CANADA NEEDS A NATURE-FIRST ECONOMY! (Letter to PM Carney++)

In response to Wilderness Committee's STELLAR recent publication, Nature Can't Afford the Banker (Building A Nature-First Economy) written by campaigner Eric Reder, I used their special letter-writing tool here:
WildernessCommittee-BankOnNature to write the letter (below) sent to these recipients:

Mark Carney (Prime Minister), Nepean, Liberal

Julie Dabrusin (Minister of Environment and Climate Change)

Pierre Poilievre (Leader, Conservative Party of Canada)

Marc Dalton (MP), Maple Ridge, Conservative

Feel free to use that link to send your own personalized letter!  It's been shown that when govt officials receive 20 or more letters on a certain issue, they take notice - so don't underestimate the power of your actions:  they CAN make a difference.. [Here's another relevant W.C. article about PM Carney's disastrous new measures that double down on corporate profiteering and accelerated climate crisis while leaving Canadians - incl. Indigenous communities - IN THE DUST:  O&G expansion: NOT in the national interest!]

Here's my letter ~

As a born-and-bred BCer I am deeply dismayed by recent policy developments brought by PM Carney & the federal govt, characterized by glaring omissions of biodiversity loss (Species at Risk), climate & eco-based considerations.  Like a slap in the face, the message stings:  that future-forward nature care & stewardship are not important to Canada's federal govt - contrary to what we were led to believe.

With Earth's web of life literally staggering on the precipice of human-caused demise, these developments are blatantly myopic in the extreme.  As a major culprit, Canada cannot afford to ignore this global crisis any longer!

A gutting example here in Ridge of this backward slide on Climate sticks out like an open wound, just up the road:  a devastating clearcut of a vast swathe of forest along Dewdney Trunk Rd that's left this community reeling over the loss of that endemic ecosystem's assets, & dreading the resultant impacts of looming 'fire season' heat events.  Compounded by this year's record-low snowpack levels.

Such worrying scenarios, escalating across the nation, signal the untimeliness of your retreat on biodiversity & ecosystem protections - falsely in the name of economic growth & affordability.  As the [conservative] World Economic Forum's recently-published Annual Global Risks Report clearly states, the next decade's biggest economic threats are biodiversity loss & climate change!  This backs what Science has stressed for years: there is no economic argument for excluding nature in any govt decisions going forward.

While countless Canadians struggle to get by, PM Carney's nescient focus on costly "nation-building" projects that double down on last-century fossil-fuel reliance offers scant relief for most Canadians while highlighting a gaping disconnect between our climate-affected reality & the federal govt's "new" priorities - at the cost of rolling back hard-won eco-protections & Indigenous commitments!  This dangerous regression is nothing less than abrogation of duty by our public servants!

The costs of climate change are already driving up our bills, through climate-disaster clean-ups like the Hwy 3 washouts costing million$ from public taxes.  Yet your govt continues to pour money & energy into fossil-fuel-run projects that only promise to make the problems worse.

Firm fact:  we've already found proven ways to protect Canada's natural habitats, that reduce emissions & make life actually affordable in this cost-of-living crisis!  And they don't include building O&G-run 'data centers' requiring massive amounts of water (amid BC's ongoing drought emergency!!???)- besides being arms of USA's resource-grabbing hegemony of billionaire-owned Tech giants, with potential consequences that undermine our very democracy!  Canadians of all walks of life are unanimously rejecting A.I. data centres, with good reason:  forcing their egregious climate-wrecking effects across the country is a flagrant misuse of taxpayer's money - with NO tangible benefits!

Please, respect the values Canadians hold dear, including (overwhelmingly) climate action & nature protection - eg. by building/ upgrading homes with sustainable materials & renewable power; & funding our necessary transition to clean green industries +++ - i.e. much-needed measures that support society sustainably AND economically, while aligning with our emissions-reduction commitments.

Therefore I implore your govt to:

• Immediately remove the Impact Assessment exemption from the Build Canada Act;

• Grow both nature & climate budget expenditures to at least two per cent of GDP annually;

• Enforce the Species at Risk Act in all jurisdictions across Canada;

• Establish tests that rate cumulative & downstream emissions for every Major Project;

• Plan to meet our international emissions-reduction commitments;

• Strengthen Impacts Assessments & waste regulations for ALL mining projects in Canada.

Without thriving Nature's priceless benefits, "Canada Strong" will remain unattainable due to our over-reliance on (chemicalized/ outdated) Agricultural exports, Fossil-fuels, over-harvested forests, rejection of Science-advised solutions, & USA's unneeded obsolete imports - i.e. products of ramped-up pollution, contamination, ecocide, GMOs, overdevelopment ETC.  Canada CAN be strong - by countering those failed excesses with quality, locally-made, sustainable production values & future-forward TRANSITION into the clean, green future we CAN achieve. Because we've already proven so!

