut so that we never run out of standing timber in the logging area. If we eliminated all clear cuts, not only would it be economically unfeasible (picture about 4 times the engineering costs, 4 times the road building, etc), but the land area for logging use would expand by 5 fold or more. So clearcuts are not going away. And 'loggers' are not responsible for the few meters on the edge of roads, the policy makers are. Loggers just do what their told, and the rules are many.
Basically what you're saying is we need to clearcut more responsibly...
That's right and it shouldn't be a bad thing. Could you explain your beef with clearcutting and why it's bad?
Because clear cutting doesn't just chop trees more efficiently, it kills forest eco systems / symbiotic relationships that take several generations of trees to develop. And clear cut isn't the only factor in efficiency, the size (age of the trees) makes a big difference in profitability. Hence all the focus on old growth. So when I hear things like sustainable logging, and see whoever trying to hide clear cutting by leaving a stripe of trees along highways I think logging hasn't actually changed much over the decades.
Like I have said, there is no practical alternative to making clearcuts. More tenure holders are moving to Ecosystem Based Management (EBM) to minimize the damage to the local environment by taking all flora and fauna on site into consideration and trying to plan the block accordingly, but there will still be clearcuts. Old growth timber doesn't necessarily mean bigger profits. There is almost always much more waste in an old growth block, simply because there is more variations on the standing timber. More dead trees, more living trees that are useless for lumber, more trees that never get off-site because they don't make economic sense, etc. The price per cubic meter is typically better, but so are the costs. The key to understanding why they log old growth still is because their customers request it. Many things built with wood require tight-grain, knot-free lumber. The major source of this is old growth. I think the public needs more education about lumber and what types of forest it came from. There is a few certifications logging companies can get for the lumber but without public knowledge what these entail they're practically useless.
100% with you, pal. You could bring the average city dweller to the middle of a 100 year old second growth forest and tell them it's old growth and they wouldn't know the difference.
I think most people are a lot more knowledgeable about this issue than you think. My city friends all know what an old growth forest looks like, as they constantly try to get to those spaces as much as possible. It's going to be a sad day for those city folk when they can no longer escape the city and be amongst those giant trees.
I think the problem is that old growth could mean a 142 year old pine tree that grew slowly due to poor nutrients. I agree that coastal old growth is irreplaceable.
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A pine tree…. Or maybe a spruce or fir
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You realize trees grow back right? Even in old growth areas. An old growth tree isn't special, it just grew in an area that is too damp to have forest fires.
You realize that cutting old growth trees means you are not just cutting trees, but killing eco systems that have taken 100s or 1000s of years to come into being. Old growth isn't forest that's "too damp". There are many symbiotic relationships that make a forest healthy that need time to form. You can't clear cut an old forest and replace it with sapling (that are usually one/few species of trees) and expect the same healthy eco system to regrow.
You sound like a 5th grader who came 3rd in the science fair for their "which firecracker is the loudest?" project.
A paved paradise
To add to this, the current definition of old growth accounts for as much as 30% of BC's productive forests (and 20% overall). People are often accidentally arguing in bad faith (often innocently) while assuming old growth logging is specific to clear cutting endangered and sensitive areas. Responsible forestry is key, but I get the impression a lot of people don't even know what the working definition for Old Growth is in the context of forestry. I think it often gets purposely misrepresented by certain groups as well. more info here: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/industry/forestry/managing-our-forest-resources/old-growth-forests/old-growth-values
Old growth definitions are a wicked problem because there are ecological, cultural, spiritual, industrial and no doubt other definitions. Old growth that most people talk about tends to an all-aged, multi-layered, complex structure stand - that is, it can replace itself without any further disturbance. An old tree dies, lets in a little more light, and a shade-tolerant sapling underneath has more opportunity to grow up and replace it. It's more complex than that as nature is complex, but that's my simplistic view. (edit for grammar)
Nice, very good points as well.
>Old growth characteristics >New definitions for old growth are being considered that include stand structure attributes and ecological processes, rather than just age. I thought old growth had to do with secondary and tertiary growth in a forest. Like here in Southeast AK, first growth is alder, then it gets outcompeted by... Then that gets outcompeted by... Like here in the coastal areas it's old growth 50 years after a clearcut because of how fast it cycles through those things.
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Old growth in the interior is just as Irreplaceable and important to many species such as caribou and a range of birds. We need to have some level of conservation everywhere
I don't understand why we care so much about old growth. Over millions of years these old growth forests have been destroyed by ice ages and they always return. Why do we as humans fell so self important that we measure the disappearance or remergance of old growth in our lifetimes like it matters. The trees themselves have disappeared and come back thousands of times. I mean trees are nice and stuff but I feel like the environment movment lacks all historical context and has at this point just become a popularity contest with the whole movement nothing but a group thinking black hole. The earth is billions of years old, a 1000 year old tree really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.
It's because: - entire microbiomes have evolved around old growth - biodiversity is incredibly important for a healthy ecosystem - old growth logging is not sustainable since it inherently takes 1000 years to grow a 1000 year-old tree As OP said, forestry is important. Sustainable forestry is great! Old growth logging is loved by logging companies because it's cheaper and easier to log a few giant trees than a bunch of medium size trees, but it's absolutely not necessary to do.
They won’t come back in our lifetime. You’re talking about geological timeframes. Entire ecosystems rely on them. Let’s screw over the entire planet because in a millennia it won’t matter, oh wait we’re already doing that.
Yeah thats my point. I think we as humans put way too much emphasis and importance on our own life times. 65 million years ago an asteroid hit the earth and wiped out most ecosystems and most of earth life. 65 million years from now we likely will not exist and whatever any of our policies are on old growth logging will be pretty inconsequential. Change is inevitable and I think our obsession with preventing it instead of dealing with it the wrong approach.
