Protecting the most at-risk old growth forests in two 小蓝视频 timber supply areas would lead to $10.9 billion in economic benefits over the next century, a new report has found.
However, those gains would be wiped out if logging were to carry on as it is today across the Prince George and Okanagan timber supply areas, concluded the environmental consulting firm ESSA Technologies in a report published Monday.
Together, the two timber supply areas (TSA) contain about 10 per cent of 小蓝视频's total old-growth forests mapped in 2021.
If they were fully protected, modelling in the report found the two regions' old-growth forests could generate up to $43.1 billion in net economic benefits over the next 100 years. That accounts for $4.1 billion in losses in timber production across the two supply area.
Rachel Holt, an independent forest ecologist who advised on the report in its early stages, said the results did not surprise her in a province where the only value that’s regularly modelled with any veracity is timber volume.
“It’s so blindingly obvious that we are not effectively taking account of all the other values in the forest,” Holt said. “The amount of carbon in the forest in 小蓝视频 is off the scale.
“And the amount that’s lost when we harvest is phenomenally high.”
Protecting old-growth could avoid billions in damages
The large dollar value placed on protecting only some of 小蓝视频’s old-growth trees largely comes from the forests’ capacity to suck carbon out of the air and store it in trees and soil — phenomena known as carbon sequestration and storage.
Using the federal government’s definition for the , ESSA Technologies calculated how failing to capture and store forest carbon would make climate change worse.
The metric includes a number of knock-on effects, including shifts in net agricultural productivity, damage to human health, property destruction from increased flood risk, disruption of energy systems and a drop in the value of ecosystem services.
Protecting old growth forests was also found to lead to benefits in tourism and recreation — $300 million in the Prince George TSA and $491 million in the Okanagan TSA — and non-timber forests products like floral greenery, wild edibles, medicinal plants and landscaping and restoration products, among others.
“This report is an important step in recognizing the true value of our lands and resources,” said Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of 小蓝视频 Indian Chiefs, in a statement.
“It affirms what First Nations have always known — that sustainable stewardship and Indigenous knowledge are key to long-term prosperity.”
The report factored in losses due to a decline in logging. It did not analyze potential positive knock-on effects of protecting old growth forests, such as improving the supply and quality of drinking water, dampening impacts from floods, providing habitat to wildlife, and benefits to culture and education.
Overall, the authors say their numbers likely represent an under-estimate of the total economic value of preserving forests in the two timber supply areas.
Wildfire activity remains a wildcard
The report comes four years after an independent panel convened by the province to carry out an old-growth strategic review recommended that 小蓝视频 defer logging on 2.6 million hectares of old forest.
ESSA Technologies used that recommendation as a baseline, running models showing the value of ignoring and following that recommendation. It then looked at the impacts of deferring logging in all priority old-growth forests across the two TSA’s, and deferring logging in 100 per cent of their old-growth forests.
Because the two areas are particularly prone to wildfire, the authors also modelled how deferring 100 per cent of old growth would play out if wildfire activity doubled.
“In all cases except the increased wildfire scenario, our results suggest society would be better off protecting old-growth than logging it, largely because these forests provide significant climate change mitigation services from carbon storage and sequestration,” the report says.
鈥婻esults also suggest the Okanagan TSA will act as an overall source of carbon, releasing more than it absorbs, over the next century unless all old-growth harvesting is halted. Prince George’s harvest area would remain a net carbon sink, the report found.
If old-growth logging were fully deferred in both timber supply areas, they would absorb another 28 million tonnes of carbon — equivalent to the emissions released from burning 63 million barrels of oil.
鈥婲umbers come as pressure mounts on 小蓝视频's forestry industry
Jens Wieting, a senior policy and science advisor with the Sierra Club 小蓝视频 — which partially funded the report — said the emerging trade war with the current U.S. administration appears to have placed the environment on the back-burner in favour of expanded resource extraction.
“It’s a very pivotal moment,” Wieting said.
“This report shows we will pay a price if we weaken environmental standards instead of strengthening them.”
While not the focus of the report, the authors suggested paying for the protection of 小蓝视频's old-growth areas could be achieved through government and philanthropic grants, or conservation financing. Other potential revenue sources included tourist access fees, revenue sharing with timber harvest and carbon markets.
The report comes a day after the 小蓝视频 Lumber Trade Council confirmed the U.S. Department of Commerce had made a preliminary decision to more than double countervailing duties on imports of Canadian softwood lumber. The combined effect would raise the total duty rate to 34.45 per cent, up from the current 14.4 per cent.
Council president Kurt Niquidet told BIV that if the proposed hikes remain in place, they could come into effect by the fall.
Meanwhile, more than 600 forestry executives, politicians and other officials gathered in Prince George at an annual (COFI) convention.
The focused on how the province's industry could respond to U.S. tariffs while convincing government to eliminate red tape and ramp up the amount of timber industry can cut every year.
COFI president and CEO Kim Haakstad did not immediately respond to a request to comment on the old-growth report's conclusions.
Decline in forestry jobs not made up for by tourism
The latest study was an effort to scale up previous modelling that put a monetary value on a small timber supply area near Port Renfrew, where many of the jobs lost in the forestry industry were projected to be made up for by gains in tourism.
The latest ESSA Technologies report concluded it still makes more economic sense to keep old-growth trees in the ground. But tourism didn’t see as big of a relative boost in the two Interior TSAs as on Vancouver Island.
Under baseline conditions, the report estimated there would be 2,333 full-time equivalent jobs — direct and indirect — connected to forestry across 小蓝视频
Depending on the scenario, the authors found deferring more old-growth forests would lead to a reduction in that workforce of between 206 and 659 jobs.
In both areas, forest-based recreational tourism jobs would see only a small increase as old-growth deferrals go up.
The result, concluded the report, is that while 小蓝视频 would be better off overall deferring more old growth, the trade-off is there would be fewer overall jobs in the forest tourism and logging sectors.
The study did not analyze the job impact on other sectors.
Holt, who served on the 小蓝视频 government's old-growth technical advisory panel, said the scope of the report provided only a narrow view of the impacts of deferring more old growth in 小蓝视频
She pointed to real costs of losing biodiversity and the potential to create more jobs in value-added wood manufacturing, instead of shipping barely processed wood products out of the province.
Instead of designing a forestry system that maximizes benefits for everyone, Holt said 小蓝视频's industry has created an extremely low number of jobs per tree cut.
“Yes, it’s a flaw in the report,” said the ecologist. “But they were doing a particular thing and they did it.”
What's needed now, said Holt, is correcting for a forestry system that misses the value in anything that is not timber.
“We have not designed a forestry industry that is sensible," she said. “We don’t even pretend to value carbon.
"This is about blind, wilful avoidance of basic facts that will lead to serious problems.”
Correction: This story has been updated to clarify that the report only measured forest tourism jobs — not overall tourism jobs. The job losses in forestry and additions to the tourism sector reflect both indirect and direct employment.
