November 21, 2024 • 48 mins
Join Jan Sumner and Kaya Adleman for this special episode as they look back on all they've unpacked on the Clear Cut. It's a bittersweet one as this is Kaya's last time as co-host before the show goes on hiatus.Â
Topics include: misguided industry responses to fire suppression, deceptive practices, greenwashing and pathways to a reimagined future for forestry management in Canada.
We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Kaya for taking us on an exploratory journey of Canada's forests and forestry practices.
Thank you for listening!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Clear Cut.
Hi, I'm Janet Sumner, ExecutiveDirector at Wildlands League.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And I'm Kaya Adelman, Carbon Manager at Wildlands
League.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Wildlands League is a Canadian conservation
organization working onprotecting the natural world.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
The Clear Cut is bringing to you the much needed
conversation on Canadian forestmanagement and how we can better
protect one of Canada's mostimportant ecosystems, as our
forests are reaching a tippingpoint.
Welcome back.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yeah, nice to see you , Kaya.
It's been a few weeks sinceKaya and I sat down across the
Zoom and recorded an episode.
So before we started recording,I said to Kaya, what the heck
are we going to talk about today?
And the reason I said that isbecause we have come to the end
(01:01):
of our time with Kaya.
We're going to have to saygoodbye to her and that's and
that's really sad for me.
Uh, I have loved every minute ofour recording sessions and our
time together, and this pastyear has been really a treat to
work with her.
Um, it also keeps me, um,thinking and refreshes my
mindset, and it's, uh, really,really good for me to be working
(01:21):
with somebody acrossgenerations, which is absolutely
something that we have to keepdoing.
For me, kaya's going to be abig miss on the podcast, and
we'll see if we can get back upand running in September, maybe
with a new host or justcontinuing with boring old me,
and we'll see where we go.
(01:41):
But the podcast will be goingon hiatus after this for a few
weeks and then we'll see wherewe are.
Back in September, kaya cantell us a little bit more about
where she's going and what she'sgoing to be doing, and maybe we
could start with that.
And congratulations, kaya, forthis next stage in your life.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
And you know, likewise I'm.
This is a very bittersweetrecording for me because I mean,
as as excited as I am to go onto the next uh stage in my, in
my career, um, this has been avery, um amazing experience and
you know, I've learned so muchum in the work that I've done
(02:22):
and seen everyone else do atWildlands League.
And I will just say, janet, um,you know, even though you think
that you're from an oldergeneration, I will say, when you
reached out to me to schedulethis final recording, your intro
was hope, you've been having abrat summer, so you are very
with it.
(02:42):
You know I don't think thepodcast would be, you know with
it.
You know I don't think I don'tthink the podcast would be, you
know, culturally irrelevant.
I do like the color chartreuse.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
I do like the color chartreuse.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah, I must confess.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, so I am going to law school in the fall.
I am moving back to the US andI'm going to law school in the
fall.
I am moving back to the US andI'm going to be attending
Rutgers University in Newark andhopefully that will be the
start of my journey towards acareer in environmental law,
which has kind of always been alifelong goal for me.
(03:19):
The law school has kind ofalways been a stage point in my
life, since I was very young.
Um, I think a lot of myenvironmental advocacy work has
also tied into that as well.
Um, and I've from from a veryyoung age.
(03:42):
You know, I grew up in a, I wasraised in a Jewish household
and the ideas of service andgiving back to your community
and making the world a betterplace were very ingrained in me,
and working on these very bigissues climate change and
biodiversity and nature losshave always been very poignant
(04:04):
and, yeah, so it's always beenon the trajectory.
But, yes, and I've been verygrateful to gain all the
experience and be able to workon the podcast at Wildlands.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Well, I'm looking forward to seeing what Kaya does
and how she grows out in theworld and what she brings to it.
She's a very detailed person,as many of you may have heard me
on the podcast, kaya is the onewho does the research and
figures out what everybody haswritten or done before and when
they come to the podcast.
We're well armed with all ofthat information so we can make
the interviews the best wepossibly can and then also
(04:42):
provide all of the details andlinks on the various people that
are in each episode.
And if you haven't listened tothe podcast before, go back and
listen to all the differentepisodes.
But for this episode kaya isgoing to walk us through.
We thought it might just be goodto to sort of walk through all
the various episodes and whatKaya had taken from her journey
(05:06):
and learned along the way,because we're going to get a
chance to discuss that and alsodiscuss it in relevance to today
and what's happening right now.
Like we've got wildfires.