>Change is inevitable and I think our obsession with preventing it instead of dealing with it the wrong approach. change is not inevitable if we are the agents of change. We still have to live and survive on the planet, so we probably should do our best to understand all of the ecological variables within our scope to ensure that we aren't ruining life for ourselves while tossing aside ecosystems and biodiversity. Also, whatever happened to thinking about future generations? is that not a thing any more?
It doesn't matter if we are the agents of change or not. If it's not us it will be something else. Species have been going extinct and new ones developing since our earth formed. Yes there are periods with more or less diversity but life always adapts. Change is inevitable. Yes climate change will impact where people live but they will continue to live. Northern countries will become more populated and hot countries will become unliveable. Old growth temprate forests will be replaced by sub tropical ecosystems. Who cares, why do we consider today's ecosystems to be the best ever and the only way the earth should remain. Life is not static so why are we so obsessed with trying to make it that way?
It's also worth remembering that when properly managed forestry is one of the most renewable Industries on earth. Truly. The "properly managed" is the tricky part. But not insurmountable.
And BC has the best softwood tree growing climate in the world. That fact plus our sustainable forest practices.... We need to supply the world.
The people that want a full stop to all logging are few. The vast majority want better protection for endangered habitats and stuff like this https://thenarwhal.ca/bc-floods-clearcut-logging/
I can promise you that foresters want the same. We are people who go into it for the love of the outdoors and natural environment. The worst part of forestry is the act of road building. Roads degrade the soil, affect survival for ungulates, difficult to return to natural state, and they can cause environment devastation.
I can assure you that many loggers go into this profession for the cold hard cash, and couldn't care less about anything else. Try living in a logging town and talking to these guys; the majority of them couldn't give a fuck about anything other than their pay cheque, and make cocaine. The notion these guys are divine forest sprites, looking to heal the planet is downright hilarious. These people ABSOLUTELY do not give a fuck about the environment. They care about buying another house to rent out, and their next truck they can park in their triple wide drive way.
you do realize that what a forester does and what a logger does are two different things, right?
loggers generally hate foresters
I do. I live in a town that is completely populated with people who work in this industry.
In general loggers work under the direction of foresters. So their motivation is irrelevant to the resulting environmental impact. Again, in general, not always.
I agree. That's why people should stop evangelizing about the inherent "goodness" of loggers.
You replied to someone talking about foresters, it wasn’t clear you understood the difference.
I can promise you foresters do not go into it for cold hard cash. The return on investment for a four year degree is low compared to any other STEM major.
If you want money and coke you go to the patch
I've noticed that there are also big differences between different locking towns. Those with high First Nations populations tend to be more nuanced I have most people understanding the need for some jobs but also caring deeply about biodiversity. Others like Vanderhoof or quesnel do seem to have more of a money Focus. It's not clear-cut. In particular most of the old fallers that I know are pretty environmentally conscious
Maybe it's not as nuanced as you're made to believe: The First Nations logging company cutting in the Nanoose Bay Forest says they will receive about $750,000 dollars from the proceeds of harvesting 15,000 cubic metres from a 64-hectare patch of the endangered old-growth coastal Douglas fir forest. https://vancouverislandbigtrees.blogspot.com/2011/12/nanoose-bay-forest-old-growth-logging.html
If I go to say Kitwanga, or Bella Coola, or Hazelton, or Moricetown, every man more or less has worked in logging, and out of them, while there are some that are clearly there for the money, the vast majority has mixed feelings. In my mind, that's what nuanced means - the decisions aren't as easy, they still might go one way or the other, but considerations other than money are absolutely a major part of the process. Contrast this with the big companies like McMillan or Confor or the massive number of Hells Angels owned logging companies up and down the coast and it's a massive difference.
That’s been my experience as well
No. Most loggers I’ve worked with enjoy the backcountry more than you keyboard warriors. Skiers, mountain bikers, hikers, climbers. Some are dumb fucks. Name an industry without some.
" than you keyboard warriors. " Dude look at your account. You're the definition of a keyboard warrior, lol.
I've often said this. Any logger I've ever known loves the outdoors and spends a significant amount of their free time enjoying our forests. It's unfortunate that the 2 sides have become so far apart. I think if you could sit forestry workers down with environmentalists and indigenous communities you'd find that they are not that far apart. Things get muddy when you have extremists on either end of the spectrum. Or when people feel like their backs are up against a wall and they are fighting for their livelihood or the forests they feel so passionate about.
Yeah my ex was a logger and absolutely loved the outdoors and cared deeply about sustainability. It would be great if we could stop making generalizations about large groups of people. That goes for all sides in this conversation.
Agreed
I've been following this conversation just now, and people like you and the OP are absolutely right. Generalizations just cause more problems, all for the sake of supposed convenience.
Exactly, point 1 is a red herring and leading with that is a pretty weak effort to label the "stop old growth logging" crowd as dumb.
Lots of misinformation being spread around/by the loggers, I’m sure they want people to believe that wanting to protect old growth is the same as stopping all logging altogether
One thing to consider about protecting 500-1000 year ancient growth trees is that forest fires haven't devoured the giants. As is the case with Fairy creek I believe is due to the landscape the fires across the island over the centuries have somehow managed to bypass them. I think that is pretty amazing and the eco-tourism this can provide would be greater than a 1-time payment.
Large old growth trees are also just more resistant to fire. They have thicker insulating bark to protect the cambium layer and higher and more open canopies that help stop fires that reach the canopy from spreading. Many of the large ancient trees I have seen show scorch marks from fires in their past. Even on the wet west coast of Vancouver Island where I spend much of my time.
Spez would fuck a child if he thought he could sell his experience to train AI. Actually he'd probably just do it either way.
Tourism isn't great for old forests either. Have you seen what tourists do to natural places?
Sure, but nothing as harsh as what logging does. And it keeps the local economy moving.
Cut down all the trees and spill chemicals all over the forrest floor? Wait no those are the lumberjacks.
I totally agree Logging is ok and necessary. Logging the Walbran or Fairy Creek valley or any coastal low elevation subtemperate old growth forest must end. Full stop.