THAT is where our taxpayers' money should be invested, guaranteeing quality jobs/ re-training in renewables / organic regenerative agriculture / clean public transport / eco-tourism +++ sectors for a healthy economy that LASTS.

For too long, our policies have prioritized short-term GDP growth at the expense of ecological stability & social well-being.  Surely we've LEARNED BY NOW that merely perpetuating same-old last-century unlimited-growth economics will subvert our own success!!??

Leaving legacies of thriving Nature & circular economies represents REAL Science-led prosperity - as opposed to cowering in the face of oppressive billionaire-owned U.S. 'Big-Tech' grifts engendering nothing but more inequality & unaffordability.  We have a global duty to protect what we have left in our priceless biodiversity, forests, grasslands & waters - THOSE are sources of lasting, regenerating value that will build Canada's resilience.. now & in future.

It's time to UPGRADE:  respect Nature's directives instead of recklessly destroying what remains - eg. Canada's last 4% intact Lungs of the Earth - for financial gain of a wealthy/ foreign few.  That's like demolishing the Great Pyramids for the price of their stones:  NIHILISM THAT MAKES NO SENSE - economically or otherwise - at any time!  Today's govts are tasked with the responsibility of ensuring liveability of our world for future generations, & Canada's leadership must be no exception.

The interconnected crises of climate change, resource depletion & economic inequality demand that we transition toward a sustainable, healthy economic model. Our metrics for national success must evolve to prioritize resource conservation, community resilience, and long-term liveability over infinite expansion.

As my elected representatives, I urge you to support policies that move beyond traditional growth metrics & invest in a regenerative economy.  The alternative is unthinkable.

Please live up to your democratically-elected duties, as leaders serving Canadians' best interests!

Thank you very much.

[SaRah (Saz) ChesTeRman]

Before & after shots of that Maple Ridge clearcut: [Pix by me]

BEFORE:

 

                                 AFTER:

                                                                 

"A CRiMe Against ThiS PRoVince": Logging in BC is LiTeRally KiLLing US ALL~!

[Updated from Oct.'24]

Fellow BCers:  The need is long overdue to REViSE how natural forests are (over-)managed in this province, & to QUIT allowing irresponsible logging corporations to continue the practice of clearcutting our globally rare (& threatened) temperate rainforest ecosystems, which are essential habitat for thousands of species of native biodiversity.  Our govt's ongoing, infamous "talk-&-log" inaction is not just unacceptable:  it's homicidal!  With half the province burning up in a rash of dangerous & unprecedented wildfires, we need to listen to the real experts on exactly what is being lost & what to do about it - eg. the dedicated & passionate individuals at Evergreen Alliance - found at this link:  www.evergreenalliance.ca/protect-more Following are direct quotes from their website.

"Clearcut logging on the scale that has been occurring in BC—which is unparalleled anywhere else on Earth on a per capita basis—is contributing significantly to global heating and climate instability. Those mega-impacts are, in turn, contributing to further, widespread loss of BC forests—whether they are “protected” or not—as a result of drought, fires, wind and insect infestations. All of those impacts are occurring with greater frequency and severity than in the past. That added loss, in turn, further worsens global heating and climate instability. So the scale of logging in BC is contributing to a dangerous global feedback loop that, on a per capita basis, British Columbians have been more responsible for than any other population of humans on the planet."

"Moreover, BC is now beginning to experience unpredicted, complex and serious side effects from that feedback loop between growing climate instability and forest loss. Recall the unprecedented flooding that occurred after an “atmospheric river” swept over southwestern BC in mid-November 2021. The flooding occurred downstream from areas that had been heavily logged and were later burned by forest fires. The amount of rain that fell was not unprecedented, but the flooding was. Climate scientists say such atmospheric rivers will occur with greater frequency due to global heating. But the unprecedented magnitude of the flooding was attributable to both the loss of forest cover from clearcut logging and the way that forest fires make soil less able to absorb water. The large area of the forest fires was attributable, at least in part, to the widespread extent of clearcut logging and tree plantations and the unfortunate fact that clearcuts and plantations make forest fires easier to ignite and harder to control."

Also quoted from that EA article:

"When the cost of public forest management is included in a consideration of government revenues, there was an average net loss of about $1 million per day between 2010 and 2019.

The economic importance of the logging industry didn’t justify the damage it was doing in 2003, and since then the industry has shrunk to less than half its former economic importance while the damage it is doing has grown immeasurably.

