Mike Morris and his view on BC Forestry Practices and Impacts to Wildlife.

[Bugle M In]

As the title states.
If anyone is interested.
Not sure if this should have been in this part of the forum or in open chat?
Anyways:

https://www.facebook.com/100005526720501/videos/411914150402383/

[boxhitch]

iirc MM has always been a critic of logging practices and the whole professional governance change
I remember a presentation he did at a BCTA convention '05? '06? maybe
he had a few slides showing the increase in resource roads in BC, a shocking graphic for sure

[Harvest the Land]

iirc MM has always been a critic of logging practices and the whole professional governance change

Yes he has and I think that's also the reason why he was never appointed Forestry Minister. He absolutely understands and is genuinely concerned about the poor management of our forests. He's a hunter and has been running a trap line for more than 30 years. His voice needs to be heard more often.

Thanks for sharing Bugle

[ActionJackson017]

It's clear why he's not the Forestry Minister.. but honestly, it's a shame. He gets it. Very good video, thanks for sharing.

[Drillbit]

That was pretty great. Very interesting

makes a lot of sense and what I’ve seen over the years matches up

thanks for posting that

[IronNoggin]

Refreshing.

Wish those who are "managing" the problem would get it.

Thanks for the share - Appreciated.

Nog

[wideopenthrottle]

even as a young boyscout budding conservationist I was aware that some the ecosystems on earth need more than a few thousand years to become a mature habitat...I am all for having a large portion of our forest as tree farms as long as we leave enough of a landbase in a multiple millenial rotation...yes I am saying some forest need to be managed on rotations of several thousand years...have you ever tried to count the growth rings on some of the ancient cedar stumps up near port hardy

[tomcat]

The majority of forest in BC should be managed for the biodiversity of all plants and animals the natural forest provides shelter and protection for, not just intense forestry silvicultural practices for the production of wood fibre and lumber. The only exception being the more or less than 20% of the best productive lands in private tenure, tree farm licences and public ownership.

[Arctic Lake]

I post this on all Forestry related topics on HBC . Quit planting those bloody trees so close together . Does nothing for our wildlife , a bloody rabbit can’t get through there !
Arctic Lake

[Sitkaspruce]

I post this on all Forestry related topics on HBC . Quit planting those bloody trees so close together . Does nothing for our wildlife , a bloody rabbit can’t get through there !
Arctic Lake

AL, I can go on and explain why there is trees planted and stocking standards and densities etc. What you are probably referencing is natural regen from a natural disturbance, usually a fire. Some species, like lodgepole pine, will grow back after a fire thick as hair on a dogs back. Over time it will self thin and become a viable stand, but it will take longer than a planted stand.

Coles notes: Trees get planted to a stocking standard that, if the cut block is sufficiently restocked to 90% (block has live tree coverage for 90% of it surface area) at 15 years of age it meets free to grow standards and the cut block is reverted back to the crown. Over time, the stand may be thinned or spaced to meet the requirements of the stand.

Sadly, biodiversity is not on the radar of silviculture practices and they don't play well with each other. Its all about planting and getting the crop back into rotation for the next harvest.

Cheers

SS

[S.W.A.T.]

There needs to be a more balanced approach. Just saying you can't do it anymore would cripple our economy. I just returned from Vancouver and I honestly forgot how many smaller milling operations are in the lower mainland, supply depots, remanufacturing plants and at one time even a pencil factory. The government is in a real pickle here between keeping people employed, environmental impact and public responsibility. In the mid 90's my mom was a loans officer at our local credit union when one of our mills closed down. Local housing crashed for more than a decade, people were just dropping their keys off at the bank because they could no longer afford the mortgage payments. Auction houses like RB were full and contractors got pennies on the dollar for their equipment and local equipment communities shrank, many left for Alberta for work. Many communities are more diverse now not solely relying on forestry dollars but many still are, Houston, Williams Lake, Prince George, Burns Lake, Mcbride, Valmont and many others in the Kootenay region. I wouldn't be surprised if 25% of the BC population is either directly or indirectly employed by forestry. Over the last few years there has been a steady reduction in the allowable cut, in my opinion is a good thing for forest management, however if not done correctly we will end with only a few major companies having total control over the forestry market. This dangerous as they will have the power to control government much like what takes place in the states demanding public money to stay operating or jobs will be lost ie bombardier or aircanada. As someone who is employed by forestry and have employees but also someone who hunts and fishes and respects the environment I would hate to loose both life styles. Our argument can be that we have a very ethical market, much like our oil. No one is dying to get our products sold. Russia is harvesting at a much bigger scale then Canada with little to no regards for environment, re forestation or consideration for our changing climate.

