Victoria Times-Colonist, October 15, 1999
Letter by Ray Travers, RPF

Pending Crunch Too Hard to Ignore

"The significant problems we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."

Albert Einstein

A society is not sustainable when it undermines the resource base upon which its future prosperity depends.

Yet this is what usually happens; it's not the exception. Consider the demise of the Atlantic cod fishery, the economic collapse of Saskatchewan agriculture and the resources crisis in West Coast fishing and logging communities. Put simply, excessive human impacts on natural ecosystems simply wear them out. In fact, the poor fit between humanity and its habitat, the crisis of sustainability, exists in varying ways and degrees almost everywhere on earth. It not only seems to be a permanent feature on the agenda, for all practical purposes, it is the agenda.

"Current forest policy allows an annual logging rate about 30 per cent higher than what the government itself says is sustainable - the forests' rate of regrowth."

When this approaching crunch becomes too obvious to ignore, a superficial and misleading choice is frequently offered by many politicians - do you want growth or stagnation? But our choice does not have to be either one. The real issue is whether we make ecologically, economically and socially sound decisions that will provide us with a sustainable, high quality of life.

Consider forestry. In particular, consider what is called "ecoforestry". More than 150 people, academics, students, foresters, government foresters, biologists, other interested citizens, gathered at Nanaimo and at "Wildwood" near Yellowpoint, for a weekend conference late last month, to debate just what ecoforestry means, how it's practiced.

The need for ecoforestry flows from this stark truth: Conventional forestry (large-scale clearcutting) commonly leaves things out of consideration. When you leave factors out of any equation, then there are "unexpected consequences". In forestry, these can range from more endangered species to declining allowable cuts (the wood just isn't there anymore) to fewer jobs and to crises in resource communities.

In the conventional forest policy, nature is seen as only one (often-unimportant) factor in economic production as part of the inputs of land, labor and capital. In contrast, ecoforestry views nature as the very foundation of the economy. For without it, human economic activity is impossible. This is not a new idea. Aldo Leopold, premier forester and father of wildlife management in 1939, wrote:

"Conservation is keeping the resource in good working order, as well as preventing over use. Resources may get out of order before they are exhausted, sometimes while they are still abundant. Conservation, therefore is positive exercise of skill and insight, not merely a negative exercise of abstinence of caution."

So What Does the Positive Exercise of Skill and Insight Mean?

Thinking like a mountain: This is about us moving our thinking from human to forest scale, about learning to think in much longer time frames and vast forest spaces. As those rude birthday cards have it, "70 years isn't old - for a tree". Nor is 200. The ecological processes that have created and maintained forests, such as wind, fires, insects and pathogens, have operated over centuries and at spatial scales from modest to vast.

Keeping all the pieces: This is about maintaining biodiversity, which is the foundation of forest productivity. When the "pieces" are lost, productivity is lost. There are no vacuums in nature. Every part, species, structure, and pattern has a role to play in the healthy functioning of a forest;

Making sound decisions: This is about learning how to discern good land use from bad. Aldo Leopold showed us the path when he said: "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."

If we were to take these ideas to heart we British Columbians would live in a healthier, even more beautiful and more bountiful province.

"A society is not sustainable when it undermines the resource base upon which its future prosperity depends."

Leopold said there are two types of forestry. In the first type, we can grow trees like "cabbages", in nice neat rows with cellulose as the basic forest commodity. In the second type, forestry is fundamentally different from agriculture, because it employs natural species and manages a natural environment rather than creating an artificial one to produce a wide range of products and values. In the first, the mindset is to control nature. In the second, the goal is to work with nature, minimizing costs while extracting only the "interest" (the annual growth) from the forest, without touching the "principle" (the standing forest). Ecoforestry is about demonstrating the principles and practices about how this is done.

There were far too many speakers and ideas at the conference to be explored here. But one of those taking part said later: "I've struggled with traditional forestry for years. Listening to the speakers this past weekend I felt my heart soar and felt in harmony with the views and values that were being expressed".

Current forest policy allows an annual logging rate about 30 per cent higher than what the government itself says is sustainable - the forests' rate of regrowth. And clearcutting, which is still the way more than 90 per cent of our forests are cut, is a high-impact, stand-replacement event which cumulatively degrades the forest.

As Einstein said, the significant problems of our time require a new way of thinking. As we enter the twenty first century, we need the Ecoforestry option.

Ray Travers, a registered professional forester and consultant, is Chair of the Ecoforestry Institute Society of Canada, which is based in Victoria.

"In the second [ecoforestry], the goal is to work with nature, minimizing costs while extracting only the "interest" (the annual growth) from the forest, without touching the "principle" (the standing forest)."

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