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

Unsustainable logging - central plateau

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According to BC's Forest Minister few things threaten our forests more than a large army of small beetles infesting 600,000 hectares (1.5 million acres) in dispersed pockets on the Central Plateau in BC's interior.

This is not the first time that beetles have attacked. In the mid 1980s, central BC experienced what commentators then called one of the worst ever beetle outbreaks.The word "salvage" quickly gained cachet. New 'temporary' licences were awarded and 50% more trees were logged each year while local lumber mills - some of the biggest in North America - worked around the clock. The sharp increases were to last four years but once the corporations gained access to the additional trees for, in many cases, only $10 a logging truckload, they didn't want to go back. Seventeen years later, the inflated `temporary' logging continues. Massive clearcuts now scar the Central Plateau endangering unique ecosystems such as the Sub-Boreal Pine-Spruce forest. A scant 8.6% of this special forest ecosystem is currently protected.

There are serious consequences for the economy too. As more than one "resource-dependent" community can attest, unsustainable logging means wood runs out sooner and mills shut down. With the recent government announcement that, to combat the new beetle outbreak, 26.5 million cubic metres of additional wood will be logged in the Central Plateau over the next five years, what is the long-term outlook for these communities? A more ominous sign is the increasing evidence that by seeking to control beetle outbreaks through escalating logging, we are actually cultivating future attacks by turning massive tracts of forest into homogeneous tree plantations. A far more prudent approach would be to permit industry to cut down the attacked trees, but require it to leave the healthy forests alone.