The British Columbia government has introduced legislation aimed at preventing deforestation, but the new law won't apply to timber harvesting.
The Zero Net Deforestation Act, given first reading today, makes good on a two-year-old throne speech promise and will “encourage” an equal area of trees be planted any time forest land is “permanently cleared for another use.”
It does not, however, require trees to be planted on areas that are logged as part of the provincial forest industry. “Timber harvesting in B.C. is sustainably managed, and not considered to be deforestation,” says the government's announcement of the bill.
The government “must achieve” the goal by 2015, the bill says, though it is unclear what will happen if the goal is not met. Starting in 2012 the forest minister will be required to report each two years on the progress the government has made towards meeting the goal.
Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria. Reach him here.
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Gary
1 year ago
Sure sure
Just like there is a stop gap in place for ministers who don't meet a budget. They'll draft a system that can be changed to suit themselves and their big donors.
freebear
1 year ago
Whatever!
Tokenism so that he can meet up with Arnold again!
Frank
1 year ago
Logic
So cutting down trees doesn't count as deforestation? What does?
G West
1 year ago
This act is a joke
It's nothing but a piece of PR propaganda.
G West
1 year ago
Bill 5 ZERO NET DEFORESTRATION ACT
This bill is a joke bill - two pages of which virtually all of the first page is given over to 'definitions' including the following - which I'll paste here for your information:
In this Act:
"afforestation" means the human-induced establishment of trees on an area of non-forest land to such an extent that the area becomes forest land;
"deforestation" means the human-induced removal of trees from an area of forest land to such an extent that the area is no longer forest land, but does not include the removal of trees from any area of forest land that is excluded from this definition by regulation;
"forest land" means an area of land that meets the prescribed requirements;
"net deforestation" means the difference between
(a) the amount of deforestation, and
(b) the amount of afforestation;
"non-forest land" means an area of land that has not been forest land at any time after December 31, 1989 or, if another date is prescribed under section 4 (2) (a), after that prescribed date;
"zero net deforestation" means that, measured by area, the amount of afforestation is not less than the amount of deforestation.
This is utterly meaningless garbage and it leads to a goal of:
2. The government must achieve the goal of zero net deforestation within British Columbia by December 31, 2015.
YOU figure it out.
To me it's nothing more than meaningless pap better suited to a press release from the Public Affairs Bureau than a joke law like this.
guysmiley
1 year ago
Growing trees on farm land?
So the liberals, in refrence to the Pacific Carbon Trust, have explicitly stated that afforestation would occur on agricultural land. Not suprising, since this is really the only crown land that is "non-forest" where you could plant trees. I wonder what the grater amount of carbon is: 1) that sequestered by trees on marginal forest land; or, 2) having to ship even more of our food from California because you're planting trees on the ALR? It's all a sham, and managing forest land for carbon sequestration (eg lowering the carbon input of our forest industry and actually doing some maintenance on our plantations) would be a considerably better idea. If the Liberals weren't firing all of the Province's foresters they could get some technical advice on this. Instead, they probably got this idea from someone who knows nothing about how carbon cycling within ecosystems actually works. If you're going to plant trees, there is already a growing back-log from the mountian pine beetle that the government is not sufficently funding.