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Michelle Connolly

Forest Stewards
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  1. Michelle Connolly recently spoke with three grassroots activists to learn why they are involved with a forest conservation effort. Here is her interview with Taryn Skalbania, Sarah Newton and Carole Tootill. TARYN SKALBANIA is an animal lover, farmer, grandma and activist who made Peachland (Syilx territory) her home 30 years ago. She is one of the co-founders of the Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance (PWPA) and an active member. She holds a similar role in the BC Coalition for Forestry Reform and is also part of her District’s Healthy Watershed Committee. Sarah Newton is an elementary school teacher who taught in Fort St. James (Nak’azdli territory) and currently teaches grade 6 in Revelstoke, (Sinixt, Syilx, Secwepemcúl'ecw and Ktunaxa territory). She was raised and educated in Nova Scotia (Mi’kma’ki territory). Sarah loves exploring wild places with her husband and two teenage children. Carole Tootill is a mother, educator and concerned citizen. Born in Victoria (W̱SÁNEĆ territory) in the early 60s, she has lived as far east as Toronto (Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, Anishinabewaki and Haudenosaunee territory) and as far north as Whitehorse (Kwanlin Dün territory). Moving back to the Island in 2014 came with a shock: the forests she grew up with were gone. From left: Sarah Newton, Carole Tootill and Taryn Skalbania What inspired you to become a grassroots activist? Taryn: Originally it was a selfish motivation. I found that my favorite long-distance hikes, horseback rides and fishing lakes were being wiped out by logging. Secondly, the inconsistency between how forestry is regulated compared to mining and recreation, for example, pissed me off. As I started talking to others in my community, I realized that they had no clue what was happening to the land, and they had no idea that the land was not in good hands. Forestry was on a pedestal when I grew up. At UBC, the MacMillan Bloedel building was next to the Sauder School of Business, near the Jimmy Pattison Pavillion and the Canfor Theatre. I’m angry now. So that’s my motivation right there. Sarah: I have always been involved on some level, whether that was with the North Columbia Environmental Society/Wildsight, writing politicians, sitting on committees. To stand on that road and blockade at the Bigmouth/Argonaut Creek was the last thing I wanted to do. I did it because as a parent and teacher, I couldn’t look kids in the eye anymore, knowing the flora and fauna will not be there for them if I didn’t step up. It was kind of like live on your feet or die on your knees at that point. For me, the only way to defy despair was to take action. Members of the activist community form deep connections in a very short time, feeding each other hope and inspiration. Carole: Necessity. We’re losing wildlife because of habitat loss from logging. “Fiber supply” is prioritized over the free services of intact ecosystems. Old-growth forests with big trees not only store carbon and provide clean air and water, they keep us cool and moist when it is hot and dry. The NDP created the facade that it would protect old-growth forest, won the election and has fooled the public; the NDP has increased old-growth logging and paved the way for near-complete liquidation of our grand forests. Most people have not experienced an old-growth forest, so they do not understand the direct and indirect impacts of logging. The government is killing wolves and cougars to protect caribou, but loss of old-growth habitat to logging is the real issue. Numerous First Nations’ communities have been forced to rely on forestry and sign agreements with gag clauses to keep community members quiet and disallow dissent. The NDP continues this and calls it reconciliation. Argonaut Creek forest defenders blocking the Bigmouth logging road in 2021 What are the advantages of grassroots activism? Taryn: It has no advantages; we don’t have money. [Group laughs]. The advantages are that you can speak the truth and be irreverent without anything to lose. There is nothing else other than the community voice that makes change. We must do the work ourselves; we can’t wait for ENGOs, government and industry. I don’t see that there’s any other way. There will be more civil disobedience in BC. Sarah: We have the opportunity to do the right thing at the right time. Maybe that’s blocking a road or doing other things that aren’t so polite. And of course, what’s polite changes over time and all of a sudden these things that everybody used to think were extreme aren’t any more because what’s happening to Mother Earth has become a horror show. Carole: I’ve made decades worth of monthly contributions to ENGOs to finally realize that it was a poor investment. They operate within a mandate of complete safety. This has worked well for government and industry. Government has protected very little of the most biodiverse forests because they are the most commercially desired. In the 1990s during