Two BC Parties ‘Playing Catch-Up’ with Glyphosate Pledges

B.C.’s two leading political parties say they would reduce or phase out the use of the herbicide glyphosate in forestry if they win the upcoming election. Glyphosate is used in products such as Roundup.

The BC NDP’s platform, which was released last week, says the party would protect “communities and local watersheds by phasing out the use of the herbicide glyphosate” in B.C. forests. This followed the BC Conservatives’ promise last month to stop the aerial spraying of glyphosate in the forest industry.

James Steidle, who is running for the BC Green Party in Prince George-Mackenzie, has been fighting the use of glyphosate for over a decade. In 2011, he started Stop the Spray BC, a group that raises awareness about glyphosate use.

He said B.C.’s two main parties are “playing catch-up.”

“The reason they're moving away from glyphosate is because we've applied incredible public pressure,” Steidle said. Glyphosate use has decreased considerably over the past decade, he added.

“It's the public that caused this massive decline in herbicide spraying in B.C. forests,” he said.

The herbicide kills broadleaf, or deciduous, trees and is sprayed on cutblocks after they have been logged and replanted, to prevent new growth, such as aspen, from competing with conifer trees. It is also used in agriculture and to control vegetation on pipelines, transmission lines and roadside rights-of-way. Neither party indicated it would oppose its use outside forestry.

Steidle said that issues with the chemical’s use are “endless.”

Eliminating aspen and other deciduous trees from forests reduces their fire resiliency and carbon sequestration, he said. It also creates a monoculture that reduces habitat preferred by wildlife like moose, and leaves forests vulnerable to infestations like mountain pine beetle.

Glyphosate has been linked to biodiversity loss, soil degradation and human health concerns at higher exposure levels.

Lucero Gonzalez, conservation and policy campaigner with the Wilderness Committee, said it’s encouraging to see glyphosate addressed in the party platforms and added that a “relatively straightforward policy change” to ban its use would improve forest management practices and ecological health.

“There is the human concern for people that are collecting and foraging food like berries, but there is also the concern of food sovereignty when it comes to moose and other animals that get hunted,” she said.

Gonzalez pointed out that both parties’ promises lacked important details, such as timelines and whether other herbicides would be used as replacements, and that the aerial spraying specified by the Conservatives has been largely phased out already.

B.C. does not publicly disclose glyphosate use in the province. But both Steidle and Gonzalez said that on-the-ground spraying using backpacks is still common.

In response to The Tyee’s request for clarification, Nathan Cullen, BC NDP candidate for Bulkley Valley-Stikine, said in a statement that the party plans on “banning glyphosate and moving away from the use of herbicides in forestry.”

“If elected, we will get to work right away on this commitment, and make sure that it's done quickly and in the best way possible,” Cullen said. “Taking action to ban glyphosate is possible because of the steps we have taken to grow alternatives to herbicides in forestry, including more manual and mechanical processes and expanding prescribed and cultural burning.”

The Conservative party didn’t respond to The Tyee’s questions prior to deadline.

BC follows the feds on glyphosate use

A June 2023 briefing note prepared for Minister of Forests Bruce Ralston described glyphosate as a cost-effective alternative to mechanical brushing. It said that glyphosate use had declined from nearly 19,000 hectares in 2015 to fewer than 5,000 hectares in 2021.

The internal document said that glyphosate use in forestry represents a “small fraction” compared with its use in agriculture, something it attributed to First Nations and public pressure.

B.C. follows Health Canada guidance on its use, it added.

“When Health Canada scientists change their published rulings on the safety of glyphosate, B.C. would reconsider its current use,” according to the briefing note.

When asked for current guidelines, Health Canada provided a web page that says glyphosate is “not expected to pose risks of concern to human health or the environment” when used according to label instructions.

Another Health Canada web page says that overexposure may cause skin and eye irritation, nausea, vomiting and respiratory effects. The ministry did not respond to a question about whether it still supports those findings.

First Nations have expressed concern about glyphosate’s effects on traditional food gathering, wildlife and human health. In 2022, BC Green Party MLA Adam Olsen raised the issue in the legislature, calling it a “clear case of environmental racism.”

The Green Party previously called on the NDP government to justify the use of glyphosate in forestry. In 2018, then party leader Andrew Weaver noted that the World Health Organization has said the herbicide likely causes cancer.

At the time, then forests minister Doug Donaldson said it was “used selectively” by the forest industry and that use had declined 40 per cent over the previous three years.

“We’re looking for ways to do better in the forests, especially around the application of herbicides,” Donaldson said about reducing dependence on glyphosate and creating a “forest mosaic” that included deciduous trees.

Steidle called on the parties to eradicate glyphosate use in forestry immediately.

“We know that herbicides are being abused in forestry. We know we need more deciduous broadleaf forests on the landscape,” he said. “Just ban it.”

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