I'm thinking about doing someof the work in Eastern Canada
with folks to regrow the Acadianor reestablish the Acadian
forest out there.
So anyway, taya, you take itaway and start walking us
(05:29):
through all the things thatyou've taken away from this
podcast, and it's going to bemostly you.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yes, I love to yap, so I guess, top of mind, what
have I learned from the clearcut?
And first of all, so much aboutCanadian forests.
I mean, I have a degree inenvironmental studies basically.
So I mean I have some trainingand have done a lot of learning
(05:58):
about ecology and environmentalsciences et cetera, et cetera,
but I think I definitely got ahuge crash course in everything
that there is to know.
But even that's the thing, it'snot everything that there is to
know.
There's so much more that wehaven't covered on the podcast
that there is to know aboutCanada's forests and their
global significance.
(06:19):
We learned about how forestryand how forests you know what
their ecological value is acrossthe country.
We went to BC, we were inAlberta, we were in Ontario, we
were in Atlantic Canada.
So there's definitely likeecological and structural
(06:42):
nuances surrounding the forestsacross the country.
But there are many connectingthreads, as we've learned,
between how forest managementworks and operates in Canada,
and the biggest connectingthread is this feed-the-mill
paradigm paradigm and thatforest management ultimately
(07:05):
serves the purpose of maximizingthe amount of cubic meters of
forest, of timber, that you canfit through a mill.
In our episode with Dr PeterWood, now professor at UBC.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
We've learned that we have a volume-based system
which allows companies toharvest a certain number of
cubic meters, and then we haveTFLs tree farm licenses that are
sort of spatially explicitareas that a company might be
allowed to harvest, and theyhave a requirement to replant.
(07:41):
And this really is the mindsetwe have a farm, we have a tree
farm license, so this is aperpetual growth of trees over
time and that really isreflective of a paradigm.
Right, that's a way of thinkingof the world.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
And then in our episode on the circular economy
of forestry with former ForestStewardship Council President
Francois Dufresne, he says Well,a large portion of our forest
is still viewed as a commodity.
In our episode that we did withthe Canadian Parks and
(08:19):
Wilderness Society, SouthernAlberta chapter.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Josh Killeen says there's this assumption that the
timber supply must be obtained,the mill must be fed and that
must increase over time, we mustincrease shareholder value, and
so on.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
And then we had our very own Dave Pierce, senior
forest conservation manager fromWildlands, on the show to talk
about forestry in Ontario.
Speaker 6 (08:46):
And he talks about how they looked at the forest
and said you know what?
They sent out timber cruisers.
I think there's this much onthere and we're going to
basically harvest enough to feedthe mills.
And they built these huge millswithout really understanding
what they could sustain.
And the battle has been eversince to try to sustain these
(09:06):
wood flows, which were in mostcases inflated.
They didn't know that theforest you know how the forest
was going to grow back.
They didn't really know howmuch timber they had.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
And then, of course, back in British Columbia.
Speaker 7 (09:19):
We had the folks from Stand Earth, richard and Tegan,
on, and Tegan describesforestry in British Columbia as
such a boom and bust economySome people have called it the
continuation of the gold rusheconomy and communities are
still really suffering from theimpacts of mills that continue
(09:39):
to curtail their shifts or shutdown completely after having
taken all of these resourcesfrom the local lands.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
So there really was, I think, throughout the podcast,
this underlying frame that wehave built these mills and our
forestry aims are ultimately toserve the sustaining of those
mills serve the sustaining ofthose mills.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Yeah, so when we talk about forestry being
sustainable, it's often reallyabout sustaining wood flows, not
making sure that the forest isa sustainable forest.
I think that's what you'rehighlighting.
I think that's a really greattakeaway and it was certainly
one of the things because I cameto Wildlands League not having
a forestry degree and it wascertainly one of the things
because I came to WildlandsLeague not having a forestry
degree.
But you know, 20 years later,you really you learn a thing or
(10:29):
two, and I think it really isthe presumption that you're
going to sustain the andmaximize the wood flow to the
mill.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yeah, yeah, no-transcript.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
I would also just one last comment.
Francois is transitioning outof FSC, so I think the new
person coming is Monica Patel,so she'll be the new president
or CEO at the FSC in Canada.
He hasn't quite finished yet.
He'll be finished in December.
So, depending on when youlisten to this podcast, he could
have already gone or he'salmost leaving.
(11:33):
So we wish him well.
Speaker 5 (11:34):
But one of the things he also said we can actually
look at what the forest canprovide or sustain naturally and
more responsibly for futuregeneration by actually adapting
our economic opportunities withthose values.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
And then actually do our metrics, as opposed to hey,
we've got a mill, we've got tofeed it.
