Forests, not tree farms.
No more clearcutting. No more raw log exports.
The single most effective technology for removing carbon from the atmosphere is forests. The single most effective measure in producing cooler micro-climates that better resist climate change is forests. Since 1843 logging has been a major industry in BC. Yet today, we find ourselves with a set of interlocking forestry crises in our province:
A steady forty-year decline in forest sector employment due to automation and declining yields.
Increasingly destructive and deadly fire seasons caused by dangerous and ineffective reforestation policies, beetle infestation, and climate change.
Most public forest land alienated to private interests, often foreign-owned, and inaccessible to local communities for their use.
Caribou and other animal populations are at the brink of extinction due to the loss of forest habitat through over-cutting, insufficient protected areas, improper reforestation, and fire.
A continuing decline in the number of viable spawning streams due to failures to protect riparian areas.
The export of minimally-processed or raw timber due to the systematic dismantling of legislation over the past forty years.
Increasingly harmful beetle and parasitic infestations as climate change brings the mountain pine beetle and other pests further north and west.
I understand that we need to rebuild BC forest policy from the ground up. I think this begins with a transfer of provincial public forest lands to the use and management of Indigenous governments, worker cooperatives, rural interests, municipalities, or regional governments, with priority given to Indigenous governments and cooperatives in their unceded territory.
Ensures continued provincial enforcement of a renewed and amplified BC Forest Practices Code.
A new BC Forest Practices Code produced in consultation with rural communities, First Nations, and forestry workers that prohibits old growth logging.
Promotes bio-diversity in our forests by ending the practice of using herbicides to deter the growth of broadleaf deciduous trees such as aspen and birch from replanted conifer plantations and encourages the full forest succession cycle to both reduce fire risk and intensity and to replenish lost forest floor nutrients.
Requires organic reforestation practices designed to reinforce non-anthropogenic types of regrowth including multi-generational forest succession, encouraging undergrowth, and other phenomena that cool the forest floor and increase the soil retention capacity of sloped areas. This includes an absolute ban on aerial spraying of herbicides.
While India, China, and other major countries undertake major forestation projects to mitigate the climate emergency, BC has followed the lead of Brazil, the US, and Ontario in gutting forestation programs and supporting deforestation. I’ll fight to enact a system of incentives and penalties to reforest BC landscapes outside of monetized forest ecosystems, including:
A per-square metre reduction in municipal grants for municipalities and regional districts choosing to maintain lawns on public land that could sustain trees or complex ecosystems with an exemption for playgrounds and community sports facilities.
Encouraging all municipalities to require appropriate technology to reduce energy use and emissions for all new construction, including but not limited to green roofs and solar panels.
A provincial tree-planting program for BC lands outside the working forest such as provincial highways, BC Housing residential stock, government office complexes, and so forth.
Tax credits to encourage property owners to re-forest their properties. Property owners experiencing demonstrable financial hardship will be provided with free provincial tree planting services, with the deduction of those costs from subsequent property tax credits.
I recognize that First Nations have a right to deny private corporations the right to log on their territory while still choosing to engage in logging and other forestry practices themselves. Logging on unceded land must be approved by the local Indigenous leadership of the territory in question. This includes both band councils and traditional leadership.