W.O.R.D.

Written February 25, 2007

Weapons Of Repeated Destruction are being employed against the peoples of the Boreal Forest of Ontario - WORDS.

Spearheaded by Sierra Legal, the groups firing these WORDS are: Nature Canada, Sierra Club of Canada, Wildlands League, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), Sierra Club (U.S.). Great Lakes United, Earthroots, and Ontario Nature.

On July 17, 2001, one person thought something was going to happen in a certain place in Ontario so a complaint was sent to the Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS). His complaint was:  logging was going to take place and bird nests were going to be destroyed.  In August 2001, the complaint was investigated by the CWS and nothing was found to substantiate the complaint.  Later, somehow, nine environmental groups became privy to the complaint.  These groups made up a number, (i.e. a hypothetical scenario). They multiplied the discontinued breeding bird density per hectare by the number of hectares clear-cut and multiplied that by a factor of 0.0536, to account for seasonal variation in logging rate, and a nesting period of one month and came up with a total of 43,700 destroyed migratory bird nests and Sierra Legal submitted their complaint on February 6, 2002, to the Secretariat.

This hype was pressed forward in 2004 and 2005 until North American Free Trade Agreement's environmental watchdog, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation was involved and they ordered the Secretariat to prepare a factual record.

In early January, 2007, the headlines were screaming: " 45,000 Migratory Bird Nests Destroyed By Clear-cut Logging In Ontario In 2011"  Another report claimed, "85,000 Migratory Bird Nests Destroyed By Clear-cut Logging In Ontario in 2001". One Toronto paper blared, "Ontario Government Coddling Killers".

February 5, 2007, the Secretariat of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation of North America released a 272 page Ontario Logging Factual Record, completed in 2006.  This factual record more or less had to be done because all 49 operating Forest Management Units in the Province of Ontario were being named by these environmental groups as alleged destroyers of 45,000 migratory bird nests in nesting season 2001, thus contravening Section 6a of the Migratory Birds Regulation adopted under the Migratory Birds Convention Act of 1994, (",,,an offence to disturb, destroy or take a nest, egg, nest shelter, eider duck shelter or duck box of a migratory bird without a permit,") Canada is being seen as failing to enforce said Regulation. All this was done without one migratory bird's nest being seen destroyed by loggers or found destroyed by loggers in 2001.

Our Assistant Deputy Minister, International Affairs, did submit a letter that commented on the general tone of the document (Ontario Logging Factual Record), that it was not well balanced and did not present a "fulsome accounting of the facts."

Fact One: "In 2001 logging in Ontario occurred on less than 0.5% of land base, therefore, by inference, 99.5% of migratory bird nests remained on the landscape, subject to natural predation and disturbances."

Fact Two: "More than twice the area logged is burned or affected by insect damage in a year: each of these natural disturbances results in the destruction of nests;" and

Fact Three:  "Natural disturbances alone would deplete more area than harvested annually if fire suppression were not undertaken in conjunction with harvesting."

For those of you who are wondering how insects can lead to the destruction of migratory bird nests, let us just look back a couple years when we were slithering around on the Forest Tent Caterpillars. In the third year of the infestation every leaf was gone from every shrub and deciduous tree. One American Redstart was observed sitting in her nest in a now-bare willow.  Caterpillars were crawling along the nest edge. The next day it was only an empty nest. The eggs were gone. This nest, which is usually secluded, was in open view for predation by other birds so inclined.

Quick, should we put some numbers on this event?  The caterpillars were invading from Thunder Bay to Nipigon.  Say they spread out 5 km both sides of the highway 11/17. That's 10 times 109 (109km being the distance from Thunder Bay to Nipigon). That's 1,090 square kilometres of Killer Caterpillars!

Should we be surprised by this flight of imagination? Not if we pay our hydro bill in Ontario, because every month we pay for electricity that never reaches our home, it is lost in transmission.

A Million Dollar View Won't Pay the Mortgage

Written January 6, 2007
Published in The Working Forest March 21, 2011.

I'd like to thank Julee Boan of Environment North for putting some dollar figures in her viewpoint article in The Chronicle-Journal, Thunder Bay, of January 6, 2007.   She says in 2002 Boreal natural capital extractions were twenty-seven point eight billion dollars hard cash in the market place.  She argues that if all the trees are left standing the non-market value is two and a half times that amount.

Psst: Non-market value - imaginary money - empty pockets at the end of the day.

We can't just let the trees stand alone.  All government Accords and Strategies of the past decade have included continued human usage.  With the coming of global warming the trees are going to need our intervention in a big way.  The eastern part of Northern Ontario is in a little better shape having the clay-belt for moisture retention. We in the northwestern portion are living with forests that have a substrate of permeable material.  The forecast of less precipitation could put a deadly hydric stress on dense stands.

Psst: Hydric stress - not enough water - too many trees.

Scientists have been working with real trees to get a handle on how they grow. And, they're doing it in the Sault Ste. Marie area of Ontario and Northern Michigan. The Papadopol Report (2001) gives us hope if we hurry.  Our dense stands of long growing trees need to be thinned to best utilize the reduced soil moisture.

Psst: Of course these reports never specify who is financially responsible for getting these actions done. There are , however, ways it could be financed. One is The Forest Futures Trust which provides finance for the improvement of Ontario's forests.