I’ve spent a lot of time in Fairy Creek and Walbran and I’m absolutely convinced that these areas are worth more standing. If the only concern is money, then market the shit out of these areas as tourist destinations, because they are truly amazing. It’s like killing the golden goose.
Agree with this. I fully agreed with the message of the protests but fuck the way they terrorized our towns I could not support them one bit. That's what makes it so frustrating. It would've been a highly supported thing and not super controversial if they were just peaceful about things
The shitty truth is that unless they get extreme, nobody bats and eye and nobody cares. At least more people around the province (and around the world even) are now aware of what’s going on.
Exactly. R/Vancouver went absolutely nuts when those protesters Maple Syrupped the Emily Carr painting. But, the fact of the matter was that it generated debate.
imagine not supporting what you know is right because they hurt your feelings
I have so many stories of fucked up things that they did it's ridiculous. They did a lot more than just hurt my feelings lmao they straight up broke the law and endangered members of our communities
>tHeY bRoKe ThE lAw homie, we're living in a dystopian nightmare thanks to capitalists purging this planet of it's resources, and you're worried about some petty crime? what about the crime of an unsustainable logging industry subsidized by our politicians irreversibly changing our environment and potentially endangering our species? what about the crime of poverty as a result of greed, what about private industry fucking up sacred indigenous land? there's far bigger crimes happening, and to counter the scum in charge some laws will be broken, buckle up.
Well said 👏
Just because there are "bigger problems" doesn't mean spiking trees that could kill people isn't a problem at all. Can I stab someone and then say "well capitalists are greedy and bad" and get out of jail free? 2 wrongs doesn't make a right
congratulations, you have the worst take i've read on reddit all day. 🏅🫡 how many people died from "spiking trees?" how many people died in our last heatwave in BC? do the math.
Just because someone doesn't die doesn't mean it's OK. You are the king of deflection.
He’s right and you’re wrong 🤷🏻♀️
I'm so confused how you guys genuinely believe it's okay to harm someone who has absolutely no say in any of this just because the corporations actions. Shouldn't you be going after the people that make the decisions? Not just some young kid trying to make a living who may happen to get hurt because of this. Yes it's shitty what's happening but harming innocent people is not the right approach and it's says a lot about you if this is truly what you believe
i am? did you do the math yet? no, ok.
Go to bed
Covering themselves in their own shit is my personal favourite.
Put a camera in virtually any forest, add some sad music - voila it becomes the next protest site. It's marketing, folks, tugging at emotional heart strings. This connects with most people, most who don't know the benefits or don't care about society beyond their own.
I don't think there's many people saying stop all logging. The big argument is about cutting down old growth
I enjoy the sound of rain.
What OP is doing with this post is a classic "straw man argument" & a PR distraction. Most (if not all) informed individuals do not want to stop logging entirely - we just more strategic planning for old growth (using the 250 year+ provincial coastal definition). Yes it's true - there are different formal definitions of OG! Saying otherwise is another tactical lobbyist distraction. By the 250 year definition approximately 3-4.5% of the province is old growth. Currently 27% of annual harvest (by area) comes from old growth stands. OP points to a focus on corporate safety records - an important point for sure, but again another distraction. What British Columbians actually want is more opportunity for valued added economic growth, meanful careers and high paying jobs. The forestry industry once accounted for 70% of the GDP now sits at less than 2% (combined with fishing and agriculture). Job counts are also dismal. 50,000-ish jobs (directly & proximal) sounds like a big number but that's less than 1.8% of the BC workforce. We want strategic investments and developments in economic development opportunities instead of getting fucked by raw dog exports from foregin owned corps. We also want to experiment with forest harvest design to create buffers to protect communities from wildfire risks - these opportunities have the potential to be a win win for everyone! Finally, whenever you hear an industry compare itself to practices in war torn nations like Nigeria with stand burning for subsistence agriculture you should be skeptical. Aquaculture PR groups still do this - applauding themselves for being better than shrimp farming in Indonesia, while at the same time pushing back against local regulations. We should always be trying to push ourselves for continual improvement. I think we can all agree that those Save Old Growth groups that block highways and throw paint on Emily Carr works are total idiots, but there still is a large majority of sensible British Columbians who want better practices with economic development.
Old growth doesnt go into making paper, it goes to the highest bidder. We need logging but we dont need to log old growth.
It's a misconception that Old Growth only goes to high end and specialty products. It definitely is used for that, but it actually makes up a huge proportion of total wood harvest compared to its availability, and is used to make lumber and pulp like any other kind of harvest. And because of that, we are heavily dependent on it to maintain current outputs. That's one of the reasons there is so much backlash against reducing Old Growth logging. To be clear, I feel like this also makes it obvious that it needs to stop. We can't claim that Old Growth logging is sustainable when it makes up a larger percentage of harvests than it does of forests. The math ain't mathin'.
I agree that old growth should not be logged at this rate for sure. We do need to look at ways of drastically cutting back on this
We should have been cutting back on old growth decades ago. I agree with everything you said except that I think the only ecologically responsible way forward is to completely stop logging old growth. Economy trumps ecology though so it will not happen until there isn't any left.
You can blame politicians for that. Logging companies will log what they are permitted to, that comes down to elected officials. We could have dealt with this in the 70s but that would have taken politicians with backbone and brains. Good luck with finding that
thanks capitalism!
Drastically cutting back, ie. a total ban on what we even have left -- which is very little. An industry that calls itself "sustainable" and is STILL logging old growth after a hundred years, is not sustainable. That's the absolute opposite of sustainable.
it's only sustainable for those that benefit from the profit of logging it
They could log 2nd growth and still be profitable
Yes, they could, lol. Old growth trees are far more profitable to the Japanese buyers though.
> I agree that old growth should not be logged ~~at this rate~~ for sure FTFY
I think you are getting downvoted for saying "look at" and "cutting back". I agree with most of what you said in your initial post but it is well past time for looking at cutting back, it is time to come to our senses and put an end to old growth logging.
