British Columbia proposes ‘unprecedented’ deferrals of old-growth logging
“We’ve identified 2.6 million hectares of our largest, rarest and most ancient old-growth forests,” Forests Minister Katrine Conroy told a news conference. “Deferring harvest in an area this large is unprecedented and surpasses the size of 226 cities of Vancouver.”
“It only took the immigrants that moved to Canada 150 years to wreck what we were taking care of for thousands of years. We’re stepping in to fix whatMs. Conroy said B.C.’s old-growth forests can serve as a bulwark against climate change, but she said her government is legally obliged to uphold the principles of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which requires free, prior and informed consent from Indigenous communities to resource development in their territories.
If approved by Indigenous nations, the province will then ask forestry companies that hold the timber-cutting rights in a proposed deferral area to voluntarily suspend logging. If the tenure-holder does not agree, then the province can issue an order to rescind approved permits and prevent new permits.
“If fully implemented, this move will have a profound and devastating impact on people, families and communities across the province,” Susan Yurkovich, president and chief executive of the council, said in a statement. “Some of our ecosystems in British Columbia have remained relatively undisturbed for since the last ice age more than 10,000 years,” he said. “They are not renewable.” The deferrals are meant to buy time to transform the way forestry is done in B.C., replacing clear-cut logging with harvesting methods that mimic natural disturbance, “which means that we would harvest in a manner more linked to the way nature would change the forest. In some coastal forests, that’s a few trees at a time.
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