There's a book called 'Witch Hunt in the BC Woods' by A. B. Robinson, a retired forester who was high in the Forest Service .... written 1995 with the province under huge pressure from corporate greeniedom, it treats quite thoroughly the story of public land tenure here, from May 1865 to present [though it is quite light on the history of private lands] ..... Robinson would like to see a portion of the Giant Fiefdom, 'say ten per cent' to start, sold to smallholders under strict forestry covenants, to achieve some degree of the swedish model ... this is a touchy topic in the province, highly polarised .... i agree with him, fwiw, subject to various conditions ... this would in no way be an invitation to the Washington DC lobbyist snakepit to come in and take over
Anyway, i just tripped over a letter he wrote on the RPF-BC site ... Drushka is another BC woods author, book called 'Stumped' among others, he also makes some fine points, among which is the superiority of the swedish model ... but they differ on a few things ... here's the letter -
' Author shoots messenger over tenure
Ken Drushka is still trying to blame the messenger for all the woes besetting forestry in British Columbia, judging by an article in the March/April issue of Forum.
As I thought I had demonstrated conclusively in my book, Chauncey Dick Orchard is not the "Witch in the BC Woods" who has doomed the province to bad forest management. He merely introduced a tenure system that reflected historical attitudes. These attitudes were best stated by the Hon. W.R. Ross, Minister of lands, in a 1912 speech: "British Columbia is in a strong position with regard to the future and there is the great and glorious fact that our forests are in public ownership and that every citizen is thus a timber owner."
Drushka should also remember that no Royal Commissioner after Orchard introduced the tenures __ not Sloan, not Pearse, not Peel __ suggested any serious changes to his system, and certainly not to the concept of public ownership. And to Orchard's lasting credit, he did introduce sustained yield management.
It seems to me that our tenure system worked well enough until the late 1980s. Since then everyone with an ax to grind has been heard and listened to, from American protectionists to radical environmentalists. As a result, the forest land base has shrunk drastically, regulation has strangled common sense and stumpage rates have reached confiscatory levels. That is what is wrong with forest management in British Columbia today.
But having said my piece, I believe Drushka is right on one point. We should sell some forest land, not necessarily in large parcels, but in ones of varying size designed to establish the kind of ownership pattern found in such countries as Sweden, where 50 per cent of the forest land is in small, private holdings. Whatever we do, we should get a fair price for any land we do sell.
Finally, private ownership is no proof against government regulation and red tape, as some tree farm owners have told me. However, thousands of tax-paying owners of small parcels would make a far more powerful case for sensible forest management than a few large corporations.
Yours truly,
A.B. Robinson, RPF* (Ret.)
rpf-bc.org
* - 'RPF' = Registered Provincial Forester ... which doesn't necessarily mean they work for the province, just that they are registered by the provincial association ... which is to foresters as a law society is to lawyers, i suppose ... many work free-lance and/or for companies |
