A little lecture on The Big Burn: Bioenergy and the privatization of British Columbia's Crown forests

Abstract

The combination of a gutted B.C. Forest Service, vast areas of not sufficiently restocked forest lands, a quirky loophole in the Kyoto Protocol and a provincial government ideologically driven to sell off public assets has created the perfect opportunity to burn down B.C.'s forests in a biofuel boondoggle and the last barriers to privatization of B.C.'s Crown forests. Interviews conducted with over a dozen ex-government foresters, industry representatives, contract foresters, silviculturalists, forest-sector round-table participants and political representatives point to this new direction that government is taking Crown forests-with no public consultation and media, like the government, that are failing to serve public interests. The voices of the whistle blowers point to a colossal failure of imagination by government that has implications to forest health, climate change mitigation and adaptation, other public interests in Crown lands from public access to biodiversity and water quality, First Nation interests, and international credibility on carbon accounting and standards and on certification. The lecture will explore the dystopic picture of what is planned and an alternative vision for Crown forests that has been put forward by the critics as a world leader in ecosystem services and valuation. The lecture notes were taken from an original longer article entitled The Big Burn, first published by Focus Magazine in August of 2010.