TL: CLEARCUTTING CANADA: GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES - LOCAL CONCERNS SO: Greenpeace International & Greenpeace Canada (GP) DT: May 1994 Keywords: terrec forests logging clearcuts greenpeace canada bc canada industry statements gp / ------- Common Industry Claims about Clearcutting and Common Government Claims about Clayoquot Debunked 1. Clearcut Logging Mimics Natural Processes The claim is often made that clearcut logging mimics natural disasters such as fires or windblows. Such natural disasters occur with varying frequency in ancient forests in British Columbia, depending on the forest type, climatic conditions such as rainfall, and the topography. Clearcuts differ from fires and other natural disasters in a number of significant ways, however. First of all, clearcuts involve the removal of all merchantable and often non- merchantable trees and snags. This is not natural. Both wind and fire events leave large numbers of standing as well as fallen trees and snags which are integral and necessary parts for a healthy functioning forest ecosystem. Moreover, most natural fires do not burn so hot that they either kill all trees or burn in large blocks. Following a wildfire, typically thirty to seventy percent (30-70%) of the trees are left alive. (Hammond 1991). Recovery from these natural disturbances in an ancient forest involves complex interactions between numerous species of shrubs and plants, soil organisms, animals, birds, insects and remaining trees. These natural disturbances are an essential part of maintaining the diversity of habitat components needed to sustain the biological diversity of ancient forests. Regeneration following clearcuts, however, is usually just one or a few tree species, and resembles monocultures more than forests. Tree Farms In British Columbia, clearcut logging is used to liquidate ancient forest and convert the land into tree farms consisting of only a few marketable tree species. These tree farms are planned to be on rotations that last from 60 to 120 years. Ancient coastal rainforests in B.C., on the other hand, operate on natural disturbance cycles (fire or wind) where 250 to 300 years is considered a short cycle and many forests operate on cycles of 500, 1,000 or even 1,500 years. As the age of a stand of temperate rainforest trees grows, the number of species found within them increase. The natural cycles of the coastal temperate rainforests found in Clayoquot Sound are in the upper end of this range. Even if some snags and tiny pieces of old-growth forest are left behind in clearcuts, there is no part of the management plan which allows these elements to regenerate themselves. After two or three rotations of the planted forests, the few remaining old-growth elements will simply disappear. 2. Clearcuts Do Not Affect Productivity, Forests Regrow Better Than Before Clearcuts lead to soil degradation by stripping it of all vegetative cover and exposing the soil to wind, rain and sun. Clearcuts are regularly done up and down steep slopes on the sides of valleys and mountains. Logging roads further aggravate soil degradation problems by diverting and channelling runoff water, contributing to downslope erosion, landslides and stream sedimentation. A Canadian Forestry Service study projects cumulative productivity losses to the Province of British Columbia from soil degradation from 1976 to 1993 at more than $1.5 billion dollars. (Utzig and Walmsley, 1988) This is only the costs in lost timber revenues and does not include the externality costs from clearcut logging due to lost fisheries and tourism revenues. Tree plantations are also exhibiting a number of worrying problems. A twenty percent (20%) loss of harvest in Vancouver Island tree plantations is now being predicted due to unexplained "distorted" or "stunted" growth. "Foresters are privately calling large parts of Vancouver Island 'silvicultural slums' and 'wastelands'." (Pine et al, 1989) Clearcutting followed by tree planting strips the soil of essential nutrients. As a result, future tree plantations decrease dramatically in quality. Low Grade Lumber The quality of the wood from secondary growth and tree plantations following clearcuts is lower than that from the original forests. The tensile strength of the timber is reduced, the wood is coarser grained, and the lumber grades are lower. Finally, no one can say whether clearcuts followed by planted tree plantations are sustainable, even in the most limited sense of sustained yield. Few planted forests are older than thirty years. It will take several rotations and more than a hundred years before any meaningful assessment of the sustainability of yield can be made. Clearcuts are not sustainable for local communities or economies, or biological diversity. 