the Clayoquot protests, more than one-third of our ancient old growth ecosystems still stood. Now we are down to about 2 percent of what we once had. Time is running out; government will continue to steal our energies through engagement surveys, false promises, and other distractions while logging continues under the protection of publicly funded police militias. Only direct action will work at this stage, but last summer’s and more recent police brutality and going through the courts has worn people out. People have been seriously physically and psychologically injured for trying to do what the NDP promised to do. We now have small pockets of big-treed old growth surrounded by a sea of clearcuts and biologically void tree plantations. A blockade of Teal Cedar Products logging in the Fairy Creek Rainforest in 2021 What have you learned since you started doing grassroots work? Taryn: We formed as a society in 2016 because we had to do the job ourselves; we are responsible for watershed and forests. We realized that industry was lying to us and the provincial government could not possibly have our best interests at heart. Also, the professional corruption among some foresters became clear because, really, to survive in that profession you have to be either morally bankrupt or bought off. Willing to serve two masters, and neither of those masters is the natural world. Many foresters are embarrassed by their profession and have spent their retirement trying to improve the system. Anthony Britneff explained in an Evergreen Alliance article last year that former premier Gordon Campbell gave the forest industry a prominent role in the writing of forest legislation. The Council of Forest Industries lawyers were actively engaged in the drafting of the Forest and Range Practices Act to replace the Forest Practices Code of B.C. Act. Not reviewing the legislation—they drafted the legislation. This law does not need to be tweaked, it needs to be shit-canned. Sarah: I’ve learned that my generation is almost invisible in the fight for conservation and climate action. When at the Bigmouth/Argonaut Creek blockade over those ten months (fighting to protect the last valley bottom old growth inland temperate rainforest in the world), it was mostly all people in their 20s; missing from these actions was a huge chunk of society. The other thing I learned was from a course on climate education at Cornell University. We can use the same psychology that’s used on us by media, and that we must truly listen, be confident with what we know, and find commonality with others. Carole: It is very difficult to change laws, and there is no time to do so. Judges, crown prosecutors, and police exist to uphold the status quo—their lifestyles and pensions depend on it. The conflict of interest is obvious. Yet we have to chip away at this front or laws won’t change. We need more radical action or we lose everything. Fairy Creek Rainforest defenders confronted by RCMP in 2021 (Photo by Alex Harris) What advice would you give to others who want to start a grassroots group to protect nature and their communities? Taryn: Effective negotiations with industry and government to protect forests and change the practice of forestry will not occur without a balanced playing field. Effective negotiations require that participants have relatively equal legal and political power, backed by adequate financial resources. In the absence of this balanced negotiation structure, all that may be expected from “collaborations” are half-baked compromises that err on the side of protection of industry and government interests. This means that forest exploitation will continue to trump forest protection. Herb Hammond imparted that wisdom. Sarah: We need to support grassroots Indigenous communities. We need to be there together. We also need to join forces with the working class. When I look at forestry workers who are losing jobs or economic migrants coming to my community, we’re all trying to do our best independently, but it’s not enough. We are all fighting against the 1 percent that dominate resource extraction. The bonus for me was finding community with the other blockaders. It has really kept despair at bay. As grassroots activists we are not free to abandon this work and so we need to find others to do it with. Don’t use the language of industry and forestry because embedded within it is the belief system that created the predicament we’re in where living ecosystems are a commodity. Don’t use their own weapons to fight them, because they are more skilled at using them. We need to use our own language that speaks to peoples’ hearts. Carole: Just do it, or we lose it. Taryn Skalbania with Syilx Elders at a Water Ceremony on International Women’s Day Michelle Connolly runs Conservation North in Lheidli T’enneh territory/Prince George.
  2. Image: Conservation North's Seeing Red Map, which shows that almost all primary forest in BC is gone. Widely circulated new map depicting BC's disappearing primary forests raises thorny questions about the state of BC's forests. The creators clarify what it shows. Go to story...
