Thread by @TorranceCoste

Reeeeaaaallly long 🧵 about #oldgrowth in B.C.:

So, tomorrow marks two weeks until the one year anniversary of the release of the Old-Growth Strategic Review (OGSR) report.

You can check out the report here:

www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/far… #bcpoli #cdnpoli

The report was written by the OGSR panel, comprised of two expert foresters who undertook the most extensive review of forest policy ever done in BC from the fall of 2019 to spring 2020.

The panel gave its report to the @bcndp government on April 30, 2020.
#bcpoli #oldgrowth

Government sat on the report for more than four months, before publishing it Sept.11, 2020.

The report is good. Its assessment of the status quo as unsustainable and call for a paradigm shift echoed what the environmental movement has been saying for decades.
#bcpoli

After some initial vagueness, Premier @jjhorgan promised to implement the report "in its entirety" on the campaign trail in the provincial election last October.

Here's the thing: the OGSR report has specific, deliverable deadlines.

#bcpoli #oldgrowth

Most notable is Recommendation 6, which calls for the deferral of all at-risk old-growth forests in BC within 6 months.

Whether we start the clock on April 30 or September 11 of 2020 -- this deadline as long passed.

The government is failing.
wildernesscommittee.org/news/bc-not-tr… #bcpoli

In a few clunky stages, the @bcndp has announced some deferrals, but they fall wildly short of Recommendation 6.

Saying the measures government's taken so far live up to the report is like spending an hour folding paper planes, and then saying you own a commercial airline.

The initial round of deferrals, announced in conjunction with the report's release, contained a laughably small amount of old-growth that's actually at risk.

It was swiftly criticized by leading independent scientists in the field:

vancouversun.com/opinion/opinio… #bcpoli #cdnpoli

Once the details were released, we learned the vast swathes of 2nd growth within the deferral areas remained open to logging as usual.

This was intentional deceit by the @bcndp, and a move intended to build goodwill actually further eroded public trust.

thenarwhal.ca/bc-forests-log…

Since then, a handful of other old-growth areas have been deferred in Spuzzum Valley, the Central Walbran and Fairy Creek, mainly due to a combination of Indigenous leadership and federal pressure.
#bcpoli #oldgrowth

But the B.C. public has long understood that the old-growth crisis is not about a handful of watersheds but rather an ecological crisis that requires a complete shift away from the destruction of high-productivity old-growth forests.

We no longer have time for a few hundred hectares at a time and slow, gradual, incremental steps just aren't a luxury the BC government can afford anymore.

This brings us to the @bcndp's main rationale for its slowness on #oldgrowth: Indigenous rights.
#bcpoli

On the election debate stage last fall, Premier @jjhorgan said every tree in BC grows in the territory of a First Nation, and any conservation requires sign-off from the title-holders.

This is of course true, and it's a great standard.
#bcpoli #cdnpoli #UNDRIP

But here's the catch: it's currently a double-standard, because that's not what logging is held to.

Forestry plans do not require Indigenous consent, and while companies have to consult Nations on their cutting plans, they don't need to receive a 'yes.'

#bcpoli

The @bcndp's requirement of consent for conservation but not for logging has been aptly criticized as "ridiculous" by Indigenous leaders.

thetyee.ca/News/2021/08/1… #bcpoli #oldgrowth #UNDRIP

In BC, most First Nations have stake in logging in their territory. Far from their rightful place as decision-maker + main beneficiary, this role is often limited to revenue-sharing agreements with government, through which communities receive some of the $ generated by logging.

Most Nations only receive a tiny fraction of the wealth extracted from their forests, but this means a lot, providing needed revenue and sometimes other benefits like jobs.

The @bcndp's current approach forces Nations to turn this down if they want to protect their old-growth.

As a settler, this is extremely frustrating, as the @bcndp approach essentially pretends as though colonialism never happened.

After a couple hundred years of having resources stolen and their territories degraded, few Nations are in a position to turn down sources of revenue.

The choice the BC government is offering is not a fair one. Substantial funding is required to support First Nations making these deliberations, to ensure calling for deferrals doesn't mean a harmful loss of revenue for their communities.

This has been called for repeatedly by the @UBCIC and a host of organizations. No response from the @bcndp government.

endangeredecosystemsalliance.org/news/2021/2/25… #bcpoli #oldgrowth

Long term planning for forestry and the permanent protection of #oldgrowth forests, like anything to do with the land, requires Nation-to-Nation negotiation and the return of land to Indigenous peoples.

This process will take a lot of work, and some necessary time.

But time is exactly what at-risk old-growth forests don't have.

In the year since government received the OGSR report, old-growth logging permits jumped by more than 40%.

There's now less old-growth for the government and First Nations to talk about.

cbc.ca/news/canada/br…

The OGSR panel called for immediate deferral of at-risk #oldgrowth to provide some breathing room to start these conversations.

Their report frames deferrals as a starting point, a tool to create a safe space to talk, without non-renewable old-growth falling in the meantime.

The @bcndp government has torqued this, framing deferrals as something only to happen after months if not years of process, with status quo destruction continuing while that happens.

A senior ministry bureaucrat once referred to deferrals as "the nuclear option."

While government talks, the climate and biodiversity crises rage. Much of BC burns.

The @UBCIC has again demanded government move faster, calling for deferrals in line with the OGSR recommendations.

ubcic.bc.ca/wildfires_logg… #bcpoli #oldgrowth

The @UBCIC recognizes that delayed action on old-growth jeopardizes our ability to accomplish the paradigm shift called for in the OGSR report.

Almost a year after publishing it, it's not clear that the @bcndp government recognizes this.
#bcpoli #oldgrowth

Meanwhile, the public debate rages.

The blockades at Fairy Creek are set to become the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history by number of arrests.

The RCMPs treatment of Indigenous land defenders there is drawing fierce criticism.

thenarwhal.ca/fairy-creek-bl…

The federal @liberal_party, recognizing the extreme unpopularity of the @bcndp's approach on old-growth, made this an issue on week one of the federal election campaign, shrewdly associating the @NDP with their provincial counterparts on old-growth.
#cdnpoli #elxn44

There are a few bright spots.

Nations like the Squamish, Kwakiutl, Tli'ammon and Nuxalk have all called for old-growth deferrals in their territories, raising the pressure on the @bcndp to do this.

#bcpoli #UNDRIP #oldgrowth

In June, the province announced the formation of a science panel to guide its deferral process. The composition of the panel is legitimate, and their involvement is a sign of hope.

news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2021F… #bcpoli #oldgrowth

But, there is nothing that assures that @jjhorgan, @KatrineConroy, @GeorgeHeyman and the @bcndp government truly grasp the urgency of the old-growth crisis.

The number of irreplaceable groves that have been destroyed in the last 18 months breaks my heart.
#bcpoli

Cabinet ministers and MLAs continue to provide misleading and incorrect information on old-growth to the public (some examples of which are in the blog below) and lean back on the tired environment-vs-jobs mantra of the 1990's.

wildernesscommittee.org/news/cutting-t… #bcpoli

The OGSR panel recommended the deferral of at-risk old-growth forests within six months.

A year after government published this panel's report, these irreplaceable forests continue to be lost forever.

#bcpoli #oldgrowth

The provincial government has made some solid promises and decent commitments, but the only score that matters is that which is kept in the forest.

And when it comes to tangible action to protect old-growth in BC for future generations, the @bcndp is failing.

/end of thread