Recent BC government changes don’t specifically address wildfire resilience, says longtime wildfire ecologist Robert Gray
A wildfire burning west of Hope in September 2022. Photo by Francis Georgian /PNG
Changes introduced by the BC government to begin to prioritize forest health over timber supply do not go far enough to build wildfire resilience, says a BC expert.
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In a key announcement last week, the NDP government said the changes will protect more old-growth forest, incorporate the knowledge and interests of the First Nation, help improve forest health and preserve forestry jobs over the long term.
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A key measure is new forest landscape planning boards, which will replace industry-led forest plans.
Changes include repealing outdated wording in the Forest and Range Practices Act regulation, which the government says gives timber supply to the forest industry priority over all other forest objectives such as water quality, wildlife habitat and biodiversity.
Robert Gray, a wildfire ecologist with decades of experience in BC, said that while the changes are welcomed, they don’t specifically address wildfire resilience, which is also a critical issue for forest health, wildlife, biodiversity, watersheds and jobs .
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Scientists expect wildfires to increase in frequency and severity due to climate change as they are already a major problem in British Columbia. Wildfires have caused 30 percent of forest loss since 2001 and more than 40 percent in the last five years, according to data from Global Forest Watch.
Gray, who contributed to the 2003 Firestorm Provincial Review that pioneered BC’s approach to building wildfire resilience, says large, badly burned areas pose the greatest threat to BC’s forests — and to the public and communities Business.
The forest landscape needs to be redesigned to change fire behavior, said Gray, who has contributed to numerous scholarly papers on wildfire research and has written on the topic for the International Association for Fire Ecology, the Nature Conservancy and others.
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According to Gray and other researchers, the forest landscape can be made more resilient to fire through methods such as logging, thinning, and mandated low-intensity burning.
And wildfires not only need to become a priority in legislation, but targets need to be set to reduce the area heavily burned, he said.
“It has to be a very serious provincial goal,” Gray says.
The Battleship Mountain wildfire of September 2022. Photo by BC Wildfire Service
In fact, a review of the 2017 flood and wildfire season commissioned by the BC government recommended doing just that, by making fire a management objective in the Forest and Range Practices Act and other applicable laws and regulations.
That never happened.
The BC government did not respond to Postmedia’s questions about whether there were discussions or plans to do so.
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In the past six years, British Columbia has experienced several severe wildfire seasons that have burned millions of acres of land, including forests, an area larger than Vancouver Island.
A 2022 series of investigations by Postmedia showed that the cost of wildfires goes well beyond firefighting, which has accounted for more than $4 billion since 2008 alone.
Total costs can include habitat and wildlife loss, damage to watersheds, destroyed carbon stocks, diminished home values, and damage to human health and mental health.
Analysis of California estimates adding these costs together can increase the total cost of a fire by an order of magnitude: $1.8 billion in expanded costs for the 2013 California rim fire compared to $127 million in firefighting costs.
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John Bergenske, the conservation director for southeast BC-based group Wildsight, noted that realizing the benefits of BC’s government changes will take time as the old, industry-led plans remain in place until replaced by the new ones Landscape plans are replaced.
He said he believes removing regulatory wording that prioritizes timber supply over all other forest goals should help with wildfire resilience.
James Steidle, a spokesman for a group trying to halt the use of herbicides in British Columbia’s forests, said last week’s changes in forest management did not go far enough.
He said more changes are needed to protect deciduous trees, which may also contribute to wildfire resilience.
Herbicides are used to kill broadleaf species such as alder and aspen because they compete with coniferous trees, which are considered more desirable commercial timber species.
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