3. Clearcuts Are Good For Wildlife Because wildlife is often observed in clearcut areas - in fact clearcuts make it easier to observe and hunt some wildlife - it is frequently asserted that clearcuts are good for wildlife. In fact, the shrub and low shrub vegetation which typically dominates clearcut areas is nutritionally poor compared to the same shrub species found within the forest. Studies in Alaska, for example, found lactating deer did less well on clearcut forage than on forage from the same species found in forests. It is hypothesized that this is due to the increased tannins found in these shrubs when they grow in clearcuts. (Bradley, 1994). Impact Generally browsing animals, such as moose, use only the outer thirty (30) meters of a clearcut area, depending on the forest itself for shelter and security. A number of wildlife species such as martens, lynx, salamanders, voles and numerous bird species are negatively affected by clearcuts. Many species such as the marbled murrelet depend on old growth forests for their habitat. Animals that can use clearcuts already have all the habitat they need from natural disturbances in forests from windfalls and fires. Many species forage on plants and shrubs which grow in the ancient forests but are not found in tree plantations. These plants may be absent from tree plantations due to the type of regeneration or due to the use of synthetic chemical herbicides. While certain numbers of species are observed in clearcuts and continue to exist, their future survival is a question. Some species such as woodpeckers, eagles, cavity nesting birds, marten, lynx, and squirrels, among others, which are not obligatory old-growth dependent species, still depend on snags and other structures of old-growth forests for their long-term survival. Secondary forests are not being managed in ways which can ensure that new big snags and other critical structural components of ancient forests are being grown and renewed for the next 100 years. 4. Clearcuts Are Economically Efficient In the short term, clearcuts are definitely the most economically efficient way for large pulp and timber mills to harvest a diminishing and increasingly distant and difficult to reach resource. However, clearcut logging does not represent the best way to promote stable forest-dependent communities, maximize current regional economic benefits, ensure equitable benefits from public forest resources, or contribute to the best economic use of forest timber. Timber industry claims that clearcuts are economically efficient derive from their desire to maximize short-term economic expediency while ignoring the externality costs that clearcutting imposes. An economic study of tourism in the Clayoquot Sound-Port Alberni region found that NOT clearcutting Clayoquot would add more to the regional economy from tourism than would be gained from the sale of the timber. Large scale clearcut logging depends on moving a workforce from place to place. As ancient forests are used up in one area, timber ghost towns are left behind as clearcutting moves on to new regions. Clearcut logging and replanting has an extremely high dependence on transient workers. New technologies make clearcut logging ever more labour efficient. This means less jobs with higher cutting rates. Tree plantations, with their single-species, even-aged stands, offer even more opportunities for capital intensive mechanization, and loss of forest jobs. Impact on Fisheries Fisheries is another sector which has suffered large financial losses due to reduced runs of salmon and other fish, as their spawning grounds have been destroyed from clearcut logging. According to studies done on salmon populations in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, "many stocks have gone extinct", and more than two hundred (200) stocks are at risk of extinction. Clearcut logging in watersheds is the "primary cause" of this situation. (The Wilderness Society, 1993) 5. Regrowing Forests Help Reduce the Greenhouse Effect "Annual releases of carbon dioxide from t.he timber industry currently exceed all other sources of carbon dioxide emissions combined in British Columbia. " (Hammonil, 1991) There is a significant amount of confusion on the role of forests and climate change. A clear distinction must be made between the accumulation of carbon and the storage of carbon in forests. Old growth temperate rainforests are unrivalled storehouses of carbon. They contain the highest above ground biomass of any terrestrial ecosystem, exceeding even tropical rainforests by 2.5 times. Young, rapidly-growing tree plantations are good accumulators of carbon, but it can take 250 years or more of growth before they will have stored as much carbon as an old-growth forest. Carbon Release Nonetheless, the forest industry hopes to create a new market by selling carbon "sinks", but they are doing it in a fundamentally dishonest way. First, they are clearcutting existing ancient forests, thus releasing significant quantities of carbon into the atmosphere. More