Transcript
Speaker: I'm Jane Williams. This is the Red Eye Podcast. You can hear our live broadcasts on Saturday mornings from 10 till noon at 100 .5 FM in the Lower Mainland. In today's episode, Laurentianism speaks with Torrance Kost about Premier David Ebe's recent announcement that the government will protect 30 % of B .C.'s land by 2030.
Speaker: The BC government under David Eby's leadership has signaled new directions on protecting BC lands. They've committed to protect 30 % of the province's land by 2030. This includes a mandate to work with indigenous communities to create indigenous protected and conserved areas. The commitment was made in Eby's letter to Nathan Cullen, BC's new Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship.
Speaker: The Mandate Letter also calls for the development of a new conservation financing mechanism to support protection of biodiverse areas. I'm joined by Torrance Cost. He's National Campaign Director for the Wilderness Committee. Hello, Torrance. Thank you so much for joining me. Yeah, of course. Thanks so much for having me on. Can you give us an overview of the commitments to protect lands that we saw coming out of the BC government last week?
Speaker: I can. The details are fairly sparse, but there was language, as you mentioned, in the mandate letter to Minister Nathan Cullen around the 30 by 30 target, 30 % of BC's land area by 2030. And this is kind of being held up by some governments and scientists around the world as sort of a basic measure to stave off the biodiversity crisis.
Speaker: Some scientists say as much as half of the land surface should be set aside from industrial development as an ultimate goal, but 30 % by 2030 is sort of a milestone to get there. We've, until now, not heard the BC government take a position on that. For context, currently only about 12 % of the province of British Columbia is protected, so we have a long, long way to go in the eight years between now and 2030.
Speaker: seven, I guess, because this year is just about done. We're looking for more details. We're looking for a price tag. Saying increased conservation is good. Saying indigenous -led protected areas is also very encouraging. But the devil's in the details.
Speaker: And it's time for the government to put their money where their mouth is on this and really start to disclose some of the details about what this might look like. So it's an encouraging commitment, but we're not celebrating just yet because there's so much we don't know. And with this government, they've been in power for five years. And is this another empty promise on environment and climate change? Or does this truly represent a new leaf for them?
Speaker: Currently, torrents about, as you said, 12 % of BC's land is protected, but ecological zones with the highest biodiversity are significantly underrepresented in the protected area system. Does the commitment to protect 30 % bode well for getting these more critical areas protected?
Speaker: Again, that's another detail that we just don't know. As you mentioned, a lot of our protected areas are important, but a lot of them are in areas that don't have the highest ecological value, the most amount of endangered species habitat. A common refrain is that BC is really, really good at protecting snow and ice and rock.
Speaker: When you think about some of the iconic protected areas, you know, Garibaldi, Tweedsmere, the big parks in the Rocky Mountains extending into Alberta, Strathcona Park on Vancouver Island, these are all alpine parks, right? They are important. They have ecological value, but less represented in the protected area system is lower elevation.
Speaker: highly highly biologically rich ecosystems and the reason for this is because they also hold the most value to industries like logging and mining because of their accessibility and in the case of logging the bigger trees tend to grow there and more of them.
Speaker: So again, along with the price tag, along with a little bit more details around timelines, how is this going to work between now and 2030? Another thing that's missing is just where these protected areas are going to be.
Speaker: skewed because if they continue to fall in the areas that are more palatable to the powerful resource industries in this province, they're going to miss a lot of the highest ecological value. The places that are most rare, the habitats that are most scarce, the types of forest that are most scarce
Speaker: have that scarcity because of how coveted they are by these industries. Logging companies want to log as much remaining old growth as they can. And at a certain point, a government that's serious about protecting biodiversity is going to have to step up and say, no, you can log here and here, but you can't log there and there. And whether this government has the willingness to do that is not at all clear yet.
Speaker: Now, Nathan Cullen, the new minister, was given a mandate to work with indigenous communities to create indigenous protected and conserved areas. What does that involve?
Speaker: That is, it's really exciting in the perspective of the Wilderness Committee and a lot of our colleagues at other organizations. It's the future of conservation. Protected Area Creation and Parks has a problematic history in BC and in Canada, and a lot of protected areas were designated from higher levels of government without consultation or permission or agreement from Indigenous communities.
Speaker: and First Nations have been moved off parts of their territories or had traditional activities like hunting and gathering prohibited because it's a provincial park, say. Indigenous protected areas flip that and the designation, the management decisions, the plan for the protected area comes from the community and accounts for all of those needs. And it's really, you know, governments getting out of the way and letting First Nations
Speaker: declare and make plans for their own protected areas and then providing the funding and resources to enable it. That's the only way we have a hope of hitting targets like 30 % protection by 2030. So to see the government come right out and say this is a priority, put it in Minister Cullen's mandate letter.
Speaker: Again, that's encouraging, but the serious barrier is funding. It takes communities time and money to put together these plans for First Nations leadership to go to their community and figure out what the people there want to see out on the land. That takes a tremendous amount of time, and then to declare and establish the protected area, it all takes money, and the provincial government needs to support on that.
Speaker: until they put a dollar figure to that. It's really hard for us to judge how sincere this effort is. It would be just awesome to see a really effective program there. Absolutely, absolutely. What should we look for when the government talks about new conservation financing mechanism to protect biodiverse areas?
Speaker: We should look for them linking it to the issues that threaten biodiversity and that threaten the accomplishment of this goal. So, you know, I've named logging and mining a couple of times. These are two big activities that are poised to make protection of the most ecologically diverse areas more difficult. And so when government is taking part in updating mining,
Speaker: Mining laws and mining regulations when they are taking action on old growth, another area where David Ebe, as the new premier, has been long on promises. We need to be seeing the government linking that with these goals around biodiversity, right? The old growth forests, especially at low elevation, are the most biodiverse, and ending logging in them is key to accomplishing these goals.
Speaker: We've seen governments talk about better agreements to share revenues with First Nations from resource extraction, which is important. But if the government is only investing in making logging and mining financially beneficial for First Nations and not
Speaker: not also funding to at least equal if not greater extent conservation plans, then these goals are going to be really hard to achieve for communities that have to choose the best economic option for their people. So that's what I want to see. I want to see them recognizing that
Speaker: funding to protect old growth forests, funding to protect biodiversity is needed, and that funding to support more mining and more old growth logging is a barrier to accomplishing these goals around biodiversity. Obviously, mandate letters and these commitments are a pretty high -level thing, which is what you have to start with, but
Speaker: Where does the rubber hit the road? What do we need to see in terms of framework and milestones to work towards 2030 and make these things happen?
Speaker: The first piece is some of those initial investments. Initial investments and a greater emphasis on what happens in the meantime. So the old growth planning, the key to it for the old growth strategic review is the deferral, so temporary protections. And those aren't the permanent solutions, right? Just like temporary holds on logging or mining wouldn't be the permanent solution to 30 by 2030.
Speaker: But they're needed to ensure that the biodiversity that we're aiming to protect isn't lost in the meantime, right? So funding immediately to let nations engage in these IPCA planning processes, and then also interim limits so that the lands and waters and areas that are being discussed as potential candidates for conservation are still there when that conversation's done, that they're still there to protect in 2030.
Speaker: That's what we'll be looking for. The clock is ticking. Premier E .B. made some bold statements around climate change and biodiversity and old growth in his first speech as Premier Designate. He said that he intends to act on all three in his first 100 days in office. They were among just five priorities that he laid out as the new Premier, and his 100th day in office is the 25th of February. So I imagine they'll be taking a holiday break here for a little while.
Speaker: But they need to come out in January and February and really hit the ground running and start to announce some investments, announce some more programs. And again, it's very late in the day and a new exploratory panel or consultation process, something that's long and drawn out. This government is, they're experts at commissioning reports and doing studies and then allowing that to be conflated with actually acting on the problem.
Speaker: We know what the problem is, we know what the solutions are, and they need the funding and they need the sense of urgency from government.
Speaker: Minister of Water, Land, and Resource Stewardship to Nathan Cullen, and the former Deputy Minister Fazil Milar is out. Now, Milar was number two on the Wilderness Committee's Dirty 30 list of climate action foes. What are your thoughts about the potential significance of this shift?
Speaker: We're encouraged, Mr. Millar, prior to being brought into the BC government under the last government, the BC Liberal government, he was a director at the Far Right Fraser Institute and a lot of his goals and priorities were not in line with what climate science and with
Speaker: biologists all around the world are telling us we need to be doing, especially in a wealthy jurisdiction like BC that can afford to make these changes. And so we're pleased with that change. And again, having Nathan Cullen as the minister and having a new hopefully better
Speaker: Deputy will be encouraging, but again, you know, governments should be judged on what they do, not on sort of their posturing. So again, there's some hope there, but it's early days yet.
Speaker: As we've been discussing, we've seen enough empty promises on oil growth and on biodiversity by Horgan's government. What can people do to press the provincial government to now follow through on these new commitments with concrete and effective action?
Speaker: I think the BC NDP government, at the end of the day, they care about winning majorities and getting their party back into power. I think that taking this aggressive stance on biodiversity, investing in Indigenous -led conservation, these are popular
Speaker: things. People who understand the biodiversity crisis is serious and the climate crisis is serious. They really feel the inherent value of thousand -year -old trees and ancient forest ecosystems and all of the diverse landscapes that BC offers.
Speaker: I think this is really popular and it's up to all of us to show them that. So we've got some plans to start to mobilize around this right off the hop in January and February. And we encourage everyone to make sure that
Speaker: The new EB government knows that its commitments, its early commitments on climate change and old growth and biodiversity can't fade away. They can't just be a one -off that we prioritize far below other things, that it's something that we need to see swift action on. Well, it's been great talking with you today, Torrance. Thank you so much. Of course. Thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker: I've been speaking with Torrance Cost, he's National Campaign Director for the Wilderness Committee. The Red Eye podcast is produced at the studios of Vancouver Co -op Radio. You can support us by supporting Co -op Radio. Go to coopradio .org and click on the donate button. Independent media relies on the support of people like you.