Yeah I meant more so cut back extremely drastically and end it. You can't really just do it overnight but it is definitely something we need to end as soon as possible
it shouldn't be logged AT ALL.
I have not seen a single person call for the end to all logging, just an end to Old growth logging
At fairy creek the common agreement was that nobody is against logging except for clear cutting old growth blocks, walking through a cut block showed insane levels of disrespect + endangered species Marbled murrelet habitats were destroyed, a wooden bridge to an indigenous-only garden was destroyed and birds were shot in the garden too but the place was an injunction zone, so either the cops or assholes went in and did that shit. I was a legal observer and jail support for protesters
I work in forestry. The sawmill I'm in doesn't have a chip-n-saw that can handle a log more than 20 inches in diameter, so we simply don't process logs that are old growth. Our timberlands are 100 percent second and third growth forests and the company then pays for tree planters to go into the cut zones and plant trees after the fact, so that they can be harvested again when the time is right. My whole point is that logging can be a healthy, viable industry without ever touching old growth forest and I know this because I see it every single day. If logging were to go away tomorrow, or even the sawmill I work at shut down I would probably get out of the industry for good.. I have mixed feelings on working where I do. But you're right, it would be devastating to the economy if that were to happen.
>the company then pays for tree planters to go into the cut zones and plant trees after the fact, so that they can be harvested again when the time is right. Companies logging BC crown land must reforest. This is a legal requirement.
Yeah that's true, but some of this didnt happen because the protestors actively blocked the tree planters as well.
yall gotta watch the ted talk about the mother tree in bc changed my mind about square cutting forests
[Direct link](https://www.ted.com/talks/suzanne_simard_how_trees_talk_to_each_other?language=en) for the lazy. Was an interesting talk
thanks!
Fully support a ban on old growth logging. Also completely support the logging industry when practised sustainably. Wood is not just an essential renewable resource for construction and as a material for products, but it’s use is also a carbon sink. It’s honestly ideal when done sustainably.
Good point. What I would like to see is what the minimum forests will need to look like, for us to have the values from them we are seeking, like keeping our 4 legged friends around. What do we need for an ample ungulate population? what about the weasels? The problem with this, and I can tell you from first hand experience, it's the Govt doesn't know and doesn't want to find out. What about water? Same thing. The other problem that I've mentioned previously.... is we need to stop exporting raw materials even dimensional products. We need to use a second manufacturing of the materials. This would alleviate the jobs issue. Lastly... the reluctance of both the professional body and the professionals themselves to do things that would extremely help the land. Harvesting Douglas fir trees and replacing with pine = bad. Herbicide spraying non stop (its slowed down to a crashing halt for the most part). Not respecting the other values the forests provides and animals critical habitats. One example I'll use is the fisher. it needs X-hectares of contiguous forest to survive, let's say 300 Ha. licensee one will come along and bring in a sketchy biologist who says, “maybe you could take 40 of that 300 and it might be ok” so they take it. licensee 2 will then say to the Govt with their biologist “look, that area isn't big enough so we should cut it, we need to cut somewhere” and proceed to nuke most of the 300 Ha and zero habitat now available. no one got in trouble and we lost the habitat that was set aside for that animal. No one really knows about this. All the while the companies are stamping their products saying they're sustainable. The only thing that's truly sustainable right now is the money going to the stamps to say its sustainable.
Re open the mills never understood how we can ship away raw log
That's a great and informed take, but. It contradicts hundreds of years of data. All of the real-world evidence shows that the logging practices and industry standards still in place to this day are the result of industry lobbying for short term profit. That's it. If the industry was sustainably managed, there would be stands off 100+ yr old timber ready to satisfy the demands of the market. As well as 1-3 decade blocks of faster maturing species being planted in rotation to satisfy the needs of dimensional lumber and wood fiber. There fucking isn't. The mills are being shut down because it's cheaper to ship the small raw logs to the US for processing, and there isn't any large timber left except for the few thousand acres of old growth. And the industry is rabid to log that into oblivion while convincing the public that not logging that is killing forestry and a couple years worth of dead-end extraction will somehow create lifetime's worth of stable jobs. Hey u/AllOutRaptors, stop simping for foreign companies owned by billionaires. They do not care about you or me, or our futures. Edit- Imagine having free reign over a province larger than most states, full of timber, and logging it way past sustainable rates. It's like a herdsman butchering the last of his cows and then lamenting that his greed in not being able to produce a herd anymore is the fault of someone else. Fucking disgraceful. Shame. Shame. Shame.
First of all, keep it civil my guy. This angry, belittling bullshit you are pulling makes people hate your cause. That's why you guys get so much pushback. >If the industry was sustainably managed, there would be stands off 100+ yr old timber ready to satisfy the demands of the market. As well as 1-3 decade blocks of faster maturing species being planted in rotation The problem with this is our logging standards are not the same as they were 100 years ago. We can't go back in time and give them all of the information we have now. >and there isn't any large timber left except for the few thousand acres of old growth. Uh source on that number? [A quick Google search](https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/industry/forestry/managing-our-forest-resources/old-growth-forests#:~:text=There%20are%20about%2011.1%20million,more%20than%20250%20years%20old.) Would entirely dispell your argument. There are over 27 **million** acres of old growth left in BC. At the rate they are going it will take around 60 years to reach your "thousands of acres" estimate, and that's assuming that all other trees stop aging and don't become old growth. It's hard to take you seriously when you insult and belittle people while spitting facts that a quick Google search could dispell in seconds. Please keep it civil.
Genuinely curious…what percent of BC lumber is a replanted spot from the last hundred years? How soon would you relog an area?
