David Shipway

It may seem like inverse logic, but the best way to conserve the BC coast's legendary Douglas Fir biome is to commit to make wood products that will endure. And the only wood in a Doug Fir log that has any chance of endurance is Heartwood. But the reality is that 80 year old second growth Doug Fir is usually about 50% sapwood by volume, and all that sapwood will rot or get eaten by bugs in a very short time. Logging of this immature second growth is actually accelerating the burn of BC's biggest Carbon Bomb. https://tinyurl.com/upbs897

It's a shock to see so much of the second growth bounty, a one-off legacy of old growth ecosystems, harvested too early. This is the crime of the century on the BC coast, not only on private land, where the practice is extreme, but also on the Crown forest lands, because foresters were led to believe that 80y.o. stands were "mature". But as a woodworker I can assure you that trees of this age are about 50% sapwood, doomed to decay in a year or two. So the whole concept of sequestering carbon in wood products has been thrown out the window, just to make a quick profit selling raw logs offshore. The third growth forest simply will not be as productive, since we are also depleting the underground biodiversity as we mine the young timber that really belonged to future generations.