The BC Forest Practices Board calls itself “BC’s independent watchdog for sound forest and range practices”.
The Board is the BC public’s only avenue for holding logging companies and the government accountable when either transgress a narrow range of forest-related legislation and regulations.
But can the Board itself be held accountable when it puts its paw on the scale for industry?
In a 2021 investigation involving BC Timber Sales in the Nahmint Valley on Vancouver Island, the Board made a finding that we believe badly misinterpreted a legal order.
The impact of that blunder has now metastasized across the island: Places like the Walbran Valley, Quadra Island, Tsitika Valley, Klaskish Valley and many more of the ecological treasures given special management status by the Vancouver Island Land Use Plan will lose a total of 21,000 hectares of forest where logging had previously been constrained.
The Evergreen Alliance has written a complaint to the Board about its interpretation in this case. Since the Board is not mandated to investigate its own decisions, the complaint has been written in such a way that that the Board is required by its legislative mandate to investigate the underlying issues.
We believe the lack of accountability in management of BC’s forests is an issue that we should all be concerned about. Whether it’s logging of old forest and the subsequent heightened risk of biodiversity loss or over-cutting across the province and the resultant increase in risk of fire, flooding, drought and job loss, forest mis-management in BC affects everyone.
That’s why it’s critical that the Forest Practices Board is a reliable watchdog that doesn’t fall asleep on the job. Please help us wake it up. Co-sign our complaint and be a part of reawakening and reforming the BC Forest Practices Board. See links below.
Kind regards,
David Broadland for the Evergreen Alliance