By the time this article goes to print, the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour will have shown the special edit of my segment from Kranked 6, “Trial and Error”, to over 100,000 people. In this film I share my instinctual feelings of concern when seeing or thinking about clear cutting a forest.

I often show this video at my school presentations, and while on tour up in Northern BC where forestry supports a large chunk of the population, I began feeling a little sheepish about showing it, as I certainly am no expert on the topic. In the film I reference the particular zone of forest where my trail is built, “this is one of the last remaining sections of mid elevation old growth on the BC coast, and it’s slated for clear cut.” Then one of the analogies I make in the film is that “it seems to me that clear cutting is exactly like a crash, and they’ve done it time and time again, and perhaps haven’t learned from their mistakes.” I didn’t want to insult those in BC that base their livelihood on the industry and give them a bad reputation from my generalizing statements. Perhaps they have learned, and perhaps there are some ecologically sound logging practices in effect.

I needed to find out some more information, so while up in Northern BC I had the opportunity to chat with Dawn Stronstad R.P.F. who is a Planning Forester in Burns Lake, also an avid mountain biker with the BLMBA. She shared her own personal feelings on the topic of clear cutting. She gave me a brief history of logging in Canada, and acknowledges that there have been many mistakes along the way. But long gone are the days of the cut & run without looking back (this is happening in South America right now), and she believes that BC has learned from their mistakes. British Columbia has some of the most stringent logging laws in the world, and if a logging company hadn’t morally been doing the right thing in the past, they are now contractually and lawfully obligated to.

It is hard to complain about clear cutting when we as the consumer hold so much power. When we’re out at the store and buy something with a big cardboard box, we are really saying “please, please cut down that tree so I can have this nice packaging again”, then we grab a newspaper with a ‘coffee to go’ on the way home and what we are really saying to the logging companies is “oh and while you’re at it, cut down that tree beside the first one”.

Dawn told me that there are some areas that should not have been clear cut in the past, and portions of these areas are slow to recover or have reduced potential for re-growth, she thinks for the most part, these sites have recovered, but some areas not as quickly; but if done properly, clear cutting can be a reasonable forest management system. In fact, many foresters are amazed at the recovery capacity of Nature to bounce back; old growth is of course another story. The ironic thing about our disgust with clear cuts in BC is that it is along the coast where the most incredible old growth occurs, so the act of clear cutting is the most damaging and yet most of  us live on the largest and most permanent clear cut in BC, Vancouver.

I was fortunate enough to hear a speech by the young Simon Jackson, who has lobbied for the protection of the endangered Spirit Bear in BC. Great steps have been taken to secure 2/3 of this creatures habitat as protected, but another 1/3 is still open for potential logging; the government is aware and lobbyists are hopeful for full protection. I also heard Bill Clinton speak recently, and his Clinton Climate Initiative is anxious about the rapid deforestation of rainforests, especially in South America, this is where some unprecedented devastation is happening, far greater than anything we have ever seen in BC (the Amazon loses about 60,000 square kilometers a year), and being global citizens, these acts effect us just as much as if it was our own backyard, so perhaps this is where our lobbying efforts and expertise need to be focused now? It’s a complicated topic with so many different views, opinions, and motivations.

All I know is that the trees we do have deserve some respect, so next time you’re out shredding the trails, make sure you do some tree hugging!

Ryan

 

 

Bill Clintons keynote speech lasted about 40 minutes, in which time he covered many key action items he and his team (Clinton Climate Initiative) have been working on. A quick glance around the audience showed a medium age of I would guess about 45, and many political guests were present such as the Green Party’s leader Elizabeth May, Ontario’s Premier, Minister, and many others. I was fortunate to finagle a last minute ticket which I later learned was worth $200, nice!

Clinton jumped right in to the current state of the Kyoto protocol, lamenting the USA’s failure to ratify and by saying that it is because of  the current governments insistance on “supporting yesterdays interest groups instead of investing in tomorrows energy future.” He shared the fact that the countries that are leading the Kyoto Accord are subsequently the ones that have shown the most economical growth, such as Denmark who showed a 50% (whew did I hear that correctly?) growth in their economy; or Great Britain who have taken swift action (creating plenty of new jobs) on energy efficiency and are well on their way to meeting Kyoto targets. This while the USA economy has been stagnent over the last 7 years, and any signs of job growth have been primarily linked with post 911 militarization.

He talked about the importance of citizens to take action starting with the ‘low hanging fruit’, and I’ll refer you to David Suzuki’s Nature Challenge for that.

One of his intitiatives is the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, Toronto is one of them. Essentially what they are doing is targetting large infrastructures and upgrading energy efficiency. His example was with an old low income housing community in NY City where they did a full energy audit on the buildings, the energy bill was tallied at 5 million/year. They figured they could garuntee to reduce this bill by 30%, at which point they front the money, install the new technology (whether it be efficient heating or replacing light bulbs, etc) after which the new yearly energy bill was 3.5 million, and the up front money is paid off from the energy savings, viola. He asserts that this process needs to happen on a much larger scale, and it is through the people with the ability to put this approach in to action that need to step up to the challenge, hence the C40.

He acknowledged that no matter how much we do along these lines, that if the developed nations don’t also help the 3rd world countries skip the mistakes we made, that these steps will be made in vain. Both need to happen. China for instance can’t build new coal plants fast enough, this is not good. An example of something he’d like to see in a country such as Liberia, is to have the financial support of the World Bank, and with the technology available build an energy infrastructure that is totally self sufficient, clean, and independent from other nations. If other countries could only see that this is possible, then faster action may spread. 

Another item that he admitted he was no expert on was deforestation, which contributes 18% of the worlds green house gas emissions, whew!! A big part of that is from methane which is actually worse than CO2. He asked the audience that he needed ideas on how to help combat deforestation and claimed to be able to provide the capitol to make some positive changes.

After his speech came a 20 minute Q&A style dialogue with the CEO of Green Living Enterprises, Laurie Simmond’s. Clintons last comment was that action needed to be taken immediately, not just from political leaders, but from all people, and that his generation will never forgive themselves later in life if they delay any longer. I have to agree, I have two beautiful nephews, and 30 years down the road I want to be able to look squarely in their eyes and say that I did everything I could toward creating a clean, happy planet Earth.