Brilliant & Timely

A brilliant and timely strategy for the future of a once great Canadian province. Two thoughts occur. First, how ideal this would be as a solution to managing BC's most valuable resource. Secondly, how utterly unlikely it is to occur under a government that has one simple ideological goal: to shrink government to the size of a kitten in order to drown it in a bathtub. Since 2001 BC citizens have watched as Gordon Campbell has systematically gutted hundreds of robust, well designed socially responsible programs. To be replaced by corporate greed driven profit centres. No surprise there, sadly. However, it is always important to have the alternatives discussed. As often as possible. Great article. May it remain alive so that one day, we may have the change to actually implement this well reasoned solution.

One of the main reasons for

One of the main reasons for the demands of corporatization (not privatization) is that it removes the land from any public control and they can clearcut everything without any responsibility to anyone.

This is an old Fraser Inst. policy, also demanding the sale of all lakes and rivers, as "environmental protection" measure.

One of the biggest crimes was when the law for the local processing of timber was lifted, by the present gang, permitting the transport of logs for long distances, so the companies can close local mills and depopulate the countryside, another long standing economic plan. To be "more competitive and efficient" of course.

All forests should be managed the same way as woodlots. Owned by the public, under strict public control, but operated by individuals.

We have a number of very successful ones around here, giving good living and opportunities to the operators for small mills, supplying local demands. I buy all my lumber from one, located next door.

The large, automated mills are hugely inefficient, overcapitalized monstrosities, designed to syphon the benefits off and into the pockets of the "investors", thousands of miles away, in other countries.

The problem is that under WTO and NAFTA rules, no changes can be made to protect the forests, and stop log exports, so the first thing to do is to get the hell out of those criminal organizations.

Ed Deak.

Ummmmm,

Parfitt is notorious for his historic depiction of the industry in this province.

Here, he lays out a critical path for the Liberals. And I would venture to guess that a very similar course of action will unfold under the new ministers watch.

The Libs are hobbled politically on this issue and they need to reverse some of the damage done.

Unfortunately we already had one of those Forest Land Reserves and the corporations reduced this effort to benefit their strategic profiteering.

The point is another layer of bureaucracy is not going to prevent the corporateers from their manipulation of our resource policies in their favour. But thanks to Ben, on their behalf, for throwing the Libs a lifeline.

Instead of a lifeline, we need to throw the Liberals out. No amount of back pedaling can reverse the course they have put us on.

No amount of pandering to local governments will undo the impact of legislation like TILMA and other fast tracked enabling legislation designed to supercede local decision making.

We have to elect a government with different priorities and values that are not dictated by the corporate culture.

It is the only way.

Fox in henhouse. Needs to be removed.

It all sounds good but.... first I would suggest - know your enemy.

Not likely. Bell's just the new mask on the same old ugly face. He's a clever distraction and ploy to make you think things have changed/improved when they haven't. Think: Same old dish soap...just new packaging now attempting to hide same old dish soap.

But this is the same government that has decimated the ALR in the interest of so-called development. And doing so, both arrogantly and stupidly under a growing world-wide food crisis.

But this is the government that brought in Bill 75, The Significant Projects Streamlining Act, which removes power from local and municipal governments in the interests once again of what the shady gods of development deem as "significant" .

Even worse, it not only removes power, but streamlines the development process for the private sector, which is why with the track record of the present government the suggestion to:

is almost laughable in a when pigs fly kind of way.

The playing field as it now stands (as indicated by the kind of regressive legislation this government has relentlessly rammed through) under the CampBull regime has been clearly and calculatedly sloped, (at a vertical tilt, in fact), in favour of the interests of the private sector....and against those that serve the common good.

The actions of this government have given us no reason to trust them, ever. We would be fools to do so.

with Ed and Lynn

As soon as I read this article, my immediate 2 concerns were what Ed and Lynn have already voiced. Truly, how could we expect to have a Forset Land Reserve if the ALR has already been made virtually meaningless and TILMA and NAFTA govern our land. These are huge issues; and Mr. Parfitt should have known enough to include these issues in defending his thesis.

CRD Zoning and Development...

Ben Parfitt:

The Capital Regional District passed a zoning bylaw limiting housing development on the lands that WFP proposes to sell.

Regional Districts, in fact, do have control over development within their jurisdictions.

Just because an application for a preliminary layout approval ("PLA") has been made to the subdivision approving officer ("SAO") at BC MoT does not mean that it will be granted.

In fact, the SAO will be required to submit the application to various referral agencies (the CRD, Ministry of Environment, etc.) for their input before consideration for approval.

And that's under the one-year "grand-fathering" provisions under the Local Government Act and the "race to the swiftest".

Development of those lands will never happen with the CRD's current position.

I know, been there and done that years ago. It's a political fact of life.

How in the heck.......

.....can there even BE such a thing as "private forest land"?!

Why sell something when you can give it away for nothing?

Canada's gift to the world; a genius for giving away our resources for next to nothing. We deserve a Nobel Prize for philanthropy. We allow our BC-caught salmon to be processed in Bellingham, sell our lumber as uncut logs, and diligently discourage any attempt to actually make money in forestry while talking about "Value Added". What happened to that buzz-phrase anyway? It was just another piece of BC double-speak.

This is a great country but we have an old-school attitude to resource management. It is so old-school, it hasn't even entered the 20th Century yet.

I wouldn't mind seeing the salmon stocks run down to nothing, and the logging industry deface the landscape if there was actually some benefit to the people of BC, but there isn't.

There is enough wood wasted every year to provide more heat energy than we need, but it gets burned in the backwoods as slash.

There is a million cubic metres of driftwood in the Fraser River estuary half of which is the property by one or other of the corporate giants, but they refuse to touch it, or to let anyone else salvage it for them. So it sits there as a shipping hazard.

My plan for dealing with this? To watch the women's beach volleyball in Beijing. At least those girls are actually trying to win. Our logging companies are too busy trying to get out of logging and into the real estate business. They should stop trying; they are all losers, and they will lose even more money as realtors than they have as loggers. That is what losers do.

Forest or not, Rick, it's LAND.

Rick, huge tracts of forested land were granted fee simple 'way back when for mining leases and pulp leases.

As well, lands alongside of the railway tracks (approx 5 miles wide?)were granted.

The concept of "unowned" Crown lands being fair game to the raper and pillager was not seriously challenged here until less than a hundred years ago.

Paradoxically, perhaps, it wasn't until Bennet created the TFLs that the public began to realise that the forests were theirs and should be managed for the public good.

And it wasn't until 30 years later that the public sensed that the forests might hold values that could challenge the economics of logging.

Today we prefer to think those attitudinal changes are firmly placed in the public's mind. They are not - no more than they were in countless civilisations which have preceded us, as Ronald Wright has recounted in A Short History of Progress.

We too are fast approaching exhaustion of our natural resources, and just like them, will be sorely tempted to exploitation, to keep "our way of life" at any cost.

Campbell is BC's Gilgameesh, looking to make himself look good by capitalising on our "Sacred Forests" - our resources - at any cost, but where is the generalised public outcry regarding this?

What percentage of our population REALLY cares about fish-farming?; about RoR installations?; about coal-bed methane extraction?. Sure, there is an aware part of the population loudly protesting, but if Gordo gets re-elected, will that make any difference?

The point of this Rick, is that public attitudes can rapidly change, and that among our consumerist, increasingly urban-oriented population, "progress" as defined by the land speculator/developer and those who want a "ranchette" can easily become the new norm for our forest land.

ME2

I am aware of the "how". It is the "why" that befuddles me.........

Uh, virtually none? That would be the main reason for "separation of urban and rural". Urban is where one lives, and rural is where one dumps..........