  3. Widely circulated new map depicting BC's disappearing primary forests raises thorny questions about the state of BC's forests. The creators clarify what it shows. Part of the Seeing Red Map showing remaining primary forest (in green) and the part of BC that has been industrially logged (red). Click on the map to enlarge, or see a live scalar version which allows you to examine specific areas of the province in finer detail. AT CONSERVATION NORTH, we are pleased with the widespread viewing of our primary forests map called “Seeing Red” and with so many favourable comments. “Seeing Red” is the first freely-available map of its kind. Its veracity is only as good and complete as the publicly available provincial government information underlying it. The matter of definition of “primary forest,” which the map depicts in the colour green, is tricky and, in response to some comments from the public, needs further clarification. “Primary forest” is a commonly used and scientifically accepted term for forests having composition and structure that largely reflect natural processes. Primary forests have never been industrially logged. Sometimes primary forests are referred to as “original,” or “natural,” or “intact” forests. Primary forests are important because they are the best habitat for wildlife, support the largest stores of forest carbon, and contain the last old-growth forests. If readers were to view some selected red areas of the map on Google Earth, they may appear green and forested. It is important to understand that Google Earth imagery is blended and often years behind reality. Also, on this imagery one cannot distinguish between primary forest and replanted cutblocks—they both look green. The scientific community disagrees with claims that “greenness” as inferred from Google Earth is a credible indicator of ecological integrity. Even-aged monoculture plantations in cutblocks do, in fact, contain chlorophyll and are indeed green, but they are simplified, fragmented, degraded, and ecologically impoverished. Some areas of the “Seeing Red” map are light grey. Light grey is clearly defined in the map legend as places where there is no forest or for which no forest information exists (See the map legend). These areas with “no data” simply represent gaps in the government’s forest inventory available to the public or urban areas where the government does not conduct a forest inventory (e.g., the UVic campus). One reason that gaps exist over some areas the reader may know to be forested is that some industry holders of tree farm licences either refuse to share their forest inventory with the government, or will not allow the government to share their forest inventory information on Crown land with the public. The forests ministry would be doing a badly needed public service if it were to make all forest information on Crown lands freely available to the public so that we may make an even better map. Michelle Connolly MSc is a director of Conservation North. For more information about the Seeing Red Map, read Sarah Cox’s report at the narwhal.ca
  4. Conservationists call for a moratorium on primary forest logging in the Prince George TSA following a scathing report by the Forest Practices Board. A large clearcut in the Prince George Timber Supply area. Photo by Sean O’Rourke/Conservation North CONSERVATION NORTH is calling for a moratorium on industrial logging in the Prince George Timber Supply Area following the release of an investigative report by the Forest Practices Board (“the Board”). The Board concluded that biodiversity is at high risk in the vast majority of landscape units within the Prince George and Stewart-Nechako Natural Resource Districts and has recommended that old growth be promptly mapped and protected where it is most threatened by industrial logging.The Board’s investigation was elicited by complaints from the public.“We view this as an indictment of industrial forestry practices in our region. The only way the government of BC actually manages biodiversity is by keeping the activities of licensees in check. They have failed to do this,” asserts Jenn Matthews, outreach coordinator with volunteer-based Conservation North.While the Board’s report concludes that licensees are complying with the current legal requirements of the Biodiversity Order (“the Order”) for the region, more importantly it states that the Order is out of date such that even full compliance results in the unsustainable loss of critical wildlife habitat.This is the second time in 2020 that an independent analysis has pointed out that effects of industrial forestry in the Prince George region have been irredeemably harmful to nature. The first instance was the Last Stand report, which was prepared by scientists and identified areas across the province that are hotspots of biodiversity loss due to logging of primary forest.Despite their strong recommendations aimed at the BC government, the Board report seems to gloss over the negative effects of a peculiar legal loophole that is built into the Order.According to Sean O’Rourke, who runs Conservation North’s field program: “the Order allows licensees to submit something called an old growth ‘recruitment strategy’ which is basically an ‘IOU’ to the government for old growth that doesn’t exist yet. A licensee will draw a line around a patch of 60-year old trees and promise that patch will get old one day.”Put another way, licensees are using recruitment strategies as giant loopholes through which to log remaining old growth by setting aside younger forests as potential future old growth. Recruitment strategies are fraudulent because they allow licensees to circumvent the intent of the Biodiversity Order. Unfortunately, Prince George has a district manager who has been signing off on them left and right.