than half the carbon which has been emitted into the atmosphere from deforestation is the result of temperate forest deforestation. The forest industry does not have to account for this carbon which they have just released into the atmosphere. Yet on the other hand, they now claim that since the young newly-growing trees on the clearcut are accumulating carbon, that the forest industry should have the right to "sell" this carbon accumulation as an "offset" to other industries burning fossil fuels which wish to avoid taking measures to reduce their carbon emission. If the forest industry was truly concerned about the greenhouse effect, they would declare an immediate moratorium on all clearcut logging of ancient forests. REFERENCES: -Bradley, T., 1994. Silva Ecosystem Ltd., Winlaw, BC. pers. comm. Jan 20, 1994. -Dietrich, W., 1993. The Final Forest: The Battle for the Last Great Trees of the Pacific Northwest. Penguin Books, New York. -Hammond, Herb, 1991. Seeing the Forest Among the Trees: The Case for Wholistic Forest Use. Polestar Press, Vancouver. 309pp. -Hatfield, H.R., 1988. Clearcut versus selection. Forest Planning Canada, 46(4):9-10. -Pine, J., M Sheehan and D. White, 1989. Wounded Forests and Diminished Yields. Forest Planning Canada 5(5):5-11. -Utzig, G and M. Walmsley, 1988. Evaluation of Soil Degradation as a Factor Affecting Forest Productivity in British Columbia. Forest Resource Development Agreement Report 25, Canadian Forestry Service, Victoria, British Columbia. -Sierra Club of Western Canada, Ancient Forests at Risk, 1993 -The Wilderness Society, 1993. The Living Landscape Volume 1: Wild Salmon as Natural Capital, Washington DC. COMMON GOVERNMENT CLAIMS ABOUT CLAYOQUOT DEBUNKED 1. The Provincial Government Clayoquot Sound Land Use Decision of April 1993, was made without prejudice to native land claims. Although the government claims current decisions will not prejudice land claims, the forest on the land that is in question is being clearcut logged before treaty negotiations have even begun. The Nuu-chah-nulth people were never consulted in the original April 1993 decision to clearcut seventy-four percent (74%) of the rainforest in Clayoquot Sound. They do not support this decision. A report released by the provincial ombudswoman in October 1993 decried the government's treatment of the Nuu-chah-nulth. While the Interim Agreement (which will not be signed by the Nuu-chah-nulth and the government until late February 1994 at the earliest) is a positive step towards justice for First Nations people, it is only a two year interim agreement. It is not a Treaty. 2. The Interim Agreement to be reached by the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council and the provincial government has 'solved' the Clayoquot issue. The Interim Agreement still has not been signed, and it is interim. Actual treaty negotiations will not even begin for two more years. The interim agreement gives the Nuu-chah-nulth more of a voice in decision-making, but it remains to be seen if they will have veto power over land use decisions. Nor does it ensure responsible logging or treaty rights. The Nuu-chah-nulth have explicitly stated their opposition to clearcut logging and their wish to preserve much of Clayoquot Sound for future generations. 3. The draft Forest Practices Code will ensure responsible logging. The Forest Practices Code is currently only in draft form. The draft Code has many fundamental weaknesses and insufficiencies. It explicitly allows clearcutting; does not introduce selective cutting or ecoforestry principles, and does not ensure that biological inventories or any ecosystem analysis will take place before logging occurs. The draft Code also leaves too much discretionary control over forest practices to the district level. The government hopes to have introduced the draft Code as legislation by the Spring, but any legislation passed will not come into effect until 1995. 4. Under the draft Forest Practices Code companies with negligent logging practices will be prosecuted and heavily fined. There is currently minimal monitoring and enforcement of the forestry industry in British Columbia. This year the government suspended one of MacMillan Bloedel's logging permits on Vancouver Island (in Haddon Creek, part of the same Tree Farm License as Clayoquot Sound) for destroying a stream through negligent logging practices. In addition, in Clayoquot Sound's Olympic Creek the government is investigating a similar occurrence. Both of these violations were found and reported by independent environmentalists, not government agencies. The government currently asks the company to audit its own operations! There are no effective new mechanisms for monitoring and enforcement in the draft Code. Greenpeace recommends the government create an independent monitoring and enforcement branch. 