The campaigns did not stop, and forest certification is proving to be destructive of the resource, the greater economy, the communities where working forests are located and forestry's once-critical contribution to the public purse.
The second is that customers came to believe that Canadian forests were not well managed, and certification gave the public assurance of good forest management.
Despite the fact that owning a forest, whether by the public or a corporation or an individual, means taking care of that forest in order to produce wood reliably over time, there were slash-and-burn logging operations in Canada that were careless and even destructive of the forests they cut.
Occasionally, as in the case of the B.C. coastal forests in the latter part of the 20th century, government decisions triggered destructive practices in public forests, but those, too, were increasingly rare.
As Fretwell points out, because of the environmental mismanagement of the U.S. public forests, largely due to excessive species protection rules and "Natural" regulation, the Forest Service itself estimates that between 90 and 200 million acres are in danger of exploding in a once-in-a-millennium catastrophic forest fire, which will burn so hot, it will scarify even the earth, killing seeds.
First, are the forests producing the wealth that they once did? Second, are the forests now healthier than they were before the institution of FSC certification? Third, what has been the effect on rural communities that are located in forested areas and have depended on these forests for employment, tax receipts and social services?
Forest certification in Canada requires root-and-branch reform so that the benefits from Canada's public forests are captured by Canadians, not activists, not ENGOs, not foundations seemingly acting in the public good, and the strong feelings of the not-fully-informed urban elite.
https://elizabethnickson.substack.com/p/the-furious-and-insane-destruction
No comments:
Post a Comment