B.C. says old-growth logging has reached record lows as critics call for greater transparency

The B.C. government says old-growth logging has reached record lows, but one conservationist is decrying a lack of transparency from the province.

In a statement issued Wednesday, the province said logging of old growth has declined 42 per cent from an estimated 65,500 hectares in 2015 to 38,300 hectares in 2021, an area representing 0.3 per cent of the estimated 11.1 million hectares of old growth in the province.

It also said 0.23 per cent of priority at-risk old growth identified by an independent panel last November was logged in the past year.

"The latest numbers show that B.C. is on the right track as we work to develop and implement new long-term solutions for better managing, preserving and sharing the benefits of our forests," B.C.'s Minister of Forests Katrine Conroy said.

The statement came exactly one year after the province released the work of a technical advisory panel that mapped priority areas for logging deferrals and also announced plans to partner with First Nations to achieve the deferrals until a new long-term plan for forestry in the province is put in place.

The panel identified four million hectares of old forests most at risk. According to the panel, 80 per cent of at-risk old growth is not threatened by logging because it is permanently protected. 

Torrance Coste, a spokesperson for B.C.'s Wilderness Committee, is calling on the government for greater transparency.

"It's encouraging to hear that the overall rate of old-growth logging is falling; what's needed is more information," he said.

"There's really nothing in today's announcement that underscores or highlights where old-growth logging is continuing, whether it's still happening in the most at-risk old-growth forest, which is our concern."

Two years ago the province released its Old Growth Strategic Review (OGSR), which made 14 recommendations to change how logging is conducted in the province, including protecting the most at-risk old growth forests.

Coste says B.C. committed to the recommendations outlined in the review, but there is no indication that planned logging in the most at-risk forests is slowing down.

"While the overall rate, it looks like, is falling, which is good, there's no indication that the best forests are being protected, or that planned logging in those at-risk, irreplaceable old growth is slowing down at all."

Spuzzum First Nation Chief James Hobart says he was glad to hear the numbers released by the province, but wants more details. 

"At first I was excited and then I started realizing that they didn't supply any maps — you can say anything you want unless you can prove it with good mapping," he said. 

"It seems, I think, a little bit premature. Some of the stuff that I see happening on the ground in my nation, it doesn't equate to what we're seeing in this report."