When did BC sustainably manage its forests?
Certainly never in the 43 years i've lived here. If we denounce Alberta as a petro-state we must accept that BC is lumber baron-state. every government be it Social Credit, NDP or Liberal has been under the financial influence of the timber barons and the forestry unions. Remember that the largest mass arrest of protestors was in Clayquot Sound when the NDP was under pressure from its IWA backers.
None of this though speaks to question of what are sustainable forestry practices. Certainly some practices are more or less destructive but none of them, including replanting even in the best cases, is really a sustainable method. Replanted clearcuts are really an attempt to turn a diverse forest into a monocultured farm.
None of this though speaks to question of what are sustainable forestry practices. Certainly some practices are more or less destructive but none of them, including replanting even in the best cases, is really a sustainable method. Replanted clearcuts are really an attempt to turn a diverse forest into a monocultured farm.
A natural forest, like the one europeans found here when they arrived, is mixed and successive. One type of species preceeds the next giving its unique type of self as food for the species it coexists with and to those that replace it. Every forest at every stage in its evolution is the habitat for millions of lifeforms from tiny bacteria to giant evergreens. A forest is sustainable, an herbicide managed monoculture, no matter how well intended, is not.
Like Edward Abbey said decades go,"In clear cutting you clear away the natural forest, or what the industrial forester calls 'weed trees', and plant all one species of tree in neat straight functional rows like corn, sorghum, sugar beets or any other practical farm crop. Then you dump on chemical fertilizers to replace the washed away humas, inject the seedlings with growth forcing hormones, surround your plot with deer repellents and raise a uniform crop of trees all identical. When the trees reach a certain prespecified height [not maturity; that would take too long] you send in a fleet of tree harvesting machines and cut the fuckers down. All of them. Then burn the slash, and harrow, seed, and fertilize all over again. Round and round and round again, faster and faster and tighter and tighter until, like the fabled Malaysian Concentric Bird which flies in ever-smaller circles, you disappear up your own asshole".
