Another sign that beaver believing is slowly reaching our friends to the North. Enjoy this letter from Catherine Slater.
Beavers are the answer to community wildfire danger, not more logging
I saw “BC Is Burning” (free on youtube) produced by the Truck Loggers Association last March at the Tidemark Theatre in Campbell River. This documentary states that Climate Change is a rising threat to rural communities. There are dramatic scenes of forests and homes burning.
The film’s solution is more “Active Forest Management.” It promotes extensive tree and woody debris thinning (even in protected areas such as OGMAs) to reduce wildfire “fuel load,” processing these harvests into new carbon-sequestering or carbon-replacing products, regenerating the forest with seedlings in these “fire-smarted” areas.
Community wildfire safety and jobs are addressed by this proposed solution, a win-win situation. But, where is the health of a natural forest ecosystem, I ask? This solution results logically in more open soils and more degraded and dehydrated forests, exposed to rising heat. Dry, hydrophobic soils create more runoff and floods according to a UBC study on how clear-cutting is linked to 18-fold rise in extreme floods.
Healthy forest ecosystems are important! Forests are habitat to many terrestrial species. They act as flood barriers, recharge groundwater and filter air. They are vital carbon capture “Nature Based Solutions” to Climate Change (U.N.). How can we maintain intact forests AND keep rural communities safer from wildfire?
Beavers! Beaver ponds reduce community wildfire danger as humidifiers and wetland firebreaks. Beaver ponds capture winter rain, reducing the danger of floods. They replenish the watershed’s aquifer, releasing water more slowly to salmon streams. They provide wildlife with life-saving summer drinking water, heat wave refuges and escapes from wildfire.
The BC Wildlife Federation promotes widespread beaver reintroduction [link: 10,000 Wetlands: Using Beaver-Based Restoration to Enhance Watershed Resilience | B.C. Wildlife Federation]. The Strathcona Regional District has held community meetings and has a beaver reintroduction project underway on Cortes Island.
The stone that was rejected has become the corner stone. Amen. Keep the faith rolling for beavers.
We are in exciting, dramatically-changing times for humanity! Some forestry workers can continue to work in timber harvest (more Stand-enhancing ITS silviculture ideally as the planet gets hotter) and in sustainable forest resource management (including beaver reintroduction, and forest thinning near communities (if this technique proves feasible)).
Some workers can move on to private and public tree service businesses that will deal with urban fire smarting, danger tree removals and post-storm tree cleanup. A number of forestry workers need to move on to brand new, good-paying jobs that protect our new common future, jobs in community electrification; jobs in water conservation and distribution and jobs in construction and building renovation to manage new heat, flood, wind and wildfire threats to homes. This B.C. government provides some routes for economic transition on their economic development site.
Hmm lets hear from an expert on this.
I worked in the forest industry on Northern Vancouver Island for a number of years, checking sort yards, reloads and log booms for insect attacks on stored logs and issuing reports to logging companies on trapping results for Trypodendron lineatum, the striped ambrosia beetle, an important pest in timber in storage (and an important primary breakdown organism in a natural forest).
Catherine Slater MSc (biology, forest entomology) JD
Heriot Bay