A shift to drought resistant and or fast growing varieties of tree seedlings for new plantations could satisfy timber -related industries.  The Forest Renewal Fund provides funding for recently harvested areas.  It covers the regeneration process from site preparation to seeding and or planting.  This money comes from forest industry stumpage fees paid for harvest of wood on Crown land based on each cubic meter of wood harvested.  This makes the companies directly responsible for renewal and tending.

Psst: What will we do if there are no companies left?

The Carbon Factor

Ms. Boan makes a statement that Canada's Boreal forests and peatlands store carbon "equivalent to more than three hundred years of Canada's total carbon emissions."  So, why is Canada dragging on its commitment to the Kyoto Accord?  Well, it could be because Kyoto countries have put a cap on how much "storage" we can count.  Kyoto does not recognize wetlands/peatlands storage of carbon.  Kyoto does not recognize agricultural land storage of carbon.  Canada hasn't established who 'owns' the carbon credits of those forests. Alberta has posed the idea of forest industry ownership if they were the ones regenerating that forest. If it was just left for natural regeneration then the government of Canada or the province would have the credit.  Even though these credits are undecided and Canada isn't into buying or selling emission credits ( at least as of December 2006) Montreal has gone ahead and developed a Climate Exchange ( the second in North America after Chicago [edit note Chicago now defunct in 2011]), connecting it to a rules-based greenhouse gas emissions allowance trading system.

Psst: Climate Exchange - are we in it for the health of the planet or just another way to make a million out of the view?

Milking the Boreal Forest

Milking the Boreal Forest was written February 11, 2007.

Forest Companies were feeling the heat of repeated attacks by ENGO's.

Forest Companies were going beyond the expectations of Kyoto and could not see why they were being trashed nationally and internationally.  Of course they gave up and now we have "The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement of May 18th, 2010". and any company who does not belong to that agreement and become FSC certified, is still fair game for the trashing.

Viewpoint - Resource-based communities are the real losers in ...

17 Jun 2010... Betty Jean Brill of Nipigon, Ontario gets it (Letter to Ontario Minister of Forests ...

www.workingforest.com/viewpoint-resource-based-communities-are-the/

http://www.workingforest.com/viewpoint-resource-based-communities-are-the/

Enviros see permanent end to logging in 50% of Boreal forest ...

1 Nov 2010 ... By: Betty Brill, Nipigon, ON. Attached is another letter to ...

www.workingforest.com/enviros-see-permanent-end-logging-50-boreal-forest-co...

Milking stools come in three configurations. There is a one-legged contraption that belts on. When you stand up you have a unicorn's horn protruding from your derriere. It's great for uneven ground but won't stand alone if you leave it. There is a two-legged bench type that is the heaviest type but it needs a level surface in order to stand alone. The most common stool is the three-legged.  It will settle in comfortably nearly anywhere and when left by itself after milking, it will remain in the upright position. If we give these legs identities of the values of - forest sustainability, environment, and socio-economic - we can see how easy it is to fall off if the legs are not equal in length.

On January 26, 2007, The Conference Board of Canada reported on its three year research program.  It called for "sweeping renewals in the pulp and paper sector: governments must work with industry to agree on small mill closures and investments in larger, more technologically advanced mills." Is it any wonder 44 mills closed across Canada in 2005? Dozens more closed in 2006. The gate is open.

In 1983 Brian Mulroney made a statement in Thunder Bay comparing U.S. Free Trade to an elephant that would roll over in times of economic depression..." they're going to crank up the plants in Georgia and North Carolina and Ohio and they're going to be shutting down here." I think the cow has already left that stall.

In January, 2007, a thirty-six year old busy-body named Greenpeace, started a campaign in the province of Quebec for a moratorium on logging in intact areas of the Boreal Forest. In November 2006, CPAWS had called for a halt to ALL Ontario logging in Woodland Caribou range.  Cows that don't get milked regularly can get sick.

In February, 2007, the Boreal 'farmers' , The Forest Products Association of Canada, (FPAC), released their first sustainability report. They measured their members' progress using the three- legged stool. They have surpassed the Kyoto Protocol Greenhouse Gas Emissions reductions seven times over, reaching 44% reduction by 'retooling' and switching to renewable energy including biomass. Their production has increased 20%. They didn't wait for regulations to come in, they did what made sense. These 'farmers' are responsible for over 96 million hectares of certified forestland. It sounds like the milk is on its way to the dairy.

Along comes a young teenager from San Francisco, ForestEthics, and kicks over that bucket of milk, yells at the 'farmer' for putting it there.  So much for the Greenhouse Gas Emissions reduction, ForestEthics says logging in Canada releases 180 million tons of carbon per year.  Now here's where that 'farmer' should take that rascal out behind the barn.

When a tree is cut it does not release its stored carbon unless it rots or burns.  If it is utilized as lumber, furniture, baseball bats or toothpicks etc. it can retain its carbon for hundreds of years. Even paper products will hold a carbon content.

A young growing forest uses carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. A growing tree does not hold its breath so a certain amount of carbon dioxide is exhaled. Scientists have calculated how much carbon dioxide a certain area of forest will consume from the atmosphere, becoming a carbon sink. If that forest burns it just gives back what it took out.  This is as close as I can come to rationalizing why those environmental groups aren't out there fighting those horrendous forest fires that are consuming our valuable timber every year - those same forest fires that truly destroy wildlife habitat and bird's nest.

The perfect socio-economic environmental stool, sit on it!

The Artist Within

July 31, 2011

The Artist Within will attempt to give background to the illustrations featured in my Essays.

Into the Unknown
Acrylic
Bridger-Teton Wilderness
Artist: Betty Jean Brill

Glaciers Don't Lie

Glaciers Don't Lie was first published by Superior Sentinel March 2007.


Let me see if I have got this straight. In the last few months of 2006, Canada has come out with a Clean Air Act; our Minister of the Environment thought we, Canada, had paid our dues to Kyoto, but we're still studying it; Canada replaced that Minister of the Environment; Canada has put a temporary hold on passing the Clean Air Act; Canada has just fired their Commissioner of the Environment; the paper says our current Prime Minister wrote a letter in 2002, claiming the Kyoto Accord was a socialist plot to ruin current world powers (what he actually wrote was "Kyoto is essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations"); Al Gore won't talk to global warming pooh poohers in Denmark; someone else thinks it's Y2K all over again along with The Emperor's New Clothes...BUT...glaciers don't lie.

Glaciers, especially the Polar Ice Sheets, are a lot like Santa Claus they know who's been naughty or nice over the millennia.  Paleoecologists read the ice core samples like an ancient encyclopedia of earth's history spanning, likely, 200,000 years in Antarctica and 125,000 years in Greenland. The language is air bubbles, dust particles, pollen grains and snow layers along with all chemical isotopes involved. For example, analysis is so precise they can tell if a nuclear test was set off by the U.S. or Russia during the Cold War.  Pollen grains give evidence of the species of plant life.  However, glaciers don't always tell the whole truth.

Every spring you may notice garage-less car-fanciers washing their cars more often.  Their cars are covered with a light dust even though they haven't driven anywhere.  It's pollen.  If, after a spring rain, you see a scummy yellow rim on a mud puddle, it's pollen.  If your daughter comes home with a yellow nose in June, she's been smelling dandelions.  It's pollen.   A walk through our local bush could stir up a powder puff from those fascinating candles of Club Moss.  It's spores.  While lots of plants have pollen or pollen sized eruptions, not all have the capability to be carried great distances by global air streams to reach the Polar Ice sheets and enter their "pages" of history.

The non-polar Glaciers are melting as Al Gore shows so convincingly in his Inconvenient Truth.  In fact, they started rapidly melting 18,000 years ago. Nipigon was covered by the Wisconsin Glacier that moved in a south-southwest direction as evidenced by rock scratches east of Jackfish, near the Steele River, for example. Non-Polar Glaciers were the movers and the grinders and the transporters.   Eight thousand years ago we were out from under the ice and populated by the Aqua Plano peoples as evidenced by the lithics (stone tools) in local museums.(Nipigon Historical Museum for one)

Paleoecologists can't get ice cores from those Non-Polar Glaciers that have melted. What they now do, is take cores from ocean bottoms, corals, lake sediments and peat bogs.  They still study pollen and use it to track the re-growth of vegetation after the glaciers receded. Some Arctic plants were pushed down to our neck of the woods and still survive.  Pale Corydalis is quite wide-spread in our area but some plants are limited to the depths of Ouimet canyon or islands in Nipigon Bay.

Global temperature has been determined by the quantity of oxygen 18 versus the regular oxygen 16. These two oxygens are present in the ice cores and the sediment cores and coral and as one report said, even our own bodies.  The ocean cores provided a second unit of measure, the Radiolaria, a one celled protozoa. The scientists count their little stacked bodies like tree rings.  Instead of wet and dry they call it hot and cold years. So, where does this put us in long view of our planet's average temperature?  The average global temperature for ninety percent of the last 600,000 years has been 72 F or 22 C.  Presently we are in a cool stage recovering from The Little Ice Age but in the last thirty years our world has warmed up 0.6degrees F to 58.6 F or 14.8 C.

Non-Polar Glaciers also impacted bird species splitting some into Eastern and Western ranges as the glaciers shoved southward over the Great Lakes.  The Thunder Bay Field Naturalists list 346 species in our area.  At least twenty-six 'western' birds have come visiting relatives in the last ten years. In 2006, I had a White-winged Dove (Texas) and an Oregon Junco at my feeder.  Already, in 2007, Red Rock has had the Gray Crowned Rosy Finch (Rocky Mountains home). A Robin has lived all winter in Nipigon. At this writing, February 4, 2007, it is minus 32C.

Somewhere in the world, the glaciers are melting.

The Time of Our Lives

This essay was published in February 2007 by Superior Sentinel.

In the Fifth Period of the Third Era in our world's geological development, when land started to come out from under the water, the Carboniferous Period began circa 280 million years ago. It lasted about fifty million years. A series of floodings, submergence of marshy vegetation growing rampant in the warm moist air , and risings with vast sediment deposits during mountain building contributed to the formation of nearly eighty percent of the world's coal beds.

The world got a chance to dry out a bit before the Era of the dinosaurs came and passed in three distinct periods ending with the beginning of the Cenozoic Era, the last Era on Earth and we live in it - seventy-five million years later.

Just to be confusing scientists vary on names they use to divide up this humongous chunk of time, either six Epochs or, two Periods and four Epochs, before they get to the mundane Recent of twenty-five thousand years ago.

Glacial scouring of bedrock in Northern Ontario left depressions conducive to the growth of wetlands and subsequent bogs have sequestered carbon for around eight thousand years.  Not exactly "Presto!" but, we have peat.

Sphagnum mosses, sedges, rushes and reeds form the living top layer of a bog, living plants that use the energy of light to convert carbon dioxide to organic matter,

Peat is now considered a renewable resource.  You may have to wait a few thousand years for the full depth of peat to come back but the re-vegetation process of a peat bog can start as soon as five to twenty years. In fact in Canada peat is termed a sustainable natural resource as each year fifty million tons accumulate in our natural environment and we only harvest about eight hundred thousand tons.

It's been over thirty years since the publication of the Geological Survey of Some Peat Deposits in Selected Areas: the Districts of Thunder Bay and Kenora, Nipissing, Sudbury and Algoma.  Eighteen sites were tested between Nipigon and Ignace.  The Upsula area had the most potential followed closely by Lyon Township so it is no surprise that the Upsula area is currently being sampled by Peat Resources Limited of Toronto with a view to creating a peat fuel industry here in Northern Ontario.  Analytical work confirmed that the peat in the samples has a very low sulphur content and no mercury - twenty million tons in that cluster of bogs,  Twenty years at least of employment opportunities.

The Geological Survey thought there might be fifty years employment in that area (Upsula) and thirty-eight years in the Lyon Township complex.  Time will tell, if they don't get bogged down in the Class Environmental Assessment process or stagnated by environmental activists. (Most of Lyon bog is now a Conservation Area.2011)

Finland and Sweden have asked the International Panel for Climate Change to recognize peat as a biomass fuel not a biofuel (wood) or fossil fuel (coal). Previously peat had been classed as a fossil fuel and became all tangled up in the Greenhouse Gas carbon dioxide emission equation.

Dead or alive peat bogs are tangled up in the carbon cycle, they hold one third of the world's sequestered carbon, and that puts us into the Kyoto Accord recipe for a healthy planet.

When living things die they decompose.  In decomposition the carbon is returned to our atmosphere as carbon dioxide unless it is in an oxygenless place i.e. submerged as in a bog, then the carbon stays sequestered and the peat bogs are termed "carbon sinks".

Ontario has twenty-nine million hectares of wetlands scattered throughout seventy million hectares of forests ( another carbon sink). Now, as bad carbon dioxide is as a "Greenhouse Gas", living bogs continue to emit a 23 times more potent gas, methane.  Methane is the 'excuse me' gas of burping cows and growing termite colonies and mysterious oceanic belching.  Wetlands do account for the Dagwood portion of that pie graph.

FOR PEAT'S SAKE

Already a large headline in the Chronicle Journal (Thunder Bay) of Friday, November 17th, 2006, page A-6, blared out " Peat energy: the flip side of the coin" ...written by a Lakehead University professor of Chemistry.  He quotes Chemical Abstracts and citations that are available to environmental professionals about peat and mercury and chlorine.  Sure, the abstracts are there on the Internet and they do mention peat and mercury and chlorine but the peat in question is in New Brunswick or Chile or Indonesia. He does say it is up to us, the People of Ontario, to speak up.  So I am.

Peat can be used to make multidimensional industrial products besides its use as a fuel or horticultural peat moss (Canada supplies 22% of the world's horticultural peat).  Depending on the process peat can be transformed into solids, liquids or gases: coal, tar, activated carbon, raw phenols, raw waxes, raw resins, synthetic  waxes, alcohol, fatty alcohols, fatty acids, Oxalic acids, Crude oil, oil products, Hydrogen gas, Methane, Methanol, and ammonia.

I believe this is the best time in our lives for Northern Ontario to start processing peat.  All industry has to follow The Best Available Control Technology, the Best of Every Means Possible and then have an AFTER PLAN. That is, how they will rehabilitate the land.

Canada has just come out with a Clean Air Act (Canada Gazette Oct. 26, 2006...and edit note...It seems to have disappeared) that has a guiding principle to promote investment in the development and deployment of new technologies.

Carbon Credits can be earned by reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions and Peat fuel has the edge on Canadian and U.S. lignite with one tenth the amount of sulphur and virtually no mercury.

Newspapers Going Green a Threat to Our Boreal Loggers

In December 2010 a draft vision for an environmentally sustainable newspaper industry was floated for comment by the Newspaper Environmental Innovation Council (NEIC).

See how it would put our Boreal Forest pulp and paper Industry at risk.

COMMENT : January 2, 2011

The NEIC is intending to become environmental leaders by influencing the Newsprint manufacturers (our pulp and paper mills ) to produce a more environmentally sustainable product.

 What's wrong with our forest management?

"Conservation: Management of the human use of the biosphere so that it may yield the greatest sustainable benefit to present generations while maintaining its potential to meet the needs and aspirations of future generations, and includes the preservation, maintenance, sustainable utilization, restoration and enhancement of the environment." Glossary - page 5 FMPM (Forest Management Planning Manual)

The NEIC is planning on phasing out virgin wood fiber, and, the big kicker is:  "Phasing out fiber from endangered and carbon-rich forests from the supply chain."  Guess what the Environmental Non-Government Organizations (ENGOs) call our Canadian Boreal Forest?  Carbon- rich forests may soon be a thing of the past as the disturbance dynamics of disease, insects devastation, fire and age begin to outweigh the tree growth sink of our Boreal forests and turn them into a carbon source.

The NEIC supports protecting high conservation value forests.
Guess what the ENGOs call our Canadian Boreal Forest?
"Modern Conservation theory incorporates the notion that what is to be conserved is not so much the physical state of an ecological system as the ecological process by which that state is created and maintained." Glossary - page 5 FMPM.  To maintain a forest in a static condition is impossible. Trees will grow, climax and die.

