The following is an abbreviated version of a document written by the Victoria Chapter of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, outlining the many failures of Rich Coleman’s ‘Coastal Forest Action Plan’. It is included here with the permission of that organization and is available in its original form by clicking here http://www.wildernesscommitteevictoria.org/index.php?action=fullnews&id=....

Implications of Coleman’s "Coastal Forest Action Plan" on Jobs and Old Growth Forests on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland.

On October 29, 2007, Rich Coleman announced a new plan for BC's coastal forests: the "Coastal Forest Action Plan" (see www.for.gov.bc.ca/mof/coastalplan/ ). Coleman refers to the plan as a "shift" away from the logging of old-growth forests.

No New Restrictions on Old-Growth Logging:

However, in reality the plan places no new restrictions on the logging of old-growth forests. Without actual restrictions and concrete timelines to reduce and phase-out old-growth logging on Vancouver Island and in the Lower Mainland where old-growth forests are scarce, the plan is little more than PR. Without new restrictions, timber companies will not only log the second-growth forests more intensively, but also continue to log the old-growth forests, in particular the largest, high-value species - red and yellow cedars, and any pockets of the rare, ancient Douglas firs and Sitka spruce they can find. These species are the largest, most magnificent of the old-growth tree species in BC, and include the ancient red cedars of Meares Island, Clayoquot Valley and Walbran Valley; the ancient Douglas firs of the Elaho Valley, Elk Creek, Chilliwack Lake, Cathedral Grove, and Koksilah Valley; and the ancient Sitka spruce trees of the Carmanah Valley, Walbran Valley, Windy Bay, Tsitika Valley, and Clayoquot Sound.

It is true that increasing the harvest of second-growth Douglas fir and red cedars could shift logging away from the smaller, lower value old-growth species; that is, western and mountain hemlock and amabalis fir (a.k.a. "balsam"). However, Coleman's plan also entails searching out new markets for and increasing the economic viability of logging these species by developing new products.

Coleman’s new Coastal Forest Action Plan is simply a "log it all" policy for the old-growth and second-growth forests of Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland.

Misleading Old-Growth Forest Statistics:

Coleman’s plan also rationalizes the continued liquidation of the scarce old-growth forests of the southern coast (Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland) with misleading statistics. His report states that "old-growth forests are in no danger of disappearing" and that only 769,000 hectares of over 4 million hectares of old-growth forests on BC's coast are available for logging. Coleman has been known to use this type of statistic to rail against the call for more protection of old growth ecosystems – what he, and the report, fail to mention is that the vast majority of the 4 million hectares are low-productivity forests with smaller trees (i.e. bog forests, stunted trees on rocky sites, subalpine snow forests) that generally cannot be logged economically, or are in protected areas in the northern rainforests (Central and North Coasts and Queen Charlotte Islands where land-use negotiations between environmentalists, First Nations, and companies have resulted in much more extensive protected areas) but that have nothing to do with the scarce and endangered southern old-growth forests of Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland where only 6-8% of the productive forests (old-growth and second-growth) are protected.

Satellite photos from 2004 showed that on Vancouver Island, 73% of the original, productive old-growth forests had been logged, including 90% of the valley-bottoms, 87% of the South Island (south of Port Alberni), and 99% of the eastern Coastal Douglas Fir Zone old-growth. In contrast, only 6% of Vancouver Island's productive forests (old-growth and second-growth) are protected in its parks, with another couple percent under tenuous protection in old-growth management areas and Wildlife Habitat Areas. See maps and stats at: www.viforest.org
The situation is similarly dire in the Lower Mainland, where over three-fourths of the old-growth forests have been logged, which has caused the spotted owl population to plummet from over 1000 individuals at one time, to 18 individuals today.

Increasing the Logging of Rare, Deciduous Rainforests:

Coleman’s plan also proposes to increase the harvest of deciduous rainforests (i.e. hardwoods), which would be ecologically destructive to the rare black cottonwood and big leaf maple ecosystems that tend to be geographically constricted to larger rivers and streams and have very little protection in the parks system. BC's giant coastal black cottonwoods are Canada's largest deciduous trees - not only can they grow to towering heights, but their trunks can grow 10 feet (3 meters) in diameter, as wide as the largest Douglas fir in Cathedral Grove. Old-growth big leaf maples are Canada's mossiest trees, festooned in curtains of hanging mosses and ferns. Very little is known about the ecology of temperate deciduous rainforests, and currently there is a paucity of public awareness about these very rare ecosystems. Every effort should be made to ban logging of old deciduous cottonwood and big leaf maple rainforests.