5. The new Scientific Panel set up by the provincial government will resolve all of the ecological concerns in Clayoquot Sound. The eighteen-member Scientific Panel for Sustainable Forest Practices in Clayoquot Sound only has power to make recommendations to the provincial government. It has no final decision-making power. This type of scientific review should have occurred BEFORE the Clayoquot land use decision. The Panel is working under difficult conditions, since the government has refused to issue a moratorium on logging in Clayoquot pending their findings. Even though the panel includes native representatives and some respected scientists, the parameters of their discussion are influenced by the government's April 1993 decision and industry pressure. No final report is expected from the panel until June 30, 1994. In the meantime clearcut logging continues in the pristine rainforest. 6. Large clearcuts are no longer practised. The government continues to this day to approve clearcuts of up to sixty (60) hectares adjacent to other cutting areas. These so-called small blocks require more roads, threaten wildlife through habitat fragmentation, and alter the ecological conditions for significant distances into the adjacent blocks of intact ancient forests. In 1992 MacMillan Bloedel logged three clearcuts of thirty hectares in Clayoquot Sound which had ten hectare leave strips in between. The leave-strips subsequently blew down, leaving a clearcut of over 100 hectares. 7. Forest companies are being made to "clean-up" past damage. Much of the damage done by negligent logging is irreversible and ongoing: abandoned logging roads weakening and causing landslides and trees failing to adequately regenerate in clearcut areas. The government has taken some steps to require companies to stabilize a few of the worst and most visible abuses in very limited areas. However, with inadequate monitoring of logging companies, the full extent of the damage done is rarely known. When government monitoring does occur, violation rates are often high. For example, a recent government oversight audit of some of MacMillan Bloedel's forestry practices in Clayoquot Sound found eighty percent (80%) noncompliance to Coastal Fish/Forestry Guidelines. Included among the violations cited was the cutting of streamside old growth timber, leaving salmon streams very vulnerable to soil erosion. 8. The Clayoquot Land Use Decision introduced "new" logging practices including "scenic corridors" and "special management techniques". Ninety percent (90%) of the logging done in British Columbia is done by clearcut logging. One hundred percent (100%) of the logging done in Clayoquot Sound is done by clearcut logging. The Scenic Fringe Committee recently approved clearcut logging in the scenic corridors. There are no laws or clear guidelines governing logging in special management areas and these areas are being clearcut logged. 9. The government of British Columbia has an admirable record of wilderness preservation. Park designation in British Columbia is far behind schedule. Less than five percent (5%) of old growth rainforest in British Columbia is currently protected. The protected areas in British Columbia include relatively little old growth forest. Recently, the government protected the Tatshenshini wilderness area. This area was endangered due to mining interests. While the Tatshenshini is a large, important and beautiful area with a major glacier, it does not represent significant forest protection. Many more ancient forest areas must be targeted for protection if these regions are to be properly represented in British Columbia's protected area strategy. By the government's own schedule published in 1992, twenty-three (23) large parks and twenty-one (21) small parks should have been created by now. 10. The Clayoquot Land Use Decision protects many intact areas of temperate rainforest. Of the ninety-one (91) primary watersheds greater than 5,000 hectares on Vancouver Island, only five remain undisturbed by clearcut logging. Three of these are in Clayoquot Sound and only one (the Megin) is protected under the decision. It is important to maintain intact undisturbed watersheds for scientific research and biological diversity conservation. 11. Canada has vast amounts of its wilderness protected. Eighty-one percent (81%) of the existing protected areas in Canada are less than 10 square kilometres, according to the Federal Government's 1991 State of the Environment Report. Such small areas of intact wilderness (and not all protected areas are intact wilderness) are generally considered to be below the minimum size needed for effective biological diversity conservation. 