The NEIC supports development of non-wood fiber newsprint.
Now where in the world are they going to get alternative fiber?
That's it. The WORLD. Not Canada, not the United States.
When the Paper Task Force of 1996 went looking for potential available non-wood fiber they found that while the annual production of Bone Dry Metric Tons for the U.S. was 284, the World had produced 2,526.4 BD Metric Tons.

Well, you may say, "We can start growing non-wood fiber."

The NEIC has that covered too.  In their Appendix 1 : Agricultural Residues... "Agricultural residues are not from  'on purpose' crops that replace forest stands or food crops."

"Ensuring that no existing natural forests are converted to new plantations." NEIC states these plantations are the single species plantings on sites that originally supported many species.  The NEIC definition for plantations also includes the herbicide treated sites.  Yet if you read the FSC's number ten principle it states, "...plantations must contribute to reduce the pressures on and promote the restoration and conservation of natural forests."  If we are to follow NEIC's reasoning would that make how we manage our forests turn them into plantations rather than managed woodlands? Is NEIC just playing with words to harass our Forest Industry?

NEIC gives management units a way out.  "They will seek virgin fiber that is certified."

Hey, that should be a cinch.  Canada has 146 million hectares of certified forest.

Hold the presses!

NEIC will only buy from 18% of those forests.  They call it purchasing preference.

Why?

Because for NEIC and the ENGOs there can be only one certification system in the world.  FSC.

According to Greenpeace Market Review, " It is the only certification system that has the support of large environmental groups around the world."
The Forest Stewardship Council was hatched out of Ontario around 1993 as "An international organization to monitor certification practices regarding sustainable harvesting of forest products."  As soon as it fledged it took off for Oaxaca, Mexico, where it became a registered charity in Mexico, as FSC, A.C. (Association Civil)  FSC also has headquarters in Bonn, Germany and the Greater Toronto Area. The first six years of of FSC's life was funded by a couple million dollars in grants scattered among the following: MacArthur Foundation, Surdna Foundation, Moriah Fund, Rockerfeller Brothers Fund, Pew Charitable Trust, Ford Foundation and the Wallace Global Fund.

FSC, A.C. Board, in Oaxaca, Mexico, has permanent seats for WWF (3 members), Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defence Council, 3 or 4 FSC national initiative reps and staff.

What of the other certification designations?  Canadian Standards Association (CSA) is by far the most popular for our forest management units with 55% of our certified forests, followed by SFI, Sustainable Forest Initiative, at 26%, being an Industry led scheme.

What of our Crown Forest Sustainability Act?  An act of the Ontario Legislature to provide for the sustainability of Crown forests and, in accordance with that objective, to manage Crown forests to meet social, economic and environmental needs of present and future generations. Glossary - page 6 , FMPM.

The NEIC will support the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement.  That agreement will establish new protected areas for Endangered Woodland Caribou, (that's 2/3rd s of the Boreal Forest operating area), and implementation of world class sustainable harvesting in the tenures outside of caribou habitat.

What's wrong with our Sustainable Forest Management?

Sustainable Forest Management:  The management of forest ecosystems to maintain a healthy forest ecosystem which provides a continuous, predictable flow of benefits.  Indicators of forest sustainability criteria are Incorporated into strategic decision-making and into periodic assessments of both forest and socioeconomic conditions.  Forest operations are conducted in a manner that conserves forest health and minimizes undesirable effects on the physical and social environment.   Glossary - page 21 FMPM.

The NEIC will ensure that paper they buy does not originate from endangered species habitat.  If they find that their paper does contain fiber from such habitat, they will engage their suppliers to cease operations in that area.

Take a look at the list of our Species At Risk for Ontario.  Even if we get around the Woodland Caribou there are many, many more species of flora and fauna just waiting for their own conservation plans to be implemented.

There is some good news for forest workers.  According to Paper Life Cycle: Recovered Fiber in Paper Products, "It is technically impossible to sustain society's long-term paper needs without fresh fiber...Without fresh fiber society would run out of paper in a year of less."  From Metafore Inc., The Fibre Cycle Technical Document, 2006.

In 2006 Canada's fiber Input was around 55% Byproducts (wood chips, shavings and sawdust); about 23 % recycled paper; about 20 % trees. From  Metafore Inc., 2006, FPAC, The Fiber Cycle.

In 2006 the John Heinz III Centre for Science, Economics and the Environment studied the Life Cycle of magazine production for Greenhouse Gas Emissions.  They found that forest management and harvesting accounted for only 2%  of the footprint.  The rest of the emissions came from the Mill, Transportation, Printing and what they call the Final Fate of the product.

What will our "Final Fate" be?

Thanks for the Laughter

This was an open letter to Hon. David Ramsay in March 2007.  ABSTRACT or point of this whole letter:

According to current IPCC 2003 methodology, emissions from forest management comprise all the C02 contained in harvested roundwood and harvest residues.  All carbon transferred out of managed forests as wood products is deemed an immediate emission."

Now read the whole:

ONTARIO LOGGERS SUPPORTED BY RAMSAY

Wednesday, March 14, 2007 (CP) Toronto: David Ramsay - "We have a vast region of nothing with as few trucks running and a few harvesters in the bush, it's not an issue at all....You're talking about a few machines in hundreds of thousands of square mile surrounded by vigorous growing trees that suck up carbon dioxide."

These were comments made following publication of "Robbing the Carbon Bank: Global Warming and Ontario's Forests" by ForestEthics, March 13, 2007.

