On behalf of the board of directors of Transition Salt Spring, we write to all Salt Springers in response to the direct mail recently mailed to all islanders from the stoptheislandstrust.com initiative regarding forestry and forest protection on Salt Spring.
We are concerned about its misleading statements, and would like to offer alternative approaches that if acted on could result in solutions that work for everyone and bring our community together in support of forests and foresters.
First of all, there is a lot we agree on.
Yes to strengthening the diversity of Salt Spring. We agree that we run the risk of becoming a wealthy-only enclave. A casual read of real estate flyers makes that clear. If we don’t include people at various income levels, the divide between those with means and without means grows, and we start to look like other countries like Mexico or the United States. We must implement policies that support on-island jobs, affordable housing, and discourage empty homes.
Yes to supporting and celebrating our island’s forestry professionals.
The demonization of anyone—be they loggers or ecologists is a path to division. Just look south to see where that leads. Demonization alienates others, and results in a failure to have otherwise sound proposals heard and adopted. It also weakens opportunities to build alliances with unlikely but useful partners. We all want to get this right, so let’s engage in reasoned respectful dialogue.
Yes to logging on Salt Spring—but not the kind we’re used to. This might come as a surprise to you and some readers, but our fragmented and poorly managed forests on Salt Spring depend on human intervention to return to a healthier and fire-resistant state. But clearcutting is not the answer. Selective, regenerative forestry is. These practices can support healthier forests that create more biomass, resulting in bigger, healthier trees that look beautiful, support wildlife diversity and resist fires. And, yes, through selective logging, they can provide better timber.
Now, let’s unpack what some of this means.
Fire Risk: Saying that ‘contiguous forest’ is responsible for ‘catastrophic canopy fires’ is untrue. Acting Salt Spring Fire Chief Jamie Holmes will be the first to tell you that. The Nanaimo Lake fires, which Salt Spring Fire Rescues’s Lieutenant Mitch Sherrin talks about in presentations, tells us that coastal forests are stressed and in trouble. It used to be that the slash in a clearcut that caught fire would simply snuff out at green and moist forest perimeters. Well, not anymore.
Increasing summer temperatures, increasing forest fragmentation, plantation forests with just one species, and an overabundance of deer which compact soil and eat up the understorey all push our forests deep into stress. Incidentally, what’s the biggest cause of forest fires in BC? It’s slash. Contiguous forest with varying ages of trees combined with selective logging lead to much greater fire resistance than fragmented forests with patches of slash waiting to ignite. This leads us to forest management.
Forest Management: It’s fair to say that our forests, once cut, are rarely managed here on Salt Spring. If you want to see a well-managed forest, let’s take a tour of Michael Nickels’ Seven Ravens Farm here on Salt Spring. Other loggers have, and in doing so, they’ve changed their practices forever. Michael practices regenerative forestry. So he gets both great yields and better income over a longer period of time—and a better forest that’s both beautiful and fire-resistant. What’s not to like?
Too many of our forests are similar in age because they were harvested and replanted (if at all) at similar times over the past 150 years. Young forests are more flammable. That is one of the reasons why older trees are so important. See the fire scars on the old Douglas-firs? They’re almost fireproof. We need more tree planting, trimming, thinning, and understorey restoration in our forests. We also need longer cut cycles to conserve and build soil, retain moisture, and grow healthier trees. Over the long term, that’s more money for foresters, additional livelihoods, healthier forests, and higher quality timber—without the buzzcuts.
Balancing Livelihoods, Private Property Rights, and Forest Protection: Managing our forests better on an island that is mostly in private hands presents a challenge. This is one of the reasons for the Islands Trust Coastal Douglas-fir project, which looks to have been purposely set up as a transparent, collaborative planning process that is making room for the diverse perspectives in our community. We are also unaware of any proposals to stop tree-cutting from the Trust, especially since the Coastal Douglas-fir project community consultation process has not even started. Transition Salt Spring supports this project because we need to address ever increasing forest fire risks due to climate change—the greatest climate change related risk we face according to the results of our climate risk assessment as laid out in the Salt Spring Island Climate Action Plan.
But how do we do this? First of all we need honey, not vinegar. Blanket bans on anything don’t work, nor do processes that are a maze. If the Trust is going to ask us to change the way we work with our woods, it has to be as simple as riding a bike. Like angry words, bad processes alienate people and are divisive. Instead, we need to look at a whole range of tools, like incentives for landowners to do better with the land they steward—be it through property tax adjustments or cash incentives for keeping trees standing. We also need to reach out to all property owners to explain what’s at stake if we don’t manage our forests right. So we are going to really need to encourage the Islands Trust to think outside the box on this issue.