Another Coastal Old-Growth Plan Yet to Come?

Coleman stated to the "Times Colonist" on October 30, 2007 that at present, old-growth logging accounts for about 70 per cent of the total coastal harvest, with second-growth at 30 per cent, and that, "We'd like to see the percentages probably reversed within five years." That is, Coleman has stated that he favours a 40% reduction of old-growth logging in 5 years on BC's coast. But Coleman provides no plans or timelines to achieve this.
Earlier this summer, in an interview with the "Times Colonist" (June 21, 2007), Rich Coleman mentioned that another plan that would place restrictions on old-growth logging would be released "well after" the Coastal Forest Action Plan. However, since the release of the Coastal Forest Action Plan (previously termed the "Coastal Recovery Plan"), Coleman has made no mention of any subsequent plan.

Raw Log Exports and BC Forestry Jobs:

Dozens of BC sawmills and pulpmills have shut down since 2001, throwing thousands of forestry workers into unemployment. Meanwhile, raw log exports to foreign mills in the US, Japan, and South Korea have gone through the ceiling.

Two-thirds of raw log exports from BC come from private lands that are outside of Tree Farm Licenses (TFLs), yet Coleman’s Coastal Forest Action Plan ignores these private lands. Instead, the plan raises export taxes (up to a maximum 20%) on the remaining one third of raw logs coming from public (Crown) lands, and private lands remaining inside TFLs. Coleman estimates that the tax will reduce raw log exports from public and TFL lands by 50% - clever accounting and PR that fails to mention that this equates to a paltry ~17% reduction overall (50% of 1/3rd) in log exports from the coast, and does not consider the role of TFL deletions (such as Coleman’s Western Forest Product deletion) in increasing log exports.
At the same time, Coleman’s plan calls for increasing the rate of cut of young, small-diameter second-growth forests (from an average rotation of 75 years to 50-55 years), which will result in a massive number of logs that BC sawmills have not been retooled to handle, thereby making them available for export to foreign mills. In addition, Coleman’s plan will allow for a massive increase of raw log exports from Crown lands in the Queen Charlotte Islands. As alluded to previously, Coleman’s plan makes no mention of the impact of Tree Farm Licence deletions on log exports. Since 2004, Coleman and his predecessor Mike De Jong removed 120,000 hectares - an enormous area of productive forest lands - from their Tree Farm Licenses on Vancouver Island and the coast, most recently 28,500 hectares of Western Forest Products' lands; these deletions open the floodgates for raw log exports from those former TFL lands. As such, rather than stem the export of jobs and logs, Coleman’s policies will likely lead to an eventual increase in raw log exports.

Coleman: “We have enough parks” – Commentary by the Dogwood Initiative

Coleman continues to give misleading old growth information, but this time he blatantly states: “We have enough protected areas and parks…I'm just a little frustrated with the people on the coast of British Columbia who keep saying 'quit cutting all the old-growth forest." All of this after he has been trying to convince people that his Coastal Forest Action Plan would be a plan to help fade out old-growth logging. Coleman goes further to convince loggers that park land is to blame for job loss in the industry when he states: "We are not going to have any shrinking landbase any more. We have enough protected areas and parks." (http://www.dogwoodinitiative.org/newsstories/plentyParksColemantoTrucker...). It’s incredible that Coleman can blame parks when he has just handed 28 000ha over to Western Forest Products to be sold to a developer. Notwithstanding his failure to mention that parks only protect a small fraction, six percent, of our productive old-growth and second-growth forests on Vancouver Island, Coleman’s choice of language seeks to divide the public along tired lines (loggers versus park advocates for example), whereas nearly all interested parties have the same end-goal: a truly sustainable BC forest industry. If our Minister was truly interested in maintaining forest jobs he wouldn’t be granting TFL deletions, instead he would be consulting forest communities about decisions that affect them, taking power back from corporate logging companies, and keeping raw logs in the province.

Coleman’s Coastal Forest Action Plan is simply a "log it all" policy for the old-growth and second-growth forests of Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland.

BC’s forests are changing, the forestry industry is changing, but British Columbians deserve better.