What's to clarify, Sir? I know and  now likely you do too, that ForestEthics did not mean a few machines in the bush.  You knocked the old growth pins right out from under them with that statement - vigorous growing trees that suck up carbon dioxide.

That's just what the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy - Boreal Futures: Governance, Conservation and Development in Canada's Boreal, said in, and I quote from Section 2,2 "Boreal ecosystems can act as a carbon sink because of the potential for forests (particularly younger trees) to sequester to take up carbon in their above and below ground biomass and soils. ...the Boreal also has the potential to become a major source of GHF's, as the result of larger more frequent fires, infestations and tree-kill by pests, and loss of peatlands." End quote.  Since living peatlands are a major source of the Greenhouse Gas Methane, I am not sure why they have included the loss of them unless they're burning.  Global warming thawing peatlands in the Arctic and Siberia has restarted their Methane production.

I'll give you a quote from magazine.audubon.org/features0509/forests.html this could be what ForestEthics was alluding to:  "A degraded boreal loses its carbon sequestration ability , too.  Logging obviously decreases carbon-sucking biomass in the form of trees; in the boreal, clearcuts also allow sunlight to kill off the ground cover of mosses and lichens, spurring soil decomposition and releasing enormous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere." End quote.  The same article sites McGill University's School of Environment studies showing 150 billion tons of carbon in our peatlands, equal to 500 years of our GHG emissions.  Hey, and that only tool eight to ten thousand years to do.

Our Northern Ontario forests don't live forever and won't live forever. But, if you cut them they will grow back sequestering carbon for another fifty to a hundred years before they become too old and remain carbon neutral until they rot or burn.  If you cut them you hold that multi ton of carbon sequestered in your wood/paper product until it rots or burns.  I don't believe ForestEthics considers the carbon storage in wood and wood products/paper when a tree is cut.  They do not see the potential for cutting and storing a carbon sink in our homes of wood and our libraries of paper.  They don't want us using wood/paper at all from our growing forests.  They want to keep the half dead old growth that is not breathing any more in place of robust young growth that is the true home to the migratory birds and the operating carbon sink.

OUR LOGGERS HAVE BEEN BETRAYED BY CANADA

The following day, March 15, 2007 I downloaded and read the complete report , "Robbing the Carbon Bank..." I was right when I thought ForestEthics did not believe in Carbon sequestering in wood/paper products.  I was wrong in considering it their idea.

The footnote (26) clearly places it in the laps of Kurtz and Apps, 2006; Developing Canada's National Forest Carbon Monitoring Accounting and Reporting System to Meet the Reporting Requirements of the Kyoto Protocol." Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change. "UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol reporting requirements for the first commitment period assume that the carbon contained in harvested wood products is at a steady state and that additions merely replace losses from existing carbon stocks.  For the first commitment period, and in accordance with the reporting guidelines, it is assumed that carbon in harvested biomass is released when the trees are removed from the ecosystem." (26) end quote.

Assumed?  Make Believe!

Article 3.3 of the Kyoto Protocol stipulates that countries identify those areas affected by afforestation, reforestation and deforestation since 1990, and then quantify the carbon stock changes (and non-C02 emissions) on these areas during five-year commitment periods. (2008-2012) Article 3.4 of the K.P. states those countries that include forest management in their accounts must identify the areas subject to forest management since 1990 and then account for the C stock changes (and non-C02 emissions) on these areas during the commitment periods.

OUR LOGGERS HAVE BEEN BETRAYED BY ENVIRONMENT CANADA.

Environment Canada, 2006, National Inventory Report: Greenhouse Gas Sources and Sinks in Canada 1990-2004.  Submission to the United Framework Convention on Climate Change, April 2006: Logging in Canada...According to current IPCC 2003 methodology, emissions from forest management comprise all the C02 contained in harvested roundwood and harvest residues.  All carbon transferred out of managed forests as wood products is deemed an immediate emission."

Deemed is not a scientific statement.

In 2005-2006 at least 44 mills closed across Canada. Those mills yearly produced one million, one hundred and seventeen thousand, one hundred and fifty MBF (million board feet) of lumber, and two million, six hundred and seventy-five thousand Tons of pulp and paper. Together with our operating mills we manufactured: doors and window frames; framing products; prefabricated buildings; mobile homes; softwood lumber; newsprint; wood pulp; wood panels, waferboard, plywood, fibreboard, veneer, particleboard; other paper and paperboard.  I submit you will find very few carbon atoms orbiting earth from these products today.  Certainly not the 19.5 tonnes of carbon per hectare logged deemed an immediate emission.  I live in a house of wood.  I have books in my house published over one hundred years ago. Canada's trailer parks are not as prone to tornado damage as their U.S.A. counterparts.  The national and international denial of the sequestering of carbon in wood and wood products by the Kyoto Accord must be revisited.

We, as Canadians, should DEMAND that  our government provide true accounting of our forestry carbon releases, or, like our estimated hydro bills, we can not divine our true usage.

If we, as Canadians, are going to be lumped with carbon taxes, we should DEMAND that true scientific accounting be done for those products or we will end up like our Ontario Hydro bill - paying for imaginary hydro lost in transmission.

We, as Canadians, should DEMAND that our industries be allowed to buy and sell Canadian carbon emission credits...not be forced to use international credits thus removing money from our economy.