Bringing Islanders Together: And in reaching out to islanders, collectively we have a tremendous opportunity to bring everyone along with us to learn the facts. When we do that, everyone in our community can better understand what’s at stake and buy-in more unanimously to the solutions. This gets us a new public consensus on how we address climate change and fire risks. It also gets people to better respect our foresters’ skills and knowledge, while creating more opportunities for forestry jobs. And, we say this respectfully, this is a way less divisive path than the one proposed. Let’s hammer out some common principles together and go to the Trust to make sure we get policies that work for everyone.
Building a Home Grown Forestry Supply Chain: Christy Clark’s government opened the floodgates on raw log exports, and John Horgan’s government is no better despite its promises. Many of our trees are cut and shipped off-island, ending up on freighters heading out of Port Alberni, rather than being processed at BC mills—which are now on life support, or simply shut down. The Trust needs to adopt a more holistic approach to forest protection by factoring in the broader economic context of regenerative forestry and its potential to help meet the Trust’s objectives.
If we are to change forestry practices on this island, we need to provide foresters with alternatives, like zoning for milling operations and incentives to use island-stamped lumber. Nanaimo does this. Why can’t we? Making these changes better supports viable milling operations while providing foresters with value-added options to raw log export. Transition Salt Spring would stand beside you to stand up for policies like this if we can also change how we do forestry here.
Change Provincial Codes: Our Building Codes encourage a lot of tree-felling. Rules governing road allowances in stratas, for example, are based on a suburban fantasy that assumes an endless supply of land. These codes have to change. They result in the wasteful use of a precious resource and continued fragmentation of our forests, making them weaker, drier, and more of a fire risk. These rules make forest soils less stable, leading to erosion, washouts and more downed trees. It’s not the fault of foresters that these road allowances encourage buzzcuts—and it’s not the Trust’s fault either. It’s the Province of BC.
Land Clearing for Housing: We’ve all seen it. Strip and flip. Buzzcut, the whole thing, sell the logs and sell the property. Sometimes newcomers to our island lack the knowledge and foresight when they strip land to build. It’s hard on the soil, leads to freshwater contamination, and weaker forests, which leads to elevated fire risks. This short term thinking needs to be discouraged with incentives and outreach to help people understand that there are better ways to build. This doesn’t mean banning logging. It means playing the long game in a way that creates more sustainable jobs over the long haul, healthier trees, and lower fire risks. To change these practices will mean trade-offs from both foresters and policymakers, along with rule changes and incentives—both carrots and sticks.
Trees Provide Many Services: Trees are not just ‘unemployed logs’, as some might say. Yes, lumber is a critically important resource that, if used well, can be harvested sustainably. What’s more, standing trees in healthy forests provide lots of benefits over clearcuts. A healthy contiguous forest with trees of varying ages, with an understory that is protected from overbrowsing deer, is a forest that protects us from fire and is closely linked to the quantity and quality of our freshwater. Selective logging, pruning, thinning, planting, and the creation of swales and berms can all help achieve forest health while providing lots of forestry jobs. Think of the role of a well-stewarded woodlot on a farm as an example of the potential. Healthy forests protect our precious water supplies, by increasing aquifer recharge, protecting against drought, reducing sedimentation, and lowering overall air temperatures.
There is a lot islanders can do to protect both our forests, and the livelihoods forests create. Divisive debates undermine our ability to work together as a community to make our forests healthier while also ensuring a future for our foresters through selective logging, regenerative forestry, and better management of overabundant deer. All of these activities sustain and generate jobs while generating many other co-benefits.
We won’t get the regulations and incentives we want by stoking conflict. There’s too much at stake—in jobs, in our community’s safety from fire, in the health of our freshwater supplies, and, of course, in the beauty of our forests which draw people here from all over the world. And, lest we forget, these people are a huge source of jobs in our community. How many of us have visited Salt Spring and chosen to become part of this community?
Rather than dismissing people who want to limit or change forestry, we need to sit down with them to have reasonable, respectful conversations about the things we all care about—a healthy community, healthy forests, and a strong economy that provides forestry jobs. We all have knowledge to contribute and that’s a great place to start. At the same time, we need to make sure the Trust creates better protection of our forests, while protecting and enhancing livelihoods within them. How we do that will require discussion on all sides, and flexibility—not only from the Trust—but from all of us.
If we do this, we know we can achieve a better outcome for everyone. We can’t afford hateful division while temperatures climb—every year bringing greater risks to our community’s viability and safety. Our smoky future will continue marching north from the burning plantation forests of the Western US if we let it.
So, let’s talk and come up with solutions that work—for residents, for families, for foresters, and for forests.
Sincerely,
The Board of Directors of Transition Salt Spring:
Andrea Palframan
Bryan Young
Deborah Miller
Gayle Baker
Jessica Harkema
Patti Baral
Ruth Waldick