FLETCHER'S CHALLENGE SPARING CANADA'S OLD GROWTH FORESTS

Forest and Bird, Volume 22, Issue 3, 1 August 1991, Unnumbered Page

FLETCHER'S CHALLENGE

SPARING CANADA'S OLD GROWTH FORESTS

by

Gerard Hutching

method is an sologadly Esiobk? 66 Clcarcuttiogthe Z majority of Commission of harvest f35 B.C. Forest Resources ecosystems

hanks to large scale forest destruction, Canada has been described as "the Brazil of the north" by some conservationists but the title has been hotly disputed by timber companies, one of which is New Zealand’s largest, Fletcher Challenge.

Ad 6 Bes A LOT of mud slinging on both sides but the conservationists’ mud is a lot cleaner.’ This comment from veteran British Columbian journalist Tony Eberts aptly reflects the level of tension between the antagonists in the battle for British Columbia's 500-year-old forests. But, coming from a relatively impartial observer, it also indicates that public support to conserve the forests outweighs plans to log most of Canada’s westernmost province's big old trees in the next few decades. New Zealand's largest company, Fletcher Challenge Limited, today finds itself embroiled in a bitter argument over the future. of Canada’s forests as a result of having bought a majority interest in Columbia Forest Products in 1987. As reflected in Fletcher Challenge’s annual accounts, timber is big business in Canada. In 1988 Fletcher Challenge Canada (FCC) made a net profit of $C290 million; in 1989 $C188 million; and in 1990 $C82 million. In 1989 the total value of forest exports to the country was $C40.2 million.

Huge country

Canada is a huge country. British Columbia not the largest Canadian province is 95 million ha in size (four times larger than New Zealand). Of that, 46 million ha supports forest, but 20 million ha is considered unharvestable. That leaves 26 million ha of "working forest" as the logging industry describes some of the world’s finest temperate forest. Around 60 percent of that is "old growth" (virgin or primary) forest, but the percentage varies according to latitude. In the north, where logging is marginal, there are still large areas intact. In the warmer south,

between 60 and 70 percent of the old growth forest has been cut. Despite the staggering quantities of available timber, almost all of which is owned by the provincial government, the day of reckoning for the industry could be relatively close at hand. At British Columbia's current cut of 260,000 ha a year (more than is cut in all US national forests combined), its coastal old growth forests will be exhausted in 15 years, say environmentalists. Industry officials contest this, estimating up to 30 years. In New Zealand the native forest woodchip industry cleared 16,557 ha between 1971 and 1989. It is little wonder that the coastal forests, especially of 386-km-long Vancouver Island, are so sought after by loggers, or revered by tree huggers. The rainforests are dominated by four majestic tree species: Sitka spruce, Douglas fir, western red cedar and western hemlock. On immensely fertile sites, Sitka spruces tower up to 95m above the forest canopy, higher than anywhere else in the world. In the 6,700 ha Carmanah Valley there are an estimated 5 million cubic metres of timber. Compare that to the more northerly Kitlope watershed on the mainland whose 317,000 ha can only muster 4 million cubic metres of timber.

Of the 89 largest watersheds on Vancouver Island, only six have been left untouched by logging. All six are on the island’s west coast and five of them have been slated for logging. There are two major centres of controversy: the Kyoquot/Brooks region and Clayoquot Sound. In 1988 Clayoquot Sound sprang to the nation’s attention when protesters blockaded road construction at Sulphur Pass. The road would have provided access to the trees around Sulphur Pass and Shelter Inlet, and opened up the pristine 24,000 ha Megin River. Local group Friends of Clayoquot Sound (FOCS) asked Fletcher Challenge Canada to stop the road construction until a sustainable management plan could be prepared for all of Clayoquot Sound.