ALL ONTARIO FORESTRY OPERATIONS CONTINUE TO BE HARASSED BY FORESTETHICS

March 13, 2007: ForestEthics recommends Ontario freeze new logging operations until a forest protection plan is in place.

University of Ottawa professor of Environmental Law vets report: " This does not mean we should stop cutting our forests, " he says.

(Sure could have fooled me. This freeze recommendation comes as annual work schedules expire March 31st and new work schedules come into place April 1st. All logging operations are really new operations every day.)

March 13, 2007: ForestEthics recommends Ontario reduce the area harvested.

University of Ottawa professor of Environmental Law vets report:  "We need wood.  But we should get more use out of the trees we cut," he says.

(I see that old slogan, Less is More, is getting recycled.)

March 13, 2007: ForestEthics recommends Ontario require logging practices that reduce damage to remaining trees and soil.

University of Ottawa professor of Environmental Law vets report: "Forest loss is about one-quarter of the climate change problem, " he says.

(The person who made up that recommendation sure is out of touch with our forest practices that have been enforced for decades. This is likely their way of going gung-ho for soil carbon sequestering.)

March 13, 2007: ForestEthics recommends Ontario promote recycling and use of alternative fibres to decrease demand for virgin timber.

(Well, Red Rock tried recycling and that mill closed and is now being scrapped in 2011.)

ECO ECHO

ECO - Environmental Commissioner of Ontario

ECO - also sometimes used  like eco-tourism, eco-friendly

ECHO - v.t. - imitate opinions


November 2006, The Wildlands League files suit to stop logging in Ontario because of no success in the recovery strategy for Woodland Caribou.

Since the recovery strategy was still in draft form it was difficult to see how it could have failed as it hadn't been implemented.

October 2009, the MNR released the Ontario Woodland Caribou Conservation Plan, outlining the Ontario government would take to protect and recover the threatened Woodland Caribou and its habitat.

September 2010, The Environmental Commissioner of Ontario press release: " Government's plan will not save caribou."

Do you hear an ECO echo?

On page 60, of his 225 page report, he notes:  "...members of the public filed an EBR application in 2006 requesting a monitoring program for woodland caribou to which MNR has yet to respond."  "Without such monitoring it is impossible to detect failure and determine whether a program is achieving its objectives."

Here is a man, appointed by the Legislature of Ontario, to another five year term, after already serving ten years in that same position, making equivocal statement.  If there has been no monitoring as he states then how can he say the plan will not work?  Not only say it in his report but deliberately headline it in his press release of September 22, 2010. (www.huffstrategy.com/MediaManager/Includes/Print.php?ReleaseID+2036 )

Earthroots Executive Director, Wednesday, 22 September, 2010 16:26 : "We hope that the ECO's report will spur the government to implement a comprehensive monitoring program while clarifying intact caribou habitat that will be protected from industrial development."

Do you hear an eco echo?

The ECO likes referring to the year 2006.  I , also, have quotes from that same time period.

November 2006:  I tracked down the then Regional Wildlife Biologist for the Northwest Region/Wildlife Section in Thunder Bay, Ontario.   He said, and I quote, " As you know, the Ministry of Natural Resources has been involved, along with our many partners, in managing woodland caribou habitat in forest management plans across the boreal forest for some time.  As you inferred, we will not fully understand how successful our caribou habitat management measures have been for several decades, until the caribou reoccupy forests that were logged and subsequently regenerated to mature forests.  However, the caribou habitat guidelines are based upon a substantial amount of caribou science and knowledge.  Additionally, we have been working to gain information on the success of our management decisions where possible on an ongoing interim basis, and improving management practices through an adaptive management process as we proceed based upon new scientific information and management experience, and we will continue to do so." End quote.

Principle - n.  settled reason of action 

September 2010, the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario (ECO), states: (page 65, 2009-2010 Annual Report): "While species habitat management is an important consideration of forest management, it is clearly not its primary purpose."

Let us read forward to page 70, item 3.7 : Forest Management: Conserving Biodiversity at the Stand and Site Scale...Major issues addressed through direction in the guide include: #1 stand composition, pattern and structure to allow for a variety of wildlife habitats.  #2 dealt with shorelines. #3 forestry activities in the ranges of particular forest species, such as moose, deer and birds and #4 forestry activities in habitats of species at risk.

ECO even admits on page 72, that this guide will increase protection of habitat for species not covered by ESA (2007).

Let us look at the Crown Forest Sustainability Act, 1994 c 25, s.2, wherein it defines its  two principles for determining the sustainability of our forest.

Principle # 1. Large healthy, diverse and productive crown forests and their associated ecological diversity should be conserved.

Principle # 2. Long term health and vigour of Crown forests should be provided for by using forest practices that, within the limits of silvicultural requirements, emulate natural disturbances and landscape patterns while minimizing adverse effects on plant life, animal life, water, soil, air and social and economic values, recreation and heritage values.

Crown Land Planning:  http://www.mnr.gov.ca/  ... careful management of forest operations under the Crown Forest Sustainability Act provides the combined supply of habitat for more than 300 species of wildlife over time.

Natural Resources Canada,  http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/  , Canada's Forests - Sustainable Forest Management, Crown Lands of Canada Forest Management Plans... must manage for forest values other than timber.

ECO Annual Report 2009-2010, page 61:  "Little or no direction is provided in the conservation plan."