12. Clearcut logging in Clayoquot Sound does not effect local biological diversity or animal habitat. Clearcut logging is a silviculture system in which large tracts of land are cleared of all plants and trees. This irrevocably changes the ecosystem. Some species such as the marbled murrelet, (a small seabird which is 'threatened' with extinction) depend on these old growth forests for habitat. One of the largest known populations of this species in Canada is found in Clayoquot Sound. Other species such as the Roosevelt Elk suffer severely due to destruction of their migration routes. Scientists studying these forest ecosystems do not yet really know how many and the full range of species existing in Clayoquot Sound, but the estimates are above ten thousand (10,000) species. Biological diversity scientist Neville Winchester stated that the plan "will lead to a collapse or extinction of species, there is no doubt in my mind." Even then Provincial Minister of the Environment, John Cashore, stated the decision would mean species loss and impacts on biodiversity. (Victoria Times Colonist, June 1, 1993) 13. The Clayoquot Land Use Decision does not violate the Convention on Biological Diversity. The Clayoquot Land Use Decision violates both the spirit and the letter of the Convention on Biological Diversity. It goes against the objectives for "the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity." There have never been appropriate biological inventories done in Clayoquot Sound. The Convention on Biological Diversity calls on nations to identify and control processes which threaten biological diversity. Clearcut logging is such a process, yet there is no legislation in Canada or British Columbia governing the rate of cut or size of clearcuts. Nor is there endangered species legislation in Canada or British Columbia as required under Article 8. 14. Biodiversity guidelines are being applied in the Clayoquot area as are standard provisions to encourage wildlife populations through habitat management. There are no provisions in the Clayoquot Land Use Decision for wildlife corridors or habitat management. When Greenpeace examined current cutting permits (issued by the government) for several areas of temperate rainforest in Clayoquot Sound, they were found to state, "No significant wildlife observed", and that "no special measures need to be taken to ensure wildlife habitat" despite evidence and independent field observations to the contrary. The ancient temperate rainforests are home to tens of thousands of plant and animal species. Clearcut logging results in a complete loss of this habitat. 15. The industry claims that thousands of jobs will be lost if logging stops in Clayoquot Sound. Economists from outside the forest industry claim that the logging in Clayoquot Sound has generated fewer than 300 jobs. At the moment the logging industry in British Columbia is losing 2,000 jobs a year, while the tourism industry is generating 4,500 jobs a year. Over the last forty years, the number of jobs in the B.C. forest industry has been reduced by 27,000 while the annual cut has more than tripled. British Columbia now exports raw logs and an increasing amount of semi-processed woods. 16. Selective logging is not economically viable. Selective logging creates jobs and protects the environment. However, selective loggers find it difficult to gain access to forests since large companies practising clearcuts obtain the major contracts. Increasingly, British Columbia's major European and American markets are asking for clearcut-free forest products. British Columbia has a unique opportunity to shift its forest practices to meet these new market demands. In fact, Switzerland and Austria have banned clearcutting entirely and in many other European countries clearcutting is severely restricted in size and location. ALTERNATIVES TO CLEARCUT LOGGING: Wholistic Forest Use An end to clearcutting does not mean an end to forestry or of timber extraction from forests. Numerous low-impact harvesting techniques such as well planned selective logging and ecosystem planning processes can ensure the conservation of biological diversity, greater community control, and benefit from local forest resources and the maintenance of a broad range of forest values for future generations. Growing numbers of on-the-ground practitioners of more wholistic forest use can now be found in British Columbia, who do not rely on clearcut logging. While in British Columbia these are still small-scale operations, in other areas of the world wholistic forestry is being practised on a greater scale. Recently, one of the largest forest product companies in the world declared its intention to work with Greenpeace and create clearcut-free paper within a year. British Columbian advocates of new forestry approaches based on ecological principles, such as Herb Hammond, and groups such as the Ecoforestry Institute, are playing an important role in opening people's eyes to new ways of seeing the forests and how to use them without clearcut logging. Greenpeace is dedicated internationally to working with scientists and foresters to create sustainable forestry criteria for the future.