So, that's a very different andthat's from an industry guy
just thinking completely in thereverse way.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, it was great to have Francois on the podcast
and kind of in that same line ofthinking about metrics.
One other key takeaway I hadwas that the way we monitor the
overall health and resilience ofour forests, which are so
globally important, kind of alsofits into the umbrella of this
(12:29):
feed the mill paradigm.
We interviewed the NRDC andNature Canada about their forest
carbon accounting report thatthey put out a few years ago.
That episode is called FlawedForest Carbon Accounting and
they talk about how in Canadawe're not looking at the
explicit industrial carbonimpacts of logging.
Speaker 10 (12:54):
Like the implications of this policy
failure, beyond the fact thatwe're basically systematically
misleading Canadians aboutwhether or not the logging
industry is a challenge, thatwe're basically systematically
misleading Canadians aboutwhether or not the logging
industry is a challenge that wehave.
But the policy implications areenormous because the logging
(13:15):
industry has been allowed tobasically sit outside of the
regulatory process that thefederal government has been
developing.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
You know how we'll be able to alleviate the pressures
of climate change and theability of our forests to act as
a carbon sink if we don't knowhow our acute footprint in the
forest is impacting thosedynamics and that system?
We saw it in our logging scarsepisode that we did with Dave
Pierce how we're unable to seethat logging scars footprint
(13:47):
that we described and itsrelated ecological impacts if we
don't monitor our forests atthe resolution that they're
visible at.
The Canadian government hasdata on our forests at a 30
meter resolution and you can'treally see the acute impacts of
logging scars and clear-cutharvesting on the landscape at
(14:08):
that level and therefore wecan't make informed decisions
about how our forests are doing.
Information and the sciencethat exists when its
implications are inconvenientand maybe don't support this
(14:28):
overarching feed.
The mill paradigm has also comeup.
We interviewed Justina Ray fromthe Wildlife Conservation
Society, canada and our very own, anna Baggio, on caribou.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Caribou.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
So caribou are a conservation challenge for us in
Canada and they're veryemblematic of healthy and intact
boreal forests and, if youremember, the status of caribou
populations helps inform us onthe overall health of boreal
landscapes.
And we learned that cariboupopulations are declining across
Canada.
And yet we know that thefederal caribou recovery
strategy identifies 65%undisturbed habitat in a range
(15:17):
as the disturbance managementthreshold, which provides a
measurable probability 60% for alocal population to be
self-sustaining.
Speaker 9 (15:29):
We are failing terribly.
I'm like we know what thespecies needs.
The scientists have told us, weknow what's threatening the
species and we know what needsto be done.
I mean, the species is on acollision course right now with
industry and the resource sector, because the resource sector
wants all those trees, themining sector wants it for
critical minerals, people wantto build roads, people want to
(15:51):
have transmission lines.
All that is carving up thehabitat, fragmenting the habitat
, destroying the habitat,degrading the habitat.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
With the information that we do have.
You know we're not seeing thatinformation being applied to
policy or at the governmentlevel, and you know the same
thing applies to what we learnedabout wildfires in our episode
with fire ecologist Jen Barronout of the University of British
Columbia.
Speaker 11 (16:23):
So over the past hundred years we've been so
successful at putting out firesthat in the absence of that fire
a lot of fuel has accumulated.
So in the past more frequent,lower severity fires would have
removed a lot of that ingrowth,those seedlings that are
regenerating the branches in theunderstory.
In the absence of those fires,because we've put all of the
fires out so successfully forthe past hundred years, there's
(16:45):
a lot of fuel that's accumulatedand that's layered on top of a
lot of other land use changesrelated to forest management.
So, starting back in the early20th century with widespread
harvesting practices, highgrading, and then the legacies
of those changes, clear cuts andreplanting of forest ecosystems
and also the way that we treatresidue in the forest industry.
(17:08):
So the slash that's left behindafter harvesting has a big
influence on fire behavior.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
We now know that our harvesting practices leaving
unmerchantable timber on theharvest site, dragging heavy
machinery across the landscapesis one of the contributors to
the major extreme wildfires thatwe've been seeing last summer
and this summer, unfortunately,and there's still a huge push to
log more faster as a solutionto this issue.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yeah, I just want to go back on that and say, in
terms of that, that's a reallybig piece that the wildfire
response that we're seeing inCanada right now is to get out
and log more faster.
