Has anyone heard about the B.C. Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework? Another report you say? When will this end? I can only read reports like this in the old paper format and my printer has been well used these last four months.
The Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Framework (let’s call it the B&EH, to save some space) was released in November of 2023. It was based on another report, that you all know called “A New Future For Old Forests Summary Report”.
You may not know that name, but it’s the report that gave us deferred Old Growth Areas, Ancient Forests, Big Tree and Rare Ecosystems. Recommendation 2 in “A New Future for Old Forests” stated: Prioritizing Ecosystem Health and Resilience. And so, a framework was drafted.
Now that you know the family tree of the B&EH you have some idea on where this is going. I am optimistic. I think the B&EH isn’t taking us into a dark and gloomy place, just perhaps onto a road we haven’t travelled much in BC, but maybe, just maybe, we really want to as woodlot licensees.
The Framework is developed to support biodiversity as well as develop practices to increase ecosystem health with a foundation of reconciliation. The B&EH has been broken into 3 Pillars:
- All of Government working together to set ecosystem health and biodiversity objectives and standards that apply across all sectors. This includes consistent government decision-making, affecting ecosystems through all government ministries.
- Supporting an approach that facilitates initiatives by individuals, organizations, private sector, governments, and communities to conserve and manage ecosystem health and biodiversity and to advance sustainable communities and economies.
- Adopting an open and transparent process through evaluation, reporting, continuous collective learning, and adaptive management
You can read the full version here: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/environment/biodiversity-habitat-management/draft_biodiversity_and_ecosystem_health_framework.pdf
The Framework was open for comments up until January 31, 2024 and you can bet we responded. The Sustainable Resilient Old Forests Committee met and discussed the Framework. The Federation wrote a letter and sent it out to some woodlot licensees to add their thoughts to the document.
We commented on each of the pillars. The B&EH is very high level, there are no specifics to how to actually manage for biodiversity and healthy ecosystems. This framework is solely to give the government direction on how to move forward as an organization, prioritizing ecosystem health and communities within B.C.
It will be up to all of us operating on the landscape to actually grow our forest management treatments to recruit biodiversity, and develop healthy ecosystems. I know many of you are already doing this!
I was on a woodlot recently and the harvesting included maintaining deciduous and mature Douglas-fir. There was significant retention. I saw snags that were left as old forest attributes. There was also lots of advanced regeneration left as well. This was done by a logger not known for maintaining these types of features, but they are working towards a new harvest outcome and training their operators to achieve this.
To be clear, this woodlot was in Prince George, where we are used to massive clearcuts due to 25 years of harvesting stands without a single living tree. Thank you, mountain pine beetle and the subsequent fires.
Here is the conclusion of our comments.
Woodlots believe in the Biodiversity and Healthy Ecosystems Framework, but would like to ensure the following points are considered in the framework:
- Preservation is not the answer to maintaining old forests within B.C. due to a variety of pests, pathogens and abiotic pressures. Rather than targeting areas with old trees, we need to start maintaining old forest attributes across all areas, allowing treatment to maintain and increase these characteristics over time.
- Restoring ecosystems is fundamental to mitigating and adapting to climate change. In some cases, it is highly dependent on converting ecosystems in accordance with the movement of climatic envelopes. Equally, the restoration and maintenance of the natural range of variation of ecosystems must be based on adaptive management that factors in climate change and its impacts on climatic envelopes. The extremes of climatic envelopes that are present today will not be there tomorrow, and decisions we make today must factor in these future changes when building resilience. This requires active management.
- More layers of government is likely not the answer to local solutions or innovation. An added level of approvals will slow down an already very slow permitting process, which decreases the likelihood of treating ecosystems with pest, pathogen or abiotic damage. Delayed permitting decreases efficacy of treatment.
- Presently there is legislation to allow for innovation in the woodlot program, but it is not approved at the district level. We need the government to not only amend legislation, but to have a shift in government culture to allow for innovation.
- The government needs to work on spreading information to the public on a regular basis in a manner that is easily understood rather than in complex reports.
- The woodlot licensee is an important partner to the government in implementing this framework. Woodlots are grassroot forest licences with close ties to local communities.
We hope, as part of the forest industry, that this process does not further degrade our industry but rather reenergizes it.
Yes, we said that last sentence too. If you’d like a full copy of the letter, send me an email at northregion@woodlotsbc.ca and I’ll share it.