Our esteemed enivronment minister, Barry Penner, commented on the recent spate of bear incursions, calling on municipalities to "get a handle" (or words to that effect) on the situation. So that leaves municipalities, such as Coquitlam, with two apparent choices: shoot the bears, or stop issuing development permits. Which route does one suppose they will take?

That (I feel) is typical of the overall disconnect between urban and rural, and it is this which is exploited by those inclined to do so.

Jared Diamond was right is declaring that the more technological we become, also the stupider we get.

I like the "loser" theory myself.

Every time I talk to people in the logging business, I am impressed by the way they have tied themselves up in flagging tape.

They can't salvage the logs from the Fraser estuary because it isn't economically feasible. They can't allow anyone else to do it for liability reasons.

Their real estate division can't talk to the logging division because it is illegal, so the logging guys replant the land even if they know it is up for development.

They can't even stop the illegal use of their property by ATV's, even when the ATV driver are setting fires and dumping garbage on their land.

And they think they can sell the land for more money than they can make by logging it? (Thinks: you can log the land forever, but you can only sell it once). These guys are losers and they are playing to lose the game. They are a bunch of sorry, hapless losers whose greatest ambition is to give away their stock-in-trade. We would be doing them a favour by putting them out of their misery.

As for abiding by the forestry code; for every one who does, there are ten who don't. There are enough streams that have been logged to the waterline to prove that already.

Please, if this isn't true, prove it to me.

Been There, Done That

Seems Ben Parfitt needs a history lesson.

The NDP passed and brought into effect the Forest Land Reserve Act in the mid-1990s. I was a member of the B.C. NDP Environment Committee at the time and helped lobby the NDP government to pass this legislation. This legislation was administered by the Agricultural Land Commission and several million hectares of forest land was eventually included in the reserve. The Liberals repealed the Forest Land Reserve Act in 2004.

Of course, environmentalists went ballistic over this NDP legislation, as the greedy little urchins didn't want any of the forest land-base in BC to be used for commercial forestry. Unlike the debacle in Clayoquot Sound, the NDP took a balanced approach to this legislation and recognized that a large part of B.C.'s economy depended on meeting human needs for wood products.

The Liberals, of course, are not going to bring back legislation that they repealed just four years ago. In addition, the Liberals and environmentalists are currently in the middle of the equivalent of a raging love affair and the Liberals won't do anything to jeopardize that.

Is it really love, or is it just sex?

Without challenging your overall thesis with which I agree, x4estworker, I offer some differing reasons for your assumpions.

In the 90s as now, the enviros wanted no logging, and opposed the Forest Land Reserve because it threatened FN claims to those lands. This because they felt FNs would not log the "Sacred Forests"

THAT "love affair" between enviros and FNs, because of the mutual opportunities for propaganda and funding, was in reality a marriage of convenience. But by their very nature, such unions are ephemeral at best, since the material basics which prompt them can disappear overnight.

And clearly, Mr Suzuki et al have been jilted, replaced by Mr Campbell and a more economically advantageous marriage of oonvenience - one which doesn't also require forced recitation of Chief Seattle's speeches.

So don't think for a moment that Mr Campbell has suddenly developed a social conscience which has driven him to embrace the FN cause. In this one move, he's getting his own way (RoRs etc), great public relations, and all the while stealing the enviro's thunder.

And he can easily get away with posing as a born again Green (does anybody believe it?) for now that he's stolen the enviro's FN ace-in-the-hole, he runs the only game in town. And since they've lost the trust the average enviro placed in them, he alone can bestow the credentials they need to once again become the "official" spokesmen for BC's environment.

So this is no "love affair" either, x4estworker, just another marriage of convenience into which Mr Campbell brings a VERY large dowry.

Even though It will PO some other posters by writing this again, I have to express my admiration for the brilliant political advisors Campbell's assembled around him.

To a Lefty that might seem a cynical assessment perhaps, but hearts and flowers and feelgood don't win elections.