{"id":45979,"date":"2025-08-05T02:09:25","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T02:09:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/45979\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T02:09:25","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T02:09:25","slug":"federal-forest-report-obscures-loggings-impact-on-wildlife-and-climate-conservation-groups-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/45979\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal forest report obscures logging\u2019s impact on wildlife and climate, conservation groups say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Environmental advocates say the government needs to adopt an approach that starts with an understanding of how much forest is needed to meet conservation and climate goals in the long term.DARRYL DYCK\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Canada has trees \u2013 on that everyone can agree. <\/p>\n

But when it comes to seeing the forest, Ottawa is at odds with a slew of environmental groups over what that means.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, those groups issued a critique<\/a> of how the federal government portrays the makeup of Canadian forests, calling for something far more transparent and comprehensive. The criticism comes at a moment when Ottawa is seeking to boost productivity in the country\u2019s resource sector to counter a trade war<\/a> and other economic pressure \u2013 all of which has raised concerns over the potential cost to the environment. <\/p>\n

In this case, the focus of disagreement is an annual report issued by Natural Resources Canada called the State of Canada\u2019s Forests.<\/p>\n

The latest version<\/a> of that report, released earlier this month, touts Canada\u2019s forests as a vast natural asset that covers nearly one third of the country and spans an area larger than India.<\/p>\n

According to the report, only 0.18 per cent of this area was harvested for commercial use in 2022 (the latest year for which figures are shown). In comparison, a much larger portion of Canadian forests, about 8.2 per cent, was burned by wildfires or defoliated by insects, based on figures from the following year. <\/p>\n

But those numbers are misleading, said Rachel Plotkin, boreal project manager for the David Suzuki Foundation and one of the authors of the 74-page critique.<\/p>\n

The problem, she said, is what the federal report leaves out. <\/p>\n

Its definition of \u201cforest land\u201d is any part of the country that would naturally be covered in trees, but is not currently used for agriculture or taken up by other human features, such as cities and roads. That means areas that have been clear-cut are counted in the same category as forests that have never been logged. <\/p>\n

What the report doesn\u2019t say is how much of Canada\u2019s forest can still be considered primary or \u201cold growth.\u201d Such forests are of high ecological value because of their importance to species at risk, and for storing carbon. The lack of information in the federal report about the size and status of Canada\u2019s remaining old growth means there\u2019s no way to gauge the cumulative effect of harvesting timber.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s plans to plant two billion trees best accomplished by looking close to home, study finds<\/a><\/p>\n

In their critique, conservation groups call for an approach that starts with an understanding of how much forest is needed to meet conservation and climate goals in the long term. <\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of looking at how you maximize the amount that you take out, you look at what needs to be left behind in order to maintain healthy functioning forest ecosystems,\u201d Ms. Plotkin said. <\/p>\n

The practice of issuing a federal State of Canada\u2019s Forests report dates back to the 1990s, when Canada became one of 12 nations to sign on to the Montreal Process<\/a>. The working group agreed to adopt a set of scientifically-based criteria for promoting the sustainable management of temperate and boreal forests. <\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s report nods to the Montreal Process but does not deal with its criteria systematically, including the first criterion which relates to biological diversity. <\/p>\n

For example, one factor known to affect how well Canada\u2019s forests support biodiversity is fragmentation \u2013 the degree to which forested land is divided by logging roads and related industrial activity. The federal report makes no mention of this and instead paints a picture of a forest that is relatively unchanged because the total area of forest has largely remained the same.<\/p>\n

Natural Resources Canada did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Those critical of the government report say it needs to focus on quality and not just quantity. Unlike tropical countries, Canada is not currently at risk of losing a large portion of its forest to ranching or other agricultural activities. However, recently published research indicates forest degradation is having an impact on a host of native species, including woodland caribou<\/a> and migratory birds<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Peter Wood, who provided input to the critique and specializes in international forest policy at the University of British Columbia, said that even from a purely economic standpoint, Canadians would be better served by a federal report that presented a more detailed picture of what kind of forest is growing where.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019d want to know what you started with, what is left, and how long can you continue to log at that current rate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Part of the challenge for Ottawa is that it does not directly control most of the country\u2019s forests. These instead fall under provincial jurisdiction. A report that offers an unvarnished view of forest degradation could become an irritant to federal-provincial relations. <\/p>\n

Yet, reports from most other countries who participate in the Montreal Process \u201cdon\u2019t read like a sales pitch for the forestry sector,\u201d said Julee Boan, partnership director for global northern forests with the Natural Resources Defense Council, and another of the critique\u2019s co-authors. <\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s approach could also be an issue if it is looking to develop new markets in Europe, where rules designed to discourage forest degradation<\/a> start to take effect later this year.<\/p>\n

Heather Exner-Pirot, a program director and natural resources expert with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa, said there is a more pressing problem: Canada has been steadily losing market share in forest products and the government needs to step up its support for the sector. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are underperforming our economic potential, and rural and Indigenous communities and workers are the biggest casualty,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Gary Bull, a professor emeritus of forest resources management at the University of British Columbia, said he was not persuaded by the conservationists\u2019 argument that more of Canada\u2019s forests need to be left alone. However, he added that the federal report failed to create a vision for how Canada\u2019s forests can be managed successfully for the global bioeconomy. Such a vision would include a consensus among environmental and economic advocates, working together with Indigenous partners, he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the State of Canada\u2019s Forests report should reflect not just on what is, but on where do we want to go,\u201d Dr. Bull said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Environmental advocates say the government needs to adopt an approach that starts with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,66,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-45979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-science","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}