Transcript
Speaker: I'm Jane Williams. This is the Red Eye Podcast. You can hear our live broadcast on Saturday mornings from 10 till noon at 100.5 FM in the Lower Mainland.
Speaker: Coming up in this episode, we talk with Jens Wieting of Sierra Club BC, one of 14 organizations concerned about the impact of tariff relief measures on Canada's forests.
Speaker: As Canada responds to the economic uncertainty caused by tariffs, there are grave concerns that relief measures could lead to the increased destruction of Canada's primary and oldg growth forests. 14 leading conservation organizations have issued an open letter urging all federal parties to commit to policies that safeguard both forests and workers in the industry.
Speaker: I'm joined today by Jens Wieting, Senior Policy and Science Advisor with Sierra Club BC, one of the signatories to the latter. Hello, Jens. Hello, thanks for having me.
Speaker: I'm really glad you could join me today. How will the U.S. tariff measures affect the forest industry directly? Well, we have a long ongoing conflict with the US. Sometimes it flares up over accusations of having subsidies in place on the Canadian side.
Speaker: And if President Trump's latest threat goes ahead on April 2nd, this would add up to a total of 40% tariffs on Canadian lumber and just in all other sectors such unprecedented tariffs.
Speaker: Massive tariffs would hugely impact industry, the market for Canadian lumber and workers. So as we hear in the news every day, governments are working hard, thinking hard about all the year preventive work they have to do to support industry and workers. And Sierra Club BC and many other environmental organizations are concerned that we could see actions, measures taken that could further undermine our already impacted forests, other ecosystems, fuel will the climate crisis.
Speaker: And that's why we wrote this letter to the leaders of parties that are going to engage in the next federal election, because we really can't afford to ignore the climate and biodiversity crisis in this moment. There's an opportunity here to do the right thing, support workers and safeguard the natural life support systems that we all depend on.
Speaker: What would support for workers look like in this situation? Let's say if big forest companies have to close down their mills. We have a challenge in Canada for a long time because we have a history ah of industrial logging. Decades of industrial logging have led to industrial degradation of forests in BC and across Canada.
Speaker: And so it's no longer possible to sustain the same number of jobs as in past decades. Ecological losses are one reason. The other reason is mechanization, globalization.
Speaker: And we have now enormous challenges to and restore forests, to make sure that we can sustain habitats and critical environmental ah services like flood protection, carbon storage.
Speaker: All the different ways intact forests can reduce climate disasters from heat waves to landslides. And the needed reforms, the paradigm shift in forest stewardship can create jobs for workers that are currently focused on timber and cutting down the forest. So that's an opportunity and to use investment, help affected workers, but doing it in a way that can help restore the forest instead of further undermining it.
Speaker: So not just bailing out the corporations, but actually looking at things like retraining and and that kind of thing? Absolutely. And so the ah reformed forestry that we are looking forward to would still re require a lot of people with similar skills, knowing how to use a chainsaw and many other things in forestry, but in a way that can actually help to restore some ecological integrity.
Speaker: We have vast forest here in British Columbia, for example, that I young, even-aged, and dense. And we need thinning. We have to bring back the light into these dark, often lifeless forests.
Speaker: And we have to make sure that some of these forests can grow old again to restore habitat for endangered species. The letter's calling for federal subsidies to go solely to Canadian-owned companies.
Speaker: Is foreign ownership a ah big feature of the forest industry? Yes, we have ah huge problem now in Canada that company named Paper Excellence has bought large infrastructure, sawmills, many other forestry entities, and they are now operating as Domtar, and Domtar is closely aligned the with the ZINA-MAS Group, Asia Pulp and Paper Corporation that is globally known as destroying tropical rainforests in Indonesia and human rights issues.
Speaker: And so there has been an enormous concentration in terms of global control of logging operations, pulp and paper production. And huge concern in terms of lack of oversight.
Speaker: And many environmental organizations have spoken out about this. And we really have a massive concentration in terms of control. And again, there's an opportunity now to support initiatives like community forests.
Speaker: Canadian owned companies to make sure that we not make things worse, but trying to steer things into a different direction, addressing both ecological concerns, social justice concerns and ownership issues Now, you and I have spoken a number of times over the years about the need to protect old growth and the lack of sufficient action by the provincial government to do that.
Speaker: What impact could the tariff threat have on old growth in B.C.? So here in British Columbia, we have seen a shift in terms of government priorities with a lot of emphasis now on the economy and and fast tracking industrial development from wind power to LNG terminals and so backtracking in terms of the importance to follow through on biodiversity and climate commitments.
Speaker: We have not seen some of the yeah recent important commitments like the nature agreement, the biodiversity and ecosystem health legislation promise, the old growth strategic review and with the same commitments in mandate letters, for example, compared to the previous BC NDP government.
Speaker: And we really believe that it's important for the BC government to lead, to inspire other parts of Canada, also other parts of the US that remain committed, like states that remain committed to protecting nature and addressing climate change.
Speaker: So there's a lot to be concerned about right now. And there's still enormous opportunity because we may be ah small country in terms of population compared to the US, but we have these vast resources and old growth forests here in BC and across Canada that we have to protect.
Speaker: But right now we have relatively stable logging rates and so very slow progress looking at these commitments. And so in the US,
Speaker: Trump signed on March 1st an executive order called Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production. So a devastating signal essentially calling on corporations to go all in and coal.
Speaker: states and federal governments to give up on important environmental safeguards and unleash timber production. And again, I think there's not only an opportunity here, but actually a moral obligation for provinces and the national government in Canada to step up to the plate, don't fall back on our obligations in this context, demonstrate leadership on the goal to protect 30% of the lands and waters in Canada, to inspire other countries and hopefully inspire those that remain committed south of the border.
Speaker: Now, the European Union has recently brought in regulations about the forestry practices in the countries that they source products from. Would Canadian wood and wood products meet those standards currently?
Speaker: So this is step by step becoming reality and the big concern is that the Canadian government and provincial governments are defending forestry and in provinces and across Canada as sustainable based on the claim that it's not deforestation.
Speaker: But international commitments, for example, at the climate summit in Glasgow a few years ago and now reflected in the push in the European Union, are targeting both wood products from deforestation and degradation.
Speaker: And so Canada, unfortunately, is one of the most dramatic examples globally deforestation. degradation, industrial degradation, clear-cutting vast amounts of primary and old growth forests, claiming that this is sustainable because young trees will grow back and downplaying the ecological concerns that what is growing back is nowhere close to the original forests. It's not close in terms of habitat value.
Speaker: It's massively degraded in terms of the carbon s sink function. Clear-cutting unleashes huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.
Speaker: and it's also undermining critical environmental services that we depend on more than ever, addressing the risks of climate disasters, for example, flooding, drought, landslides, heatwaves, the list goes on.
Speaker: We really depend more than ever on keeping forests intact and now we have this international signal from the European Union. They want to keep out wood products both from deforestation and degradation.
Speaker: In the open letter, the Sierra Club BC and other organizations affirm the centrality of First Nations leadership and consent in forest policy decisions.
Speaker: What should this look like? ah Most importantly, both federal and provincial governments have responsibility to follow through on obligations under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Speaker: Here in BC, we have the Declaration Act in this context, and it means that... We need stronger reforms to make sure there's not just some superficial consultation, but real consent when it comes to forestry operations.
Speaker: It also means that we need much stronger leadership from government in a way that nations that feel under economic pressure to go along with logging revenue, with logging jobs, get a sense that they have a choice when it comes to ah opportunities to protect the lands and waters.
Speaker: We have seen some really good steps in this direction with the nature agreement and conservation funding. But there's an ongoing conflict between different interests in government.
Speaker: One part of government incentivizing industrial logging and similar resource extraction activities and other parts of government inviting nations to protect lands.
Speaker: This will not work unless all parts of government work together on this, supporting goals like 30 by 30. by thirty You've been talking throughout about opportunities that could come from this trade war. And I'm wondering, finally, if there's an opportunity here to start the transition of the forest industry away from pulp and paper and shipping raw lumber to producing more from Canadian forests.
Speaker: Absolutely. And in a way, we have already seen ah huge transition across Canada. Today, we have more jobs, more revenue in parts of the economy that are not tied to resource extraction from tourism to services to arts and tech entertainment, movie industries, so the list goes on.
Speaker: It's reflected and a range of statistics looking at jobs and GDP. And what we are seeing now is that our overall economy, all jobs, whether in tourism,
Speaker: or forestry and are impacted are at risk because we have managed lands and waters in an unsustainable way we are seeing the combined impacts of ecological and climate disasters So by investing into safeguarding these natural life support systems, we will protect all jobs, all parts of our economy.
Speaker: It's the only to sustain long-term prosperity. We have crossed red lines of alert and it's becoming clear every year with more and more billion dollar disasters that we have to choose a different path.
Speaker: It's pretty clear whether we look at climate pollution or logging other forms of resource extraction. There's only one choice. Either we continue to destroy the things that we depend on, that future generations depend on, or we stop the destruction and begin the healing journey and spend money wisely to create jobs in a way that sustains what we depend on instead of undermining it. Well, thank you so much for speaking with me today, Jens.
Speaker: Thank you. I've been speaking with Jens Wieting, Senior Policy and Science Advisor with Sierra Club BC, one of the signatories to an open letter to federal party leaders about the potential impact of tariff relief on Canada's forests.
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Speaker: And you can follow us on Blue Sky at Red Eye Radio. I'm Jane Williams. Thanks for listening.