“This report makes it clear that there are terminal problems with how licensees are operating in the PG TSA. Industrial-scale logging must be put on hold until the recommendations of the Board report are fully implemented,” asserts Ms. Matthews.In the PG TSA, the work of keeping track of what has been logged and how much old growth remains is left to a group made up of licensees, as opposed to an independent body or the BC government. Conservation North views this arrangement as a serious conflict of interest that needs to be rectified if there is to be any hope of protecting wildlife in the long term.In addition to mapping and protecting old growth immediately, Conservation North also supports the Forest Practices Board’s second recommendation for an update of the targets in the Order, with the strong caveat that it must be done by independent scientists, and without the influence of licensees. Michelle Connolly, MSc, is a director of Conservation North. The Forest Practices Board’s investigative report: Forest Practices Board report on risk to biodiversity in Prince George TSA.pdf
  5. May 20, 2020 Photo: Michelle Connolly surveys logging in the Inland Rainforest BC's minister of forests refers to forests as "feedstock." Why does he use an agricultural term to describe a forest? Go to story

    © Mary Booth, Conservation North

  6. BC's minister of forests refers to forests as "feedstock." Why does he use an agricultural term to describe a forest? A new logging road under construction in the Inland Rainforest (Photo by Taylor Roades) IN Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell describes a dystopian society in which language is used to control people. In Orwell’s fictional world, vocabulary is constrained and new words are created in order to simplify and manipulate people’s understanding of the world around them. Orwell suggested that the well-known connection between language and worldview could also be used to manage human behaviour. Not having worked in industrial forestry, it was only three years ago that I started hearing the word “fibre” used instead of “forest” with confusing frequency. This word appears on industry and government websites and it is used regularly by timber company representatives. Last week, BC Minister of Forests Doug Donaldson described the lands he is in charge of as “feedstock” in my community newspaper. One could be forgiven for thinking that the timber industry, with the Province’s help, is attempting to replace the notion of a forest—and everything that word means —with vague abstractions. The term fibre conjures up Metamucil, while feedstock summons the mental image of food for livestock. Why are government and industry employing these euphemisms, rather than just saying forest? The purpose is two-fold: to change how we view these complex living systems and to prevent us from acting to defend them. If forests can be rebranded as stands of consumable objects (which the terms fibre and feedstock achieve), then the work of obtaining social license to destroy them has already been done. If an ecosystem is merely feedstock for a pellet plant, what on Earth else would you do with it? If a tree falls in a fibre, no one will hear it because it doesn’t exist. Natural forests, including those that have burned or are full of decay fungi, provide food and medicines and mitigate floods. Forests also store and sequester carbon in soil and plant tissues, and old forests are particularly good at this. Beetle-killed forests provide critical structures for wildlife. The founding belief of modern forest management—that natural forests are a commodity—is among the root causes of declining ecosystem health in B.C. Under this belief system, old growth is in the way of plantations that can provide a predictable flow of wood and revenue. Burned or beetle-killed forests are waste. Paired with corporate control over public lands, the conceit that people can and should manage complex ecosystems has led us to where we are today. Emerging research confirms that BC’s productive old-growth forest is all but gone. Companies are being awarded licenses to cut down remaining primary forests to feed pellet plants. The Council of Forest Industries, whose member companies have levelled most of the economically valuable old growth on the coast and in the interior, are demanding that the province set aside the remainder in a “working forest landbase” (read: make available for logging), according to their Smart Future report. As a part of their ongoing efforts to ensure continued access to BC’s last primary forests, those in power are trying to reduce these ecosystems to objects so that the public won’t fight for them. We will not abide lies of omission that obscure the truth of what natural forests are and we won’t stop defending them. Natural forests will always be more than fibre or feedstock; and in nature, there is no such thing as waste. Michelle Connolly, MSc, Conservation North, Prince George Michelle Connolly surveys a clearcut in the Inland Rainforest. Old growth cedars in the interior are often considered “waste” by the forestry sector. (Photo by Mary Booth)
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