Another much-touted justification for the vast extent of clearcut logging in BC is that logging can’t be reduced because it provides wood products that are essential for growing and maintaining BC’s own stock of buildings and infrastructure. But that line of reasoning is a ruse. 

According to Sheng Xie, a postdoctoral research fellow with UBC’s Department of Forest Resources Management, about 85 to 90 percent of the volume of wood logged in BC is exported. In 2016, for example, 88 percent of the volume logged was exported.

*  *  *  * 

If logging on publicly-owned land were limited to supplying BC’s own needs for forest products, the area cut each year could be reduced by 80 to 90 percent. Instead of cutting 180,000 hectares (the Ministry of Forests’ number), that could be reduced to 18,000-36,000 hectares each year.

At that rate, how much land would need to be set aside for logging? It would depend on the rotation period between cuts, but certainly no more than 1.8 to 3.6 million hectares. That’s just 3 to 6 percent of BC’s forested land. That’s all that’s needed to meet BC’s own requirements for wood products!

*  *  *  * 

Before all of BC’s primary forest is gone, citizens need to rise up and demand an end to exports. First the export of raw logs and then all wood-product exports. Let other countries figure out how to meet their own needs!

Unless there is a large reduction in logging, none of the existential threats to BC’s remaining forests posed by the current scale of logging —such as more aggressive forest fires— will be diminished. Any newly protected areas, including temporary logging deferrals of old-growth forest, will be just as likely to become burned forest as they would if they were unprotected.

*  *  *  *  

From The Great Tree Robbery by Ben Parfitt:

“A crime against the province”

Arnold Bercov, a former president of the Public and Private Workers of Canada, said he is deeply unsettled by the subsidy program’s implications. He fears the credit logging will further deepen problems for already stressed forest ecosystems, community watersheds, rural First Nations, non-Indigenous rural communities, and forest industry workers alike.

“It’s so bad what we’re doing. We’re liquidating what’s here. That’s what’s going on. And that’s just a crime against this province,” Bercov said.

The union is one of three representing forest industry workers in BC and has been vocal about the need to protect more old-growth forests, and ensure that much higher value is added to whatever trees are logged in the province’s forests.

While Bercov says the credit program poses risks to forests and forest workers alike, its biggest victims will be First Nations on whose ancestral lands all the bonus logging is taking place. “Ultimately, it won’t matter about First Nation land claims. In a few years, it won’t matter if they win or lose because there won’t be anything left to win,” Bercov says.

“Here we are speeding down a climate emergency and we are putting holes in our only lifeboat,” says Suzanne Simard, a professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia and author of Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest.

Simard said she wonders now how many of the logs “trundling out of the woods daily” near her home community of Nelson in the West Kootenay region may be a result of the credit program, including trees from the interior rainforest, one of the rarest forest ecosystems on earth. 

Thanks to generous BC government subsidies, wood pellet mill yards are overflowing with logs culled from the interior region’s primary or old-growth forests. Photo: Stand.earth.

 

“The BC government is targeting natural hemlock forests in our inland temperate rainforest for pellets even though this ecosystem is red-listed,” said Connolly. “Now we find out that the direct destruction of these rare forests is being subsidized with public money and packaged as a bioeconomy. I really want to know how decision-makers sleep at night endorsing this and calling it clean and green.”

Left completely unsaid is how saving wood from being burned at logging sites only to deliver it to pellet mills that make a product that is then burned equates to a climate benefit. 

Old-growth cedar logs from one of the world’s most unique and imperiled forest ecosystems—BC’s interior rainforest—make their way into a wood pellet mill yard in Prince George. Photo: James Steidle.

Finally, a heartfelt comment that touched a chord (below) found on the Evergreen Alliance public forum @ this link:  EAforum-Clearcut-logging-is-an-immoral-practice

By Guest Salmon in the Sky

Logging as it is now practiced is an immoral practice that destroys nature. Not only does it destroy nature, it will slowly but surely kill us.
Trees are the “Lungs of the Earth” because they create and cleanse the oxygen we breathe. In logging (at least in how it is now practiced — clearcutting) we plunder and rape and kill our very breath of life — it can be no plainer than this.
We also set off irreversible chain reactions and compromise our children’s futures. In the name of Love for our children we will cut down irreplaceable old-growth forests for temporal "satisfactory pleasures" — that all too soon lose their amusement.
We deplete the soil, pollute the water and create landslides that the children will have to deal with. Do you call this love? It definitely is not.
And with climate change threatening us this is definitely not the time to be procrastinating.
We have the means and the ability to stop unsustainable forestry and get off fossil fuels. The only thing in the way is our sinful selves with not enough Love in our hearts to really stand up for what’s right, for the whole future of the planet, for everything special to us. Are you willing? Are you going to act? Are you going to act in love, now?