Deaf ears

The plea fell on deaf ears, the company continuing with the road construction. Fletcher Challenge Canada forestry head Don McMullan says the local conservationists "don't have a stake in the industry," and that 200 people would have been affected if they had declared a moratorium. The company then took a court injunction out against the protesters, making anyone interfering with the road construction in contempt of court. Over the next two months protesters defied the court order and thirty five were arrested. A Fletcher's contractor shot at a tree sitter with a pellet gun; his sentence was 20 hours of community work. Loggers started to fell a tree occupied by a protester lying in a hammock, stopping only when they became aware that they were being filmed. The protester spent 15 days in a maximum security prison; no action was taken against the loggers. Bonny Glambeck, a director of FOCS, was one of six women who refused to pay their fines. As a consequence they were sent to a maximum security prison where they were incarcerated with two women charged with manslaughter. If it was the State's intention to terrify the protesters into submission, it has partly succeeded. The women had nightmares for months afterwards and no blockades have occurred since. Glambeck views the sustainable management committee set up for Clayoquot Sound as achieving little except "drawing off a lot of energy." Her view of Fletcher Challenge is one that is echoed by a number of Tofino residents: "FCC are exploiting our lack of government enforcement and treating us like a third world country." Tourism entrepreneur Dorothy Baert is typical of a number of Tofino townspeople: from an early age she fell in love with the coastal town on visits and today she has chosen to make a living there running a sea kayak business. From her office she has an uninterrupted gaze across the sea to Meares Island and Vancouver Island's distant mountains. No environmental radical, she belongs to the local Chamber of Commerce and is the townspeople’ representative on the Sustainable Development Steering Committee. She is no more complimentary in her estimation of Fletcher Challenge Canada. "The company has no ties to the community. Our trees are simply cash flow and their objective is to liquidate the resource." She says the message the people of Tofino

are trying to impart to the logging industry and government is that there should be enough forest left "to maintain the legacy of wilderness in all its complexity.’ After two years on the committee Dorothy Baert has become sceptical about the industry's or government's desire to compromise. Instead of hammering out an overall strategy for the future, the committee spends most of its time arguing over where the loggers can go next.

Natural history photographer Adrian Dorst is another Tofino resident who has made a career in a non-exploitive industry. When he arrived in what was predominantly a fishing village in 1972, he scratched out a living as a bird spotter and wood carver, meantime learning the art of photography. Today a burgeoning interest in natural history books and magazines has created a demand for his striking images. A founding member and director of FOCS, Dorst has seen little change in the logging companies’ approach during the 1980s. "Clearcutting is clearcutting. It’s just total destruction of the forest environment. FOCS would prefer to see single log extraction. They should shut the mills down if they are at the expense of the environment," he says. However FCC say a recently-issued independent B.C. Forest Resources Commission report strongly endorsed clearcutting as an ecologically preferable method of harvest for the majority of B.C’'s forested ecosystems. Such sentiments tend to play into the companies’ hands as they use the spectre of environmentalist demands to drive a wedge between workers and environmentalists. But the truth is that timber workers have increasingly lost their jobs as a result of automation, and not because forests have been protected. The timber industry argues that, without automation, far more jobs would have been lost through bankruptcies due to the industry’s inability to compete in global markets.

Employment cost

Forestry writer Cameron Young has pointed out the cost, in employment terms, of B.C’s

forest industrial strategy. The emphasis is on high volume automated production of timber and pulp, rather than value-added processing. "Back in 1960, a work force of 68,500 cut and milled an estimated 34 million cubic metres of wood a ratio of two workers for every 1000 cubic metres cut. By 1990 the work force was estimated to be around 90,000, and the volume of timber logged had risen to more than 90 million cubic metres. That meant the ratio had dropped to approximately one worker for every 1000 cubic metres logged. In other words, the rate of logging in B.C. has nearly tripled in the past 30 years while the rate of employment per volume logged has declined by half’ According to the industry, the figures are proof that it has become more productive and efficient. The situation is bound to worsen as the old growth forest is cut out and replaced by second growth trees destined to be fodder for pulp mills within 60-80 years. Already around 60 percent of the trees logged on Vancouver Island by FCC are turned into pulp for paper.

