What government and industry aren't telling you. At the start of the 21st century we are faced with the reality that only 22% of the world's original forest remains. Russia, Canada and Brazil hold 70% of that forest. In 1980's Conservation groups began campaigning in earnest for the protection of BC's. A decade later, while the area of land protected has increased, forest ecosystems throughout the province are in greater risk.

B.C.'s Endangered Forests

Wilderness Committee Educational Report Vol.22 - No.02, Spring 2003

Boreal Forests - Peace country

text

Photo by Wayne Sawchuk

BC's 15.1 million hectares (~23 million acres) of boreal forests are found in Peace country, an expanse of rolling plains and foothills that extends from the northern Rocky Mountain trench east to Alberta. Wildlife including woodland caribou, grizzly bear and wolf move through the forests, while mountain goat and wild sheep roam the higher country.

In the 1990s conservationists successfully campaigned for protection of a one million hectare (2.5 million acre) area known today as the Muskwa-Kechika. 6.3 million hectares (-16 million acres) were also declared as "special management areas" but today it's often hard to see what's "special" about the management: three-quarters of the allegedly protected area remains open for development and funding for scientific studies to ensure state-of-the-art planning has been cut.

Most people don't know it, but in the Peace oil and gas corporations pose even greater risks to endangered forests than do timber companies. To find underground deposits of natural gas, seismic line corridors measuring up to 5 metres in width and several kilometres in length are commonly cut through the forest. In the late 1990s, 10,000 to 13,200 kilometres (6,200 to 8,000 miles) of seismic corridors and new roads were carved every year. The provincial government's proposed doubling of oil and as activities will mean that close to 35,000 hectares (over 85,000 acres) of forest will now be consumed annually if we continue our outmoded method of exploration. This will be on top of hundreds of thousands of boreal trees logged each year for pulp, lumber and oriented strand board (OSB) panel products.

To protect these sensitive and wildlife-rich ecosystems we need to adequately protect boreal and sub-boreal forests, and legislate and enforce strong road and seismic development standards for unprotected areas.