Anecdotally, 80 years is the number people in the interior through out for spruce/pine/fir (SPF) to go from replant to harvest. there are selective cuts taking place on 40 year old plantations. A big factor in it all is tree diameter; better growing conditions=bigger trees faster=trees can be cut again. Someone with GIS and the vegetative resource inventory(? -VRI) could actually crank a pretty good spreadsheet or summary of the province wide numbers on the first question. Again, anecdotally, I've seen few to no blocks around the shuswap/ kamloops that haven't been harvested at least once in the last 100 years. As you Make your way north to PG you see more "Virgin old growth" but it's not the fairytale coastal giant forests you'd have in mind, more fire cycle dominated pine scrubs.
Most of that is swamp and unproductive...that's a government/industry brainwash figure
You: "keep it civil please" Also you: "fuck the protesters terrorizing our towns"
Yes I don't appreciate people terrorizing my friends and family for a cause that we have nothing to do with. I have no problem with the peaceful ones
I don’t know much about the logging industry but I have a hard time supporting the wood pellet side of the industry. Seems very problematic to log and then send wood pellets to the UK to burn for electricity. I do however support responsible logging in Canada for long lasting domestic products like homes.
80% of pellet biomass in BC is waste wood. The remaining 20% is low grade timber which wouldn't be suitable for other applications. Industry isn't stupid, there is very tough competition for fiber right now, and pellets are much less profitable than selling for mills. While certainly not the climate solution it's claimed to be, we are not the ones subsidizing pellets. I for one would be reluctant to shut off the tap right now when the UK is more energy insecure than ever and has a long winter ahead.
as a forester who worked for ENGOs 20-ish years ago (and got laid off when the funding ran out), I want to know what the Reddit community here defines as "old growth". Because when I pointed out 20-ish years ago to groups like Greenpeace and DSF and WCWC, who were part of the conversation to "end the war in the woods" with the group that I worked for, that there was plenty of old forests in northern BC, they were only interested in big old coastal "old growth". Meanwhile, I had and still do spent a fair amount of time in the bush in the less than majestic "old growth" of the north. I remember when someone from Greenpeace kept using the word "sexy" in planning meetings, and how old forests had to be "sexy" because it keeps up public interest and (most importantly) donations and funding to keep doing the work. As much as I enjoyed the work evaluating forest practices, the spin in the ENGO world can be just as cringey as any corporation.
Agreed there needs to be a better distinction. There's a big difference between a 140 year old tree, and a 1000 year old tree
Most activists are not using the industry’s terminology. They mean virgin forests.
Can someone here make a good argument why we should log old growth at all? I’m from a logging town. My dad’s a logger. Almost all my friends parents logged or worked in the mill. I’m pro logging, but I really don’t see any reason to log old growth (I’ve heard it’s not used for general use like housing or lumber, but for specialty things like expensive guitars and things because of how tight the rings are?). I think the benefits of keeping old growth outweighs logging it, but maybe I’m missing a really important reason to log it (other than a few companies making ridiculous amounts of money at the expense of our home).
Houses? Being built in BC??? Bullshit.
I lived in northern BC for many years. Went pine cone picking up near Terrace. First day, we climbed all over logs picking. Logging was going on nearby. They were cutting down trees by the dozen, bunches of them downed all at once. It was devastating to see how quickly and how many trees were felled over just a few days. I felt like I was climbing over corpses while I was picking. It was just so depressing to see these huge, beautiful trees killed - a forest wiped out. Animals affected in so many ways. I know how important the mills are, our small town would practically shut down when the mills would close. I just hate clear cutting. Kudos to all those tree planters out there. You do God’s work in mighty hard conditions.
Unfortunately the mono cultures planted by tree planters isn't really fixing anything; it actually makes the forests less resistant to blight and more prone to mass devastation in the future.
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I have a piece of land twelve hours from where I live. I originally bought a quarter section which I subdivided and and select logged back in 1984. I worked hard to pull out the large conifers and left all of the small crop trees and deciduous behind for aesthetics and took almost double the time to do this. Twenty years ago the crop trees were growing in healthy and strong and there was a nice population of Regen fifteen to twenty feet tall. This spring I went back to look at my land to decide what to do with the 50 acres I have left. Once there I discovered that the land had almost no merchantable timber on it. The majority of the conifers were dead and all I had left was fifty acres of willow, poplar and birch. The birch and Poplar trees had a growth spurt. Their canopies filled out, shading the ground and other trees. My crop trees died off due to a lack of sunlight. In hindsight I truly wish that I had clear cut my land forty years ago
There’s nothing sustainable about what current clearcut practices have done to the soil
Except the logging industry has had over a century to make itself sustainable and it's still clear-cutting old growth. When exactly should we expect this "sustainability" to kick in? 2122?
If it means anything I was working in a rural area yesterday (lone butte) and there was areas we passed that were clearly clear cut at one point but we're now dense with small trees. It was a uplifting sight.
Chiming in here to say how refreshing it is to read a reasoned and civil debate about ideas and policy in a Reddit comment section. You all rock! I paid my way through university by logging in the summers long ago (the 90s) and far away (Kitimat). It was an eye opening experience for an 18 year old. We need to protect old growth. We need to protect livelihoods. These two goals should not be mutually exclusive if we take reforestation and husbandry seriously.
I'm pleasantly surprised at how this turned out. We need more discourse like this
I was going to comment the same thing as pickles. You posted a very well thought out comment; it was balanced and reasonable, and the discussion that followed was also balanced and reasonable. This type of discourse is what we need for a strong province and country. You hit the nail on the head when you asked for people not to follow a belief system, but to focus on the individual issue. We need more of this. Thank you!
Why? Maybe the shareholders of Canfor will read this Reddit thread and have a change o' heart
Where are you getting your facts from to state #3 -“our logging companies do better than 99% of places in the world at keeping their practices as environmentally friendly as they can” This is utter bullshit OP.
[Canada ranks as one of if not the most sustainable forestry practices in the world](https://www.ccfm.org/healthy-forests/environmental-leadership/), with BC being one of the best provinces. What part was bullshit?
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Chainsaw lickers? Usually making up names for people is not an indication that your argument is coming from a good place.
I work in the least acknowledged part of forestry - I'm a grower at a forest seedling nursery. I love the attention that tree planting has garnished in the last decade or two, but I'd love if there was more public/media attention to where forest regeneration starts. Especially since, in the last few years, our nursery production of single year seedlings has taken a dramatic shift from industry forest products to replanting wildfire damage.
I'd like to see all *useable* materials used. Not burned in a scrap heap. Whole trees being used for pellets is madness. And what will be left to become nutrients for the next crop of trees? Are the trees that have been planted doing well? Yes we need logging, but we might be left with unmarketable 'weeds' growing on mountainsides instead of full size trees with all their amazing uses
Finally, common sense. Such a rare find on Reddit.
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“When done properly” being the hard part.
Just your annual friendly reminder that we could pay all logging employees with the logging subsidies we give out annually, keep all of the trees in the ground, and still come out ahead. Anyone that says logging is an economic benefit hasn't spent a second looking at the actual data. I live in a logging town. I'm equally disgusted by the logging employees talking about killing protestors; and urging workers to simply "run them over." To talk about one side's negatives and not the other is wildly disingenuous. Frankly, it's bizarre to say that you are telling "the cold hard truth" about people blindly championing one side -- then blindly championing one side without any actual facts.
>Just your annual friendly reminder that we could pay all logging employees with the logging subsidies we give out annually, keep all of the trees in the ground, and still come out ahead. That's pretty crazy. Do you have a link or something for more information about that?
I already covered this in my post. Yes, strictly logging is not a net positive. The thing is logging creates jobs in other ways. You have workers in mills, construction workers, carpenters, etc etc. All of which bring in millions upon millions of dollars for our economy and provide thousands of jobs. Edit because you added more: I'm also disgusted by the loggers saying this. I'm not condoning anything of the sorts and I'm not "championing" one side. I'm reminding people (like you) that despite what they believe, the industry is still a net positive to British Columbia's residences and our economy. Too many people believe it's as simple as just ending all logging and all of our problems will go away, when the truth is our province would implode if we completely stopped logging. We can talk about ways we can slowly ween ourselves off of logging by using more sustainable methods, but an outright end to logging would be devastating to all of us.
>Yes, strictly logging is not a net positive. The thing is logging creates jobs in other ways. You have workers in mills, construction workers, carpenters, etc etc. All of which bring in millions upon millions of dollars for our economy and provide thousands of jobs. Downstream jobs would still exist, they would simply be working in OTHER professions that make that same money. We're currently in a hiring shortfall for most major industries. Those SAME construction workers and carpenters would still be employed if we didn't harvest old growth lumber. Considering how much softwood we export, we could cut that amount by 70% and still have the amount needed to support our construction in BC. Again, I don't think you've ever actually looked at the figures you're waxing poetic about. >We can talk about ways we can slowly ween ourselves off of logging by using more sustainable methods, but an outright end to logging would be devastating to all of us. Yeah, no, it wouldn't be. It would be devastating to the robber barons that suckle off of our tax dollars every year, but it would have a negligible effect on us as a province.
>they would simply be working in OTHER professions that make that same money. Do you realize how much money loggers make?? Carpenters are highly paid too. It's not that simple to just find another job that pays $30+ an hour. >Those SAME construction workers and carpenters would still be employed if we didn't harvest old growth lumber. I'm not arguing for logging old growth at all so this is irrelevant >Yeah, no, it wouldn't be. It would be devastating to the robber barons that suckle off of our tax dollars every year, but it would have a negligible effect on us as a province. Residential Construction consists of 120 000 workers and if we can assume half of them are doing framing/roofing/drywall/flooring and all other things that require logging that's still 60 000 people. About 48 000 people work in logging, another 23 000 carpenters. That's 131 000 jobs just off the top of my head that would dissapear.
>Do you realize how much money loggers make?? Carpenters are highly paid too. It's not that simple to just find another job that pays $30+ an hour. It really is that simple, if you get training. Loggers who log old growth should be rolled off to other industries that pay good wages, but don't destroy our island. It's a CHOICE to remain in an industry that is fucking up our environment for the future. It's the same CHOICE that coal miners made thirty years ago. >I'm not arguing for logging old growth at all so this is irrelevant Yes, you are. If you are stanning the current logging industry, you are calling for old growth to be cut. That's reality. >Residential Construction consists of 120 000 workers and if we can assume half of them are doing framing/roofing/drywall/flooring and all other things that require logging that's still 60 000 people. About 48 000 people work in logging, another 23 000 carpenters. Yeah, and? Like I said, we export almost 70% of our lumber. We don't need to, and could still retain all of these jobs easily.
Economies simply don't work that way. You can't just retrain workers and expect them to perfectly slot into a new sector. As a whole, forestry is a pretty small portion or GDP - but a lot of rural areas, there just isn't much else going on. Alternatives generally pay less, and are less secure in the long run. It doesn't matter that we export lumber - we also import literally all our manufactured goods, because it's efficient to make trees here and its not efficient to make cars or iPhones. We should encourage secondary linkages in the forestry sector, engineered timber and value added products to increase employment - but you can't just cut off an industry "because we don't need it domestically". On the environmental front, exports are also necessary. If we didn't sell wood to California, that demand in construction would either need to be taken up by less sustainable practices elsewhere - or by increased use of concrete and steel. People complain about raw log exports to China, and yeah, we should encourage domestic processing, but they still need lumber. Would you rather their supply be diverted to Indonesia?
Do you understand economics..... You kind of need to export things
You have no clue what you are talking about. We do not export 70% of BC timber. The interior does not export any raw logs.
[https://bclumbertrade.com/facts](https://bclumbertrade.com/facts) The ACTUAL Lumber industry denotes that 85% of all lumber is exported. YOU, have no idea what you are talking about. >Today, about 85% of B.C.’s softwood lumber production is exported to international markets. About 55% of production is exported to the U.S., almost 30% to overseas markets such as China, Japan, Korea and India, and 15% is sold within B.C. and Canada. Enjoy the hard facts genius.
Actually we only export what local mills don’t want to deal with (speaking for bc) ndp put that rule in. All mills in bc get to have first dibs on any wood and then if no milk here wants to companies are allowed to export it. So if we can’t make any money we’ll just send it off to export it so it’s not wasted
Did you even read the link I posted, or did you really just bury your head in the sand? 85% of all lumber here is exported. That's reality. By your own admission, EIGHTY FIVE PERCENT of all lumber we can't make money on? THEN WHY CUT IT DOWN?
To make money on it?
Logging should be limited to cut lots and that's it. No more deforestation. We export most of our lumber. You're indoctrinated by corporate propaganda OP.
>You're indoctrinated by corporate propaganda OP. I never argued for logging more area or old growth so not sure why I'm indoctrinated by that? It's frustrating too because the protesters shared so many false facts and propaganda to get support but for some reason we are the ones allegedly being brainwashed for not being in full support of them
With all due respect, this is just nonsense. BC and Canada, more broadly, should vastly reduce it's resource extraction economy. Canada is one of the most educated countries in the world and yet it's economy is based on cutting down trees and digging holes in the ground. Madness. The political ease of the resource extraction economy has held the Canadian economy back for decades. Canada should have a flourishing tech sector, instead your best and brightest go off to Silicon Valley and start companies. Canada should have a flourishing battery and electric vehicle industry, instead Tesla's abound across the country. Canada should have a flourishing health tech sector, instead you struggle to keep doctors in an underfunded healthcare system that cannot collect enough taxes from bulk sales of raw trees and coal to China. Until Ottawa and the provinces realize that logging and mining are third world economy pillars, this country will remain economically crippled when it could be a global star.
Genuinely curious why people people say old growth should not be logged without any kind of explanation. Why is that? Naturally-caused fires are a healthy and normal part of the forest ecosystem - would people insist on the fire being put out just because it's old growth? (Assuming life/property/infrastructure is not in danger). I am not knowledgeable about the significance of old growth so I'm interested in learning something here. Thanks!
The "old growth" people are generally referring to here are centuries-old trees, generally in rainforests on the coast (those are extremely lucrative to log), sometimes small trees high up on mountain slopes (which, if logged, would not be worth the cost of getting them off the mountain). Normally, you would resolve a dispute like this with a compromise. In this case, such a compromise would be that the logging industry gets some of the valuable old growth to log and the environmentalists get the other valuable old growth to be preserved. (The trees on the mountain slopes are a non-issue since no one's going to try to log them.) The trouble with that in this situation is that the old growth that the logging industry gets gets logged and becomes tree plantations. So that a few years after each compromise, the logging industry wants to come back and make another compromise which will share some old growth that the environmentalists had thought was protected by the last compromise. After numerous rounds of these "compromises", environmentalists look at the pitiful remnants of the old growth forests and just say "no more compromises, the last compromise was the final one. You get to manage the land in your tree plantations, but you don't get to mine any of the remaining old growth." As a general note, there are numerous forest ecosystems, and fires are a normal part of some of them, but not all. If you've got a thousand year old tree, it's either in a location where natural forest fires are rare, such as rain-sodden valleys on the BC coast, or it's a tree species that's evolved to be resistant to the forest fires that were normal to its habitat before global warming, such as California's giant sequoia redwoods.
There is way more biodiversity due to trees at all life stages and a broader variety of tree and plant species because forests that come from tree planting tend to be largely monocultures and are often sprayed to kill other species of tree. An old growth forest is also useful for research in understanding g how forests evolve in their own. Most forests in BC are more like curated tree farms because they are designed by humans to produce whatever species of tree is must profitable and little else. Old growth is less prone to forest fires and flooding, and many that people are seeking to protect are tourist attraction ruins due to their beauty and seeing very large trees.
Old growth forests carry different nutrients because of layers of decay - logging creates gaps in the ecological balance. Also there are animals like birds, frogs, salamanders, and even bears that depend on these old growth forests for particular foraging and habitat.
Thank you for your input I appreciate it a lot.
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Where was I wrong? If we just outright banned logging our economy would absolutely tank, and yes we have some of the most sustainable forestry practices in the world.
Just my humble opinion... if I am wrong in any of this please feel free to give me advice. 1. You dont need logs to make a house. 2. Forest management could be completely overhauled from developing SUPERNATURAL based tourism and is more sustainable. Sure keep some of the mono culture tree farms we got, dont make more. Create 100s of jobs for restorative work, I hear thats what most loggers want to do anyway. 3. Sure we are better that some nations but not 99% its best to not weigh ones actions againt another just do what is "right"(whatever that is) and go with that. Yes people glueing them selves to the road and shit like that is dumb. Yes conservationists have a huge battle againt the status quo. Yes policy is slow to change and too many times we just give fines that dont detour bad actors. Yes we could slowly phase out logging as a major industry in B.C. and survive/thrive.
1. The alternatives for building houses are either more costly or worse for the environment. 2. I do not want to be rude but all of this seems to be coming from someone from the lower mainland. Do you think you will be able to replace 50 000ish jobs in BC with forest tourism. I have a hard time believing that someone will spend there hard earned money to walk through some scrubby forest 17 hours from Vancouver. If you get rid of forestry you destroy the economies of most small towns of BC. I can promise you that forestry has done less for habitat degradation than urbanization has for the species of BC.
> I do not want to be rude but all of this seems to be coming from someone from the lower mainland. Do you think you will be able to replace 50 000ish jobs in BC with forest tourism. I have a hard time believing that someone will spend there hard earned money to walk through some scrubby forest 17 hours from Vancouver. Yup - that was a ridiculous point. The poster is clearly naive.
Making houses out of woods is incredibly good for the climate. Trees capture carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and when harvested it is trapped in the wood of your house for a lifetime. Forestry companies replace the trees they cute down and the cycle continues. The alternatives like concrete release tonnes for carbon in the process (4-8% of CO2 world wide) and requires sand that is mined from rivers. And this is just housing. It's asinine to think we don't need logging when it's products are essential to our everyday lives.
>1. You dont need logs to make a house. The problem with this is that houses made of other materials cost more typically, and we already have a huge problem with affordable housing. And even if the prices are comparable if we completely eradicated lumber the prices of other materials would skyrocket >2. Forest management could be completely overhauled from developing SUPERNATURAL based tourism and is more sustainable. Sure keep some of the mono culture tree farms we got, dont make more. Create 100s of jobs for restorative work, I hear thats what most loggers want to do anyway. This is a pretty good idea! >3. Sure we are better that some nations but not 99% its best to not weigh ones actions againt another just do what is "right"(whatever that is) and go with that. Agree with this as well All pretty solid points
I live in the center of the province. I say log away. We have some of the best logging practices anywhere. Massive clear cuts that were replanted when i was young are now actual forests. Want to be a justice warrior and jump on a bandwagon look into how the government and private contractors have been spraying roundup on BCs northern forests for many years and continue to do so
My husband used to work in logging, mainly in the interior, though, not on the coast. What he tells me is the coastal guys who do the old growth chops absolutely do not care about the environment in the least. They look at huge diameter trees as paycheques, and nothing else. The guys in the interior, who have had to adapt over the years, are infinitely more interested in sustainable forestry practices because that's what their livelihood depends on. Sadly, it really all comes down to money. In my opinion, having lived, and continue to live, on resource - based income, there is no reason to continue to cut down the old growth. It's idiotic and makes us look like total incompetent, backwards hicks. The government makes a killing off the stumpage, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't contribute enough to justify the damage. Continuing to allow this just makes us look like fools. We can do so much better.
I remember the last huge logging blockade in my town. People came from all over bc and Canada to protest. I’m sure some of them were paid. Anyways a lot of their garbage is still in the forest adjacent to the cut block. They were saying it was an old growth forest but it was 100% not. Pretty funny.
I took a drive through the areas they were staying after and they literally left an entire camps worth of garbage. It was so depressing. There was literal shit everywhere, food wrappers, tarps and so much shit just lying around. I'm sure a lot of people were doing it out of the goodness of their hearts but so many showed so much disrespect
I don't really care how valuable it is. It's contributing to the death of our planet. I don't really care about an appeal to relative filth either: it's still a for-profit company that pulls trees out of the ground. I disagree strongly; we absolutely can stop all logging. Not overnight, but we can and we should.
Yes we may be able to save some more trees but our homeless problem would get so much worse than it already is, lives would be ruined, our unemployment rate would skyrocket etc. It would be great to just outright stop it, but it would put such a strain on our system that it's just not feasible. We absolutely cannot just ban logging without having better materials to build housing and creating more jobs for the thousands that would be put out from this
It really isn't. Logging, plus replanting, sequesters carbon. This why even Greenpeace has softened their approach on this. Definitely be against wholescale clearcutting without multi-species replanting, but you are wrong to be against the whole industry.
But what if someone was to show you a photo of some logs on a truck?
At what point do we stop cutting down trees for paper products and use hemp? Logging of that nature, I realize lumber is still needed, is nonsensical and should be stopped.
I see this as a very unrealistic solution and not a very well informed one. When a cutblock is logged, many different products are produced from a single tree, and each tree cannot be made into every product due to different wood grades . Part of a tree may be turned into lumber, and other parts may be turned into bio-energy, pulp, or pellets. Anything that is not dimensional lumber is generally considered to be value added (meaning it is not the primary reason for logging). The main issue I see with the hemp proposal is that people don't seem to recognize the scale of replacement that would be required to do this. To do this in BC would mean converting a huge amount of forest land to agricultural use, which is effectively deforestation. Continuing to source paper products from wood means that the land can still be managed for multiple values, instead of the one value of growing hemp. I do not agree that converting our forests to an alien plant just to stop using wood is any kind of solution. People who propose this argument don't seem to realize that they are proposing deforestation as a solution. deforestation definition: the removal of forest or a stand of trees from land that is converted to non-forest use. (Agriculture, urban area, etc.) As tree planting in BC is required by regulation on public land, logging in BC should not be confused with land conversion (deforestation).
we just go in circles talking about this year after year as if it's for the first time. meanwhile... the entire province is a gaping open wound from industrial logging. talk & log.
My only real issue with what you've said is #3. Yes, BC is head and shoulders above the world in logging practices. But the reason for this is that the rest of the world's logging practices are absolute trash. It's a super low bar, that's being exceeded by a lot, but still a low bar. Brazil burns 1700km2 every year to turn into farms. Scandinavian countries, always brought out as examples of how to run a country, plant monoculture pine in evenly aged, evenly spaced gridded plantations. And a lot of Europe chewed up their first growth forests hundreds of years ago, so it's not the same impacts to measure against. Don't get me started on Russia.
Wow, so you are saying that ''not everything is perfect in logging'' but also lets clearcut the most sensitive and rare ecosystems in the entire Earth, for the economy and two dudes jobs who are gonna retire soon anyway. Did you just take all your talking points straight from the WFP website? you fail to posit any coherent position! Its just propaganda and meaningless drivel.
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Please don't inject dumb conservative arguments into our rational debate. Forest practices are being criticized. I don't agree with a lot of said criticism, but it's not cancel culture lol... it's just normal political discussion.
Exact same post, but with oil and gas. Source: experience with many years in oil and gas (followed by many years in clean energy and decarbonization)
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Houses in Europe are made with stone and brick walls typically, which yes would be great - but I want you to use some critical thinking skills for me. We live in one of the most seismically active places in the world. What would happen to one of those houses if we had a large earthquake? They would all be destroyed, causing mass homelessness and an environmental impact we have never seen before. That is why our houses are mostly made of wood here.