ARLY SPRING, and a meeting is called in Tofino by the Friends of Clayoquot Sound (FOCS) to discuss what action, if any, should be taken in the summer to stop further logging in the area. Most of those attending are young, alternative lifestylers; some make a living from tourism; there is one native American. Dress tends to be uniform: artificial fibre gear is definitely de rigeuer. Because the meeting has been advertised as public, four burly loggers from the "Share the Clayoquot Sound" group arrive with their wives. Conventionally dressed men and women, the loggers and their partners stand out like a clearcut in the midst of an old growth forest. "Share" groups are a North American phenomenon: started in the United States by disenchanted Sierra Club member Ron Arnold, the share groups spring up to counteract environmentalist demands. United States share groups’ links to the right wing Centre for the Defense of Free Enterprise, the American Freedom Coalition and the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church are well documented. Fletcher Challenge Canada deny such links exist for the Canadian share groups.

People power

The meeting starts with an impassioned plea from a FOCS spokesperson who asks whether the group is prepared to stand by while the forests are "butchered and raped." In 1984 and 1988 "people power" had stopped logging in two areas near Tofino, he reminds the audience. In response a unionist warns against any blockades. He claims the union wants to change the companies’ logging practices. After a five minute address he rises to leave; shortly after, the other loggers and their wives depart, leaving behind a disappointed and disillusioned meeting. This attempt to create a dialogue between the two camps appears to have failed. Still remaining, though, is a writer who works for logging company MacMillan Bloedel. He is prepared to discuss the environmentalists’ concerns with management. He also warns against any blockades: "It feels potentially explosive at Kennedy Lake," he says (Kennedy Lake is a nearby logging site).

The meeting ends divided between those who want to take direct action and those who see the negative effects it brings. It is felt that, while blockades are newsworthy, they bring only a sensational few minutes on TV and fail to portray the full complexities of the issue. And there is one other reason why civil disobedience is not wholeheartedly supported: anyone who has been incarcerated with criminals charged with manslaughter is probably not willing to repeat the experience. HAT IS IT about British Columbia that makes sensible decision making apparently impossible? Why do people feel they have no recourse but to participate in civil disobedience to save forests? And why is a company like Fletcher Challenge with a good environment record in New Zealand regarded by some as a pariah on the other side of the Pacific? As good a place to start looking for the answers to these questions might be the state of British Columbia politics and the way in which B.C’s resources are parcelled out. For 100 years British Columbian politicians have regarded the province's forests as an inexhaustible resource. As people have become aware that the forests will not go on forever, the provincial government's response has been to allow the rate of logging to increase.

Tree farm licences

Logging rights have been handed out in the form of Tree Farm Licences (TFLs), huge areas which are leased for 25 years and are almost automatically renewed. Critics charge that the timber companies have been granted the licences gratis, while small timber businesses which want to fell small areas for downstream processing have to pay. FCC's Don McMullan takes issue with the criticism. He responds that the large companies pay a stumpage when they fell a tree, and they have to pay for roads and reforestation. In 1990 Fletcher Challenge Canada planted 14 million seedlings in B.C. What does anger environmentalists is the fact that TFLs, having been virtually given away, suddenly become worth millions of dollars when an area is protected. Under state law, only 5 percent of a tree farm can be withdrawn from cutting. Anything more and compensation has to be paid to the company involved. In the case of the creation of South Moresby National Park in the Queen Charlotte Islands, companies were promised $31 million Canadian ($NZ49 million). Because of the high stakes involved with the granting of TFLs, the temptation for some