And yet the fuel load and howwe've actually built up that
fuel load from forestry is notbeing addressed.
We've got this fire suppressionmodel which basically, you know
, says don't allow some of thosesmaller burns to occur, which
(18:08):
is exactly what makes your forcea little bit more fire
resistant.
It also in terms of our treeplanting, we're not planting
back the deciduous trees orwe're not keeping them as much
as the coniferous trees, andthen that actually those, those
create a bit of a fire break.
And you can hear more aboutthat, certainly more
articulately than I justdescribed, from Jen Barron, the
(18:29):
fire ecologist that weinterviewed and then talked
about that in that episode.
Because that's, that's a bigpiece of the pie and we have got
massive wildfires happeningagain in Canada and it's just,
it's so depressing to see theresponse I've seen yesterday and
maybe a couple of days ago inthe papers written by a former
minister in Alberta saying yeah,you know, the right solution is
(18:52):
really to log more faster andclimate.
It's not about climate changewhich is just it's so
disheartening to see that thisis the response.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yeah, I was really thinking of, you know, al Gore's
, who is a US presidentialcandidate.
An inconvenient truth, and thescience is inconvenient.
But because it doesn't serveour you know overall aims with
(19:23):
forest management in Canada, wemight not be listening to it or
implementing it into the policylandscape.
Yeah, but kind of speakingabout the, we need to log more
faster.
That is definitely a messagingthat we've seen come from some
industry groups.
I think a big piece for me fromthis podcast was learning about
(19:46):
sustainable forest management,this new branding that we have
on forest management in Canadaand its ability to fit into the,
I guess socially acceptable, uh, uh socially defensible.
Yes, that is a good way to putit.
That's what I wanted to saySocially defensible um narrative
(20:09):
that we have oftentimes on, youknow, business practices today.
You know this is not new toanyone who has been listening to
the podcast for a while, but ifgreenwashing has no haters,
then I'm dead.
So obviously not to speak onbehalf of all young people
because, like any, my generationhas a lot of diverse ideas and
(20:34):
opinions about environmentalissues.
But a lot of young peoplereally do care about these
issues.
We want to be able to build afuture and forge our own path in
a clean, safe planet, but theidea that our approach to fixing
these solutions are wrapped upin glossy advertising and
(20:56):
campaigns is just so incrediblyfrustrating and to me it's just
a super insidious way tocapitalize on the very real
threat of climate change andloss of nature, and it presents
a huge roadblock to implementingany real and meaningful change.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
Lots of our guests on the podcast comment about the
sustainable forest managementparadigm, and Dr Peter Wood, who
we interviewed, says you know,this attempt to kind of rebrand
what kind of forestry we'redoing rebranding as sustainable
forest management was quite acoup for the industry because it
(21:38):
allowed them to say that whatthey were doing took into
consideration you know, allthese multiple values, that it
was this sort of very broad termthat allowed everybody to read
into it what they wanted to see.
It was very difficult tochallenge.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
We also interviewed Michelle Connelly from
Conservation North out ofBritish Columbia.
She says in our episode isforestry pathological.
Speaker 8 (22:08):
People invested in industrial forestry are putting
forth the idea that we cansomehow improve these things by
just logging natural forestsbetter, and we heartily disagree
.
We've seen this experiment playout our whole lives and it's
failing.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
So not only this idea that forest management in its
current state is now all of asudden sustainable, it's this
idea that it's a solution toaddress pest outbreaks,
wildfires, other, you know,natural functions, oftentimes
natural functions of the forestin the effort to serve mainly
(22:50):
economic interests or theinterests of the mill
interesting that you're bringingall those together because
you're basically.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
My takeaway from what you're just saying is that when
you look at the messages and wehaven't done this kind of scan
back, but you are doing it nowwhich is, we have a number of
guests who've all saidsustainability is really about
sustaining the amount of fiberor the amount of cubic meters
going through the mill.
That's number one.
(23:20):
Number two is the messages comeback is that we've branded
forestry as sustainable andwe're also now purporting it to
be a solution to climate changeand to insect outbreaks etc.
And so this starts to build upa, I guess, a body of um words
(23:44):
or approaches that, in ourworldview, would be seen as
greenwashing, because it'strying to put a patina on this
forestry that suggests it's oursolution and it doesn't have any
problems, which is, yeah,that's that's.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
That's a really great way to frame that and bring
that back together yeah, it'slike an, it's an unscrutinized
uh view of uh of forestmanagement in canada.
Um, I, I feel like and knowwhen I think about the time and
money invested into thesustainable forest management
(24:23):
greenwashing.
