While a report on forestry practices in the province nears completion, one bioligist says he’s not holding his breath anything will change in forestry.
Bob Bancroft, a forest biologist, was co-author of “The Path We Share” – a natural resources strategy introduced to the province in 2011.
Bancroft says he and Donna Crossland, a forestry scientist, conducted the same type of review that professor Bill Lahey is currently wrapping up.
The two consulted extensively with stakeholders and the public as a part of the report, which was supposed to carry into 2020.
“I was involved for more than a year, as a science person who had worked in forestry since the 60s,” says Bancroft. “We were charged with doing the same thing, and we were ignored.”
He calls the move to file a new report a ‘stall tactic’ by government, especially as companies like WestFor Management Inc. have been able to continue operating on iterim leases while the review was being conducted.
That doesn’t make him confident that there will be changes in forestry management in the future.
Bancroft says government needs to be responsible to communities and wildlife as well as industry and that forestry companies like WestFor are creating monocultures by conducting extensive clearcuts.
“This idea that you can cut a tree and plant a tree sounds pretty good but what they’re doing is cutting a complicated forest and replacing it with one or two species … it just doesn’t add up, it’s a junk forest,” says Bancroft, saying that’s damaging to wildlife and the soil
Bancroft commented on a newly approved 640 acre clearcut on crown land in Middle Clyde where citizens have sent a petition to government asking for a halt.
He believes there needs to be more community say in how crown land is managed.
“We have a small community with some crown land that could be a very valuable asset to the community, and instead it’s been given away to a consortium of companies.”
Bancroft says the Harvest Plans Map Viewer website, where these proposed cuts are posted, isn’t accessible to everyone and the 30 day comment period provided for a planned harvest isn’t long enough.