politicians to abuse the system has been difficult to resist. In one celebrated case, British Columbia Forests Products ended up owning a tree farm licence by bypassing the chief forester and taking its case directly to the Forests Minister. In 1958 the Minister was imprisoned for received "considerations", but the licence was not revoked the judge ruled the company had obtained its TFL in an honest fashion. Today the licence has been amalgamated with another to make up an area of 181,000 ha, called TFL 46. It is now owned by Fletcher Challenge. But it is not only the way in which logging licences are given out that has come under fire; logging practices themselves are a bone of contention. Logging companies are plainly embarrassed about clearfelling but not so much what it might be doing for the biodiver-

sity of the forests. No, clearfelling looks bad, and the practice has become a public relations problem. In many logging areas riparian strips do not exist. Before logging, all streams are rated for their natural values, with an emphasis on their value as salmon spawning grounds. In some cases riparian strips are left downstream. However, little attention is paid to the effect of silt from totally denuded upstream areas, on the areas downstream.

FCC counters that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Ministry for the Environment (Wildlife Branch) together review and approve all company logging plans and monitor operations to ensure compliance. Furthermore, the company raises five species of salmon and releases millions of fry into waterways each year. Salmon are under a four-fold pressure: habitat destruction, overfishing (particularly driftnetting), ocean warming (believed to be making the sea increasingly uninhabitable for them), and pulp

mill pollution. It has been estimated that salmon numbers are a half of what they were at the turn of the century. Yet even now no detailed studies have been carried out. Laments FOCS director Bonny Glambeck: "Virtually no wildlife studies have been done. We don't know what we are destroying." And with the salmon in decline, what future for the grizzly bears (found only on the mainland) or for the orcas that depend on a continuing supply of the fish? Each summer

around 270 orcas ply the waters around Vancouver Island, feeding on salmon. In winter they disappear out to sea. One of the most intriguing Canadian wildlife stories is that of the seabird the marbled murrelet, and its dependence on old growth forests. The secretive murrelet makes its nest atop the huge branches of the old trees. By 1990 only 11 tree nests of this fascinating bird had been recorded; no-one knows just how many birds may have been affected by logging, but it is believed that they may seek out the same tree for nesting year after year, in the same way other seabirds return to the same burrows. The loss of the forests is diminishing the chances of the bird's survival. In 1990 it was added to the list of Canada’s threatened species. According to Fletcher Challenge Canada,

there is no evidence to show the marbled murrelet returns to the same tree. It says that the bird's population is an estimated 45,000 in B.C., and numbers are stable. Don McMullan is unrepentant about FCC's logging methods. He says that in the past the company left some riparian strips in upstream areas but high winds blew the trees down. But, bowing to concern over salmon decline, forestry practices are changing to reinstate riparian strips alongside all rivers. He is also annoyed about the "Brazil of the north" epithet applied to B.C. Certainly the scale of clearance is less: the 260,000 ha logged a year in B.C. compares with the 1987 clearance of 2.1 million ha of Brazilian rainforest, much of it by fire. Since then the rate of clearance in Brazil has dropped. According to McMullan, forestry practices in Canada are equal to the best elsewhere in the world. After all, the companies now replant logged areas, he says. It is on this point that conservationists and foresters part company. Conservationists say that tearing down 500-year-old forests and replacing them with two or more species which will be logged in 60-80 year’s time is not the way to manage them. They say logging should mimic natural processes, biodiversity reserves need to be created and there should be multi-species natural regeneration. Supposedly overseeing the way in which forests are managed is the B.C. Forest Service, but the grossly understaffed department has

Saving the Stein

N 1989 native Indian chiefs Ruby Dunstan and Leonard Andrew travelled to New Zealand to plead with Fletcher Challenge Ltd directors and shareholders that they should not log their band’s spiritual homeland, the Stein River valley. A source of controversy since the early 1970s, the Stein Valley is, at 106,000 ha, the largest intact major catchment left in south-western British Columbia. Bowing to pressure to protect the valley, the provincial government designated two wilderness areas within the watershed one protects the glaciercovered Coast Range peaks and alpine tundra at the headwaters of the river.

The other safeguards the lower Stein as it descends eastward into the arid rainshadow of the Fraser River canyon. But lush forests at the heart of the valley, which Fletcher Challenge want to log, have been left unprotected. At present the government has placed a moratorium over the logging; meanwhile says Ruby Dunstan: "The spiritual and physical footprints of our ancestors are evident for all to see throughout the Stein Valley which is like the pages of a book upon which thousands of years of our history are written....Fletcher Challenge must accept the lion's share of responsibility for a just resolution of this conflict."

turned monitoring over to the forest companies themselves. While studies may be required to determine logging will not threaten downstream values, those studies are conducted by the companies. FCC describes these as "joint" studies with government agencies. everal hours drive from Tofino along a dirt road lies the Carmanah Valley. As recently as four years ago the valley was just part of an enormous tree farm licence of 453,000 ha owned by MacMillan Bloedel. It was the discovery of the Carmanah Giant the Sitka spruce 95 metres tall and 9.6 metres around that galvanised conservation group the Western Canada Wilderness Committee and others into action to spare the 6,700 ha valley from the chainsaw. WCWC campaigner Joe Foy’s passion for the Carmanah is belied by his easygoing exterior. Strolling through a clearcut at the head of the valley, he explains WCWC's strategy for saving the forest.

Word came out

He says that as soon as word came out about the size and extent of the big trees in the valley, a photograph was taken and made into the most popular poster the group had ever printed. Volunteers and staff then created a boardwalk into the forest, and a research station was set up high in the canopy the first research carried out at that height on the rainforests of British Columbia. In 1989 a number of artists were invited

into the valley to interpret it as they wished. The resulting book Carmanah: Artistic Visions of an Ancient Rainforest was a bestseller and award winner. In two short years the valley had emerged from obscurity into the spotlight of national concern. By 1990 a pressured Government acceded to environmental demands, creating the Carmanah Pacific Provincial Park to protect 3,600 ha in the lower half of the watershed. But it was a compromise that satisifed no-one, and the stand-off remains over the remaining unprotected forest. This weekend Joe Foy and the score of volunteers he has organised are in the second phase of the Phoenix Project. The first phase Started several weeks beforehand with repair work to damage caused by vandals in October 1990 when they destroyed a large section of the boardwalk and burned the research camp during a loggers’ blockade of the main road. In spring 1991 WCWC rebuilt the camp and now they are working on repairing the boardwalk. "They can come in and destroy the place 15 times; we'll rebuild it a 16th time," says Foy. In the argument over the Carmanah Valley the heat is off Fletcher Challenge, for this is in competing company MacMillan Bloedel's tree farm; nevertheless FCC are bracing themselves for an impending clash over a neighbouring valley, the Walbran, where they do have a TFL. There the trees are every bit as grand as in the more celebrated Carmanah. Foy shows me the area where a marbled murrelet nest was recently sighted. WCWC, he says, intends to build a research site here as well.

So what do conservation groups want for B.C’s forests, I ask. "Adding more value to what we cut, choosing to be more than simple hewers of wood, holds the key to creating meaningful jobs. And by cutting fewer trees, we open the way to retaining natural expanses of forests for the benefit of all,’’ answers Foy. Instead of retaining the great forests, the response of the B.C. Parks and Forest Ministries has been to give conservationists rocks and ice. About 5.5 percent of the province is fully protected in parks, and another | percent is protected in recreation or wilderness areas, where roads, mining and in some cases logging are permissible. Few of these protected areas include lowland forest. Foy’s message to Fletcher Challenge is that they should translate their excellent environmental record from New Zealand into the way in which they manage old growth forests in Canada. "From what we hear Fletcher Challenge is

a responsive company in New Zealand. | hope they'll come to their senses in Canada before it’s too late. British Columbia is my home. I have children and I want to know that we will have ancient forests forever. Can the people who run Fletchers understand that?’ he asks. In the 1990s that will be the test of Fletchers’ commitment to the environment not whether they are upgrading their pulp mills (which they are) or whether they are replanting the areas they are clearfelling (which they also are). The more difficult question the company has to answer is whether they are prepared to leave some of the centuries old forests which they have every legal right to cut alone. That test of Fletchers’ commitment to the environment is something that not only Canadians and New Zealanders have a stake in; what happens to ancient forests today is of vital interest and concern to the global community. &