We had journalist Joan Baxteron our podcast talk about some
of the Canadian forestindustry's PR campaigns and she
talked specifically about theForestry for the Future campaign
.
Specifically about the Forestryfor the Future campaign.
Speaker 12 (24:43):
So there will be cross-platform digital
advertising, earned and paidmedia relations, which is really
worrisome.
Of course, the media are introuble, so they take any money
they can get from anything andany content they can take
Out-of-home advertising which isin transit, shelters and
airports.
They have money, obviously.
(25:03):
Multi-medium flagship contentthe Capturing Carbon documentary
, canadian Forestry Can Save theWorld podcast, animated video
shorts and creative assetproduction TikTok and Instagram,
influencer partnerships,indigenous partnerships,
community development andreal-time knowledge building and
(25:26):
their purpose was to let me seesaturate target audiences and
increase public opinion of thesector and to create a more
amenable environment to advancethe sector's policy priorities.
Well, any industry's policypriorities are going to take
(25:48):
precedence over other prioritiesfor me, which would be the
health of the forests.
So it was a deliberate and verywell thought out and no doubt,
very, very expensive campaigndesigned to help the industry
get exactly what it wants, whichis more access to the forest,
and to be able to do more ofwhat they want in what's left of
(26:10):
the forests.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
So I guess this is just getting back to what I was
saying earlier is that we'reputting a lot of not only are we
rebranding the forestry.
That we was saying earlier isthat we're putting a lot of not
only are we rebranding theforestry, that we're doing
without scrutiny, we're puttinga lot of time and effort and
money into this um rebrandingwhen we could be, you know,
putting more of that towardsthinking through real paradigm
(26:35):
shifting solutions.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
I think one of the big things I think about is that
, like, when you say a paradigmshift and I think that is short
form for let's actually talkabout what the principles are
behind forestry and what it'sset up to do so if we set the
table to basically maximize thevolume of trees going through a
mill, then what's the newparadigm?
(27:05):
What does that look like?
And we're going through anenergy transition right now.
We're transitioning from oneparadigm in terms of how we
provide energy to hopefully, anew one that actually functions
better with the climate andhelps secure a safe climate.
So what is the new transitionfor forestry?
What does that look like?
(27:25):
How does it better serve us interms of keeping a robust,
thriving natural world and howdoes it also contribute to
securing a safe climate?
Because it's got a big role toplay in terms of absorbing CO2
or carbon based greenhouse gasesand how we prevent it from
(27:48):
producing and releasing thosegases to the atmosphere.
So it's got all of those rolesand so we start with that as our
fundamental, as opposed totrying to make sure we maximize
the fiber going through a mill.
I think that's different.
Also, starting with, how do wemaximize jobs, and that might be
a very different question thanhow we maximize the amount of
(28:08):
timber or amount of throughputwe have in a mill.
Like that's going to get jobs inthe mill, but is it the maximum
number of jobs in an area for aforest dependent community?
Maybe it's producing community,maybe it's producing products,
maybe it's making things, maybeit's harvesting other
ingredients out of the forest,maybe it's.
You know, different kinds ofways of thinking about the
forest and the economic valuesyou can, whether it's carbon or
(28:31):
whether it's tourism, or whetherit's other products or
synergistic products, like interms of different types of I
think they're maple syrups, butalso other kinds of birch bark
syrup, all those kinds of things.
And just thinking in a verydifferent way and starting to
bring it all together as opposedto we have one industry, one
goal, one thought process and wehave lost more jobs to
(28:56):
mechanization of forestry thanwe've, you know, and we have not
started to rethink how weactually secure those jobs.
So I think that paradigm shift,that thinking that you're
suggesting, is really asking usto relook at this whole problem
from first principles.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Yeah, like I so agree , and I think what I've loved
about doing the podcast with youis that all of our guests have
been very forthcoming andsharing what they imagine the
world to look like, or what theyimagine Canadian forest
management to look like, youknow, in a paradigm shifting way
(29:36):
, in a paradigm shifting way,and so that's given me a lot of
hope.
I think there's, rightfully alot that's happening in the
world that can ignite feelingsof hopelessness and despair.
It can be feel veryoverwhelming to think about.
You know, how do I, as anindividual, change how Canadian
(29:58):
forest management works whenthere's so many other things
that we're confronted with,oftentimes at an individual
level the increasing cost ofliving, health care, taxes,
unemployment, debt, child care,you know and these feelings can
be very paralyzing and you knowthere's a lot of research that
backs up that those feