Thread by @ThomasforBC

The @BCGreens will:
"directly share resource revenues with local First Nations, municipalities, and regional districts"...🌲🏔️🌲
...and it's more important than you think. A THREAD
#bcpoli #BCElection2020 #clearwater #vavenby 1/?

As mentioned previously, our forest sector lost 50% of its jobs over the last ~30 years. I don't buy into the whole "erosion of the working forest" or "we need to log in protected areas" because the harvest data shows a different story - we fluctuated but stayed constant. 2/?

The big challenges ahead of us are 1) mid term timber supply and 2) job losses due to other factors (eg mechanization, tenure consolidation). This is why resource revenue sharing is so critical for rural communities! 3/?

This year the sale of TFL 18 (#Clearwater) and forest licence A18688 (#Vavenby) was approved - and @CanforCorp made a cool $50mil to shut down a mill and put 172 out of work - not to mention disruptions to other full time workers and possible job losses. 3/?

@BlackwellMerlin was quoted saying "This is the deal that nobody will love, but everybody can live with". I don't like these deals - because one sale at a time, one mill closure at a time we're losing more and more high paying jobs in rural communities. 4/?

Ironically, the worst job losses we saw in my sector were when the @bcliberals took control in 2001 - harvesting increased to record high levels but we shed 10,000 jobs BEFORE the recession hit. So it's been a death by 1,000 cuts for rural towns 5/?

Local politicians are often powerless. They are forced to do the best they can with circumstances out of their control. Sharing resource revenues directly gives communities direct benefit from their resources - as mechanization and tenure consolidation takes away jobs. 6/?

This money can go towards infrastructure projects, economic development, high speed internet, or anything else the community needs - it's up to the community to decide! Also, this isn't the only piece of our forestry platform you'll love - we have a full one and it includes: 7/?

-Protecting communities from wildfire with landscape level projects
-Planning our resources at the landscape level in partnership with local communities and FN's
-Initiate tenure reform to grow the # of locally held tenures
Read the release here: tinyurl.com/yyshx7ro 8/?

I'm gonna throw some shade at the @bcndp's forestry platform. Or rather lack of forestry platform. C'mon. We need changes in my sector, we're on the cliff of a massive falldown and you this is what you give us? Let's break down what's in there...9/?

1) Protecting more old growth (p.29) - this was in their 2017 platform, and the @BCGreens are the only reason anything was moved on this file. If they were serious about this, it would have happened in 2017 BECAUSE IT WAS IN THEIR 2017 PLATFORM. 10/?

2) Shared decision making with Indigenous People (p.30). Agree. This is the way of the future, the right thing to do, and all 3 parties recognize that - so that's not really a great platform piece just keeping up with the flow. 11/?

3) Investing 1% of GDP in people and communities (p.38). Not forestry, but I talked about revenue sharing and want to give them a chance. Sounds like this will be $$$ controlled by the BC gov't. Wrong approach. Let communities control their $$$. Provincial gov't loves to 12/?

control the funds and then make splashy photo op announcements at election time to buy votes. Case in point - the cancer centre in Kamloops. Stop playing politics with critical infrastructure and let communities control their own destiny. 13/?

4) Supporting workers with retraining (p.41). Kinda vague, and if it's anything like their previous initiative it won't be enough to actually help all the laid off workers. 14/?

5) More logs for job creators (p.42). Great! Why didn't you do it already - you had 3 1/2 years. Also, not a great track record seeing how you literally just approved tenure consolidation with Interfor acquiring Canfor's TFL and licence here in Clearwater. So fail on that. 15/?

6) Planting more trees. Seriously. They take credit for the 2020 plant - WHICH WAS LEGALLY REQUIRED. My take on this - they're grasping at straws. Also, major difference between growing a healthy forest and planting trees. That's why the FPB found huge issues w reforestation 16/?

in low elevation dry belt fir. That's why we're proposing landscape level reforestation AND investments in forest inventory AND research. We need to know what's happening in our forests and we need to manage them in the long term. 17/?

NDP's last point: 7)Enhance mass timber (p.46). Once again, this was happening before the NDP and will happen regardless of who forms the next gov't. So that's their platform. Nothing in it inspires me - whereas our platform makes me believe in a better future for forestry 18/?

References:
The FPB report I mentioned: bit.ly/30Y9Ada

Harvest stats from Ntl frst database, job numbers from stats canada. @ me with errors, comments, and etc.

Apologies for breaking the thread. I'll fix it if I learn how to...

@threadreaderapp unroll please