Apr 14, 2022
Extensive old-growth logging on Vancouver Island. Credit: Russ Heinl.
Last year, as hundreds of protesters were arrested at Fairy Creek on Vancouver Island for trying to stop logging of old-growth forests, the BC government raked in more money from companies doing such logging than at perhaps any point in history.
In total, it collected more than $1.8 billion dollars in stumpage fees—a number that would have been higher still but for the protests.
Nothing in the past 15 years comes remotely close to that revenue benchmark, a figure that underscores that it is not just the logging companies who benefit financially from logging old-growth or primary forests, but the provincial government as well.
New research by the CCPA–BC shows, however, that the whopping stumpage revenues of last year mask trouble ahead. The high revenues were only made possible by an unprecedented run-up in lumber prices and the extraordinary value of the older trees that are the chief target of BC logging companies.
With those trees disappearing as quickly as Newfoundland’s cod once did, the provincial government belatedly announced last year that it would defer logging in a portion of remaining old-growth or primary forests for two years, pending negotiation with affected First Nations.
The fear now is that the government’s deferral announcement will be…