We don't have a perfect system but we do have a system that is far better than most and yes we can do better. There is lots at stake here on both sides

[Arctic Lake]

Thanks for your reply Sitka !
Arctic Lake
AL, I can go on and explain why there is trees planted and stocking standards and densities etc. What you are probably referencing is natural regen from a natural disturbance, usually a fire. Some species, like lodgepole pine, will grow back after a fire thick as hair on a dogs back. Over time it will self thin and become a viable stand, but it will take longer than a planted stand.

Coles notes: Trees get planted to a stocking standard that, if the cut block is sufficiently restocked to 90% (block has live tree coverage for 90% of it surface area) at 15 years of age it meets free to grow standards and the cut block is reverted back to the crown. Over time, the stand may be thinned or spaced to meet the requirements of the stand.

Sadly, biodiversity is not on the radar of silviculture practices and they don't play well with each other. Its all about planting and getting the crop back into rotation for the next harvest.

Cheers

SS

[j270wsm]

How Russia manages their forest has no effect on my life style. Watching the logging where I live infuriates me….massive log blocks where the majority of the trees are not useable and end up in slash piles or lying on the ground. Right now there is a new block being started in an area that is amazing moose habitat, semi open grassy/swampy area that always hold moose, but soon enough it will look the same as every other cut block in the valley.

[Bugle M In]

Mike Morris to me is a great example of why I have said in the past that we need, as hunters, more hunters with good practical
heads on their shoulders to run in Politics.
It seems these days it is almost impossible to have things done when standing on the outside.

[Drillbit]

I think forestry is just one of the reasons for the decline in game numbers. Not the only reason.

does he have a presentation on wolves or bears during calving season?

[boxhitch]

In MM speech, there is still no mention of the manufacture and export of wood pellets

"Whole trees, indeed whole tracts of forest, are being logged with the express purpose of turning trees into a product that is then burned," the report says.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/ccpa-report-wood-pellets-1.5979498

Millions of tonnes of pellets from Can and the US are being exported to Europe for heating and power production

[S.W.A.T.]

In MM speech, there is still no mention of the manufacture and export of wood pellets

"Whole trees, indeed whole tracts of forest, are being logged with the express purpose of turning trees into a product that is then burned," the report says.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/ccpa-report-wood-pellets-1.5979498

Millions of tonnes of pellets from Can and the US are being exported to Europe for heating and power production

Isn't utilizing that wood and selling it better than just piling and burning it? No one is logging for pellets, it doesn't pay. What is made from shipping wood to the pellet plants is a break even on logging and trucking.

[S.W.A.T.]

Mike gave a great speech, and he isn't wrong. However there is so much more at stake, jobs, communities, yes wildlife and fish. It's not so simple as to say no more logging. Somewhere there is manageable ground for a system that will accommodate everyone and everything.

[boxhitch]

Isn't utilizing that wood and selling it better than just piling and burning it? No one is logging for pellets, it doesn't pay. What is made from shipping wood to the pellet plants is a break even on logging and trucking.Did you look at the link? I used to think only scrap was used, but the sheer volume of material shipped is too large

[mike31154]

Whenever I drive north out of Vernon to Armstrong I see the massive piles of mulch & sawdust surrounding the Tolko plant. IIRC a few years ago there was a spontaneous fire in one of them. Any of you forestry folks have an idea what eventually happens to that? The piles never seem to get smaller.

I think bottom line, too many humans on the planet. Population keeps growing. We've become too efficient at harvesting virtually all natural resources, fish, mining, oil & gas, forestry, even agriculture. Everyone likes nice furniture, needs to heat their home & eat. Many love to recreate in whatever way they chose, including us hunters.

A few years ago I was up in one of my favourite areas to hunt in the alpine of the Monashees. Drove to the end of an FSR I had been up before to park & go for a hike with the bangstick. I noticed they were pushing the spur farther into forest, then I heard the noise of machinery. Decided to go have a look. One man in a massive machine was punching through the trees, cutting, stripping branches, stacking & building a road all at the same time. It was insane how efficiently this thing was mowing down the forest. Perhaps efficient is a poor choice of word, since a lot of commercially useless timber was being razed in the process. There is now a good size cut block in an area I used to hike through thick timber to get up higher.

This screenshot shows one of my hikes before they started cutting the block I mentioned above. The road now extends farther to the right & the block is slightly above. The lower part of my track is now a much easier hike through an open block & I have cell phone coverage at the top of it.
https://dm2302files.storage.live.com/y4mtDwnAJn_rOogpauwenUUrRKrylwKdvWo62SS3uQIcfyNE08 CqmjIxg-oY6TpoFEKpCfansM5F47dD5JGwzynvi8V1ff0lUIqbwNbuf9pJ 72AmAgEtP_a7GceMhsGIgvAIXzyeT6ODnoCldO_bihxDNhtD-C_6W7UpBJ8NrzoYKKoHnJomKeRzU1t7TAAuF_5?width=1024&height=539&cropmode=none

One or 2 years later, nature is healing, slowly..... a small evergreen sprouting in the middle of what was a burn pile. I don't need a biology degree to know that it takes a lot longer for forest to regrow at that altitude. Treeline isn't all that much higher from here. The block didn't look to me like it was planted, so this seedling came up on its own.
https://dm2302files.storage.live.com/y4mSTt4edsSCEo4KXZnziM7aMvzOexOURrPpn5lwQqYnoqMM-VpAtcnRIgsA-qsIDbcz7-vvKIS7wNSmt43Kn8OD_nDeHvkaR6bPk5SRGNt9uqj7iE1ypN4S lOGKTbcq1xVCwhbE30TxzaDIy4-_B6yQ4PzbxSadCK3vsgepz_JCA24gdKFG-7OvRJFbgF8PAHf?width=1024&height=1024&cropmode=none

[Rob Chipman]

I'm not looking for an online argument, S.W.A.T. - that doesn't accomplish much - so don't take this as an invite to have a fight. I'd like for all of us to have a clearer idea of what's going on, however, so we can, as BC locals, figure out what's best for us and the generations of BCer's who follow us (your kids and grandkids among them).


No one is logging for pellets, it doesn't pay.


I'm not so sure about that. Unless the sawmills are giving away enough sawmill waste for free then people are, indeed, logging for, among other things, pellets.

You can check the Narwhal, or Stand.Earth or, if those guys seem a little too tree-huggy for you you could go to straight to Drax's website. Drax is a UK based power generation company. It runs at least one biomass fuelled power generating station in North Yorkshire, and that power generating process stretches all the way across the globe to BC. It's a publicly traded stock. We can all buy some. Over the past year it went up in value from $310 to $541.50. (For those wondering, that's 74% in one year. If only a Vancouver pre-sale in one of the hottest RE markets in the world returned that kind of cash, right?)

Drax gets biomass from everywhere. Georgia, Latvia, Mississippi, Estonia... They don't make it a secret. They publish catchment area analyses on their website. Google "Drax wood pellets BC" and you'll get there.

I'll bet $20 that BC mills *do not* give that bio-mass to Drax. For what it's worth, Drax says it gets waste from sawmills. That's probably not exactly...what's the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah: "true".

There is a pellet company called "Pinnacle".

It's owned by Drax.

Pinnacle (according to an industry trade magazine) not only uses sawmill residue, but also chips low grade logs as well as cant/pulp logs to make pellets....for the UK. The challenge that Pinnacle had in the past, before Drax bought them, was getting inputs for it's pellets. The fact that Drax bought Pinnacle, which is the third largest pellet company in the galaxy and operates 8 plants across western Canada, makes me think they have figured out the raw material supply issue. Go figure, right? After all, these guys are business people and one thing business people know how to do is solve business problems in order to make profits.

You might ask: who are they making profits for? The good people of Houston and Burns Lake? Or shareholders and the exec team of a huge publicly traded company? I'll let you decide.

So yeah, there is a lot at stake. But when you say
Somewhere there is manageable ground for a system that will accommodate everyone and everything. I need to jump in and make clear: I don't really give two shits about everyone and everything.

I care about people in BC having economic opportunity, but I don't care about how well Drax or it's shareholders do. A lot of families in BC have roots in forestry, mine included. Cutting down trees has bought a lot of homes, boats, campers, university educations that turned the logger's son into a forester - we all know the stories.

All that said, we are clearly logging for pellets (the pellet makers are pretty open about it) and we're getting the shitty end of the stick on a ton of measures.


There are a lot of differences between sustainability and profit maximization. We should keep in mind that people in BC have way more skin in the game than a company like Drax. Drax has it's capital investment at stake, but it's capital is invested worldwide. When it makes sense to shutter it's BC operations it will do so and take the tax benefits to maximize the bottom line. It may not happen today, or tomorrow, but it will happen.

The people, wildlife and fish of BC will still be here when Drax is moved to another postal code in order to remain profitable. The things living in BC are going to feel the pain sooner or later. The thing to realize is that we can control, to a degree, how much it hurts us, or we can just let corporations and government decide when we get thumped. It's our call.

Buy Drax stock or take care of our home.