Response from Ian Donald, President and Chief Executive Officer, Fletcher Challenge Canada:

LETCHER CHALLENGE is a decentralised organisation. Our Canadian company of course shares the Group’s values and commitment to environmental sensitivity in all operations. But decisions regarding British Columbia forest management issues are made in B.C. by managers who have full knowledge of the relevant facts and concerns. It would be unwise for New Zealand to interfere in Canadian political and environmental affairs. It serves the purpose of the extreme elements of the environmental movement some of whom are quoted in Mr Hutching’s article-to presenta. misleading, inaccurate and unfair view of Fletcher Challenge Canada’s forest management philosophy and practices. Fletcher Challenge Canada is in fact an organisation of over 9,000 people, most of whom live quite close to the forest in communities that depend largely on the forest for their livelihoods. All of us have a very real concern for and stake in the long-term sustainability and intelligent management of British Columbia's forest resources. Far from being a "cut and run" enterprise, our company is investing immense amounts of capital and effort to consolidate the ongoing strength and stability of our activities in B.C. and the communities they support. For example, we have spent or committed more than C$2 billion to capital projects since 1983 with some C$450 million dedicated exclusively to environmental projects. There is no doubt that when judged in the light of society's new environmental awareness many forest management

practices of the past can be justly criticised. Certainly, examples of poor forestry can be found in many parts of B.C. However, the industry has been learning and changing and forest management practices are continually evolving and improving. Mr Hutching’s article would lead one to believe that the industry operates virtually unfettered by environmental rules or standards. In fact, because 95 percent of the land in B.C. is publicly owned, the provincial government controls and strictly regulates the way the forest resource is managed and harvested. Before one tree is cut, our plans must be approved by a host of government agencies, including the provincial Environment Ministry's Fish and Wildlife Branch, the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans and finally the B.C. Ministry of Forests. These agencies will withhold approval until they are satisfied our plans provide proper protection for the non-timber values in the forest, including fish and wildlife as well as unique ecological and recreational features. The law also requires that we make our plans available for review and comment by the public. For example, in a number of operating areas we have established local advisory groups through which various community interests such as municipal councils, Native bands, unions and environmental organisations have an opportunity to provide input at an early stage of planning. And our plans often are changed as a result of public consultation. Our company is participating in the provincial government's Old Growth Strategy Project to find appropriate levels

and methods of preservation. It is important to understand that of the 95 million hectares of land in B.C., approximately six million hectares have already been set aside for parks and ecological reserves (more than in any other Canadian province). More than onethird of the preserved area is old growth forest or 112 acres of old growth for every man woman and child in B.C. As well, over 50 percent of the publicly owned land base is de facto wilderness unsuitable for development. Only 26 million hectares (30 percent) is considered to be the "working forest’ suitable for timber harvesting and less than one percent of this area is harvested each year. This harvest is vital to B.C’'s economy. In 1990, the forest industry provided employment for 17 per cent of the province's labour force and contributed $2.6 billion in taxes to all levels of government supporting a wide range of services such as education and health care. Obviously, these benefits must be considered in any decision to remove additional old growth from the potential harvest. The future of British Columbia and its residents will clearly be affected by the quality of solutions developed for the complex and often highly emotional issues surrounding forest resource management. Numerous task forces, committees and community groups are working hard to find the appropriate balance between a sound forest economy and the environment. Fletcher Challenge Canada, as a leader in the B.C. forest industry, is participating fully in this cooperative process.