Let us look at the Recovery Strategy for Forest Dwelling Woodland Caribou ( Rangifer tarandus caribou) in Ontario, 9draft) Prepared  by the Ontario Woodland Caribou Recovery Team, February 3, 2005  page 53: Priority High:

Approaches:  Integrate caribou recovery with forest management planning operations by incorporating caribou survival and recovery requirements into amalgamation of current forest management guidelines into Landscape and Stand level guides; refine guidelines during prescribed reviews based on effectiveness monitoring and other information; integrate caribou recovery requirements with the development or refinement of other resource and land use planning operational guides.

Anticipated Effect:  Provides direction and guidance to identify and provide habitat in land use and resource management plans and mitigate potential impacts on population.

http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/    Quote: "Once the plan is approved then you start rolling out the schedules for harvesting, silviculture and management activities." ..."Any deviation from then on is recorded and justified, monitored and audited, assesses and re mediated to create a cycle of involvement." End quote from that Site.

Let us look at Ontario's Woodland Caribou Conservation Plan, (2009) page 19, Table 1.  Preliminary Priorities for implementing the Caribou Conservation Plan in the First Five Years: Timing for key benchmarks (when things are supposed to happen) - 6 month, 1 year, 3 years and 5 years. That is a lot of direction.

Anticipate  v.t.  consider before the due time; foresee 

ECO Annual Report 2009-2010, page 61:  "It is disappointing that the conservation plan,  (June 2009), contained little discussion about how the Premier's commitment to protect at 225,000 square kilometres of the Far North (September 2010) would align with Woodland Caribou conservation."

Now, if he cared to look at page 14, of the Cervid Ecological Framework, he would see where it states that in the Far North the First Nations Land Use Plan will determine what areas are to be protected.

Nonobservance  n.  omission
 
It is noted within the ECO Annula Report for 2009-2010, that while the ECO chastises the June 2009, Ontario Woodland Caribou Conservation Plan of having little discussion of the September 2010 Far North Act's withdrawal of half or Ontario's Northern Boreal Forest from all future anthropogenic sources, the ECO makes no mention of the May 18th, 2010, irenic Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement.

That agreement precipitously deferred 2,657,202.85 hectares of FPAC Tenures nationwide.  In Ontario that equaled 879,841.60 hectares.  (Schedule "I" CBFA Cross reference: Goal 3, Section 13 [ b]  ) Total area of Ontario's Boreal Forest removed in 2010, (plus existing Wabikimi Park) : 3,619,444.50 hectares.

What lives in the deferred areas? 

Woodland Caribou.

What is the CBFA going to do?

Develop Caribou Action Plans for Woodland Caribou.

ECO missed that echo.

Research  n.  investigation, esp. scientific study to try to discover facts 

ECO Annual Report, 2009-2010, page 60:  " The Conservation Plan's emphasis on testing whether woodland caribou will re-occupy logged habitat is of great concern."  Now that is a queer remark as the whole idea  of the plan was to get the caribou back on their historic range, and obviously their historic range has been logged as that is the reason given for their loss of habitat.

Ontario's Woodland Caribou Conservation Plan takes the direction of 21st century research strategy on page 14, Action 4.2 : Ontario will develop caribou habitat policy so that all resource development and management activities within the geographic distribution of caribou with potential to affect provision of caribou habitat consider the implications for Woodland Caribou and include appropriate conservation and mitigation measures.

Quote:  "Sustainable ecosystem management must develop and maintain beneficial interaction between managed and natural systems;  Avoiding these interactions is no longer a practical strategy." ... "incorporating humans directly into models and investigations of the terrestrial biosphere and it s changes, provide and essential foundation for ecological research..."  End quote from: Anthropogenic Biomes, http://www.eoearth.org/article/Anthropogenic_biomes

Lake Nipigon Forest Management Plan Objective for forest cover:  "To ensure a suitable and sustainable landscape containing adequate year-round caribou habitat north of the caribou line."

Ontario's Caribou Conservation Plan, 2009, page 6 : "Adjustments to forest management practices in northwestern Ontario since the early 1990's appear to have some initial success at retaining caribou and caribou habitat near the southern edge of the range." This is based on observation and still in the early stage of new forest growth.

Lake Nipigon Forest - Independent Forest Audit Report - Comparisons and Trend Analysis of Planned versus Actual Forest Operations:  Prepared by Norampac Inc. 2001-2006, page A-55 : "In addition to the spacial habitat supply analysis, two forms of non-spacial habitat supply analysis were conducted.  The first utilized the wildlife habitat suitability matrix in SFMM to identify the amount of preferred habitat that was projected to be available over time within the caribou zone.  The supply for both winter and foraging habitat in the Selected Management Alternative was projected to be highest over time, than  habitat projections for the Null scenario. The second analysis involved the tracking of the amount of upland coniferous forest over 60 years of age in the conventional management zone.  With the use of a caribou mosaic approach, there should theoretically be at least 40% of the area occupied by upland conifers greater than 60 years old.  The analysis demonstrated that this target was achieved."

Environmental Communication Options
"The government's plan calls itself science-based," said Gord Miller. "Instead, its faith-based. We can only pray that caribou will survive."  http://www.huffstrategy.com/MediaManager/Includes/print.php?ReleaseID=2036


The fact that the ECO and staff have trashed the work of scores of scientist who have worked with cervid management for nearly two decades in those three sentences should be grounds for a call for his resignation.

As it takes 40 to 60 years, (maybe even longer) , after a disturbance for forest re-growth sufficient enough for caribou habitat, foresters alive today have come to rely on computer modeling to see into the future.  If that is faith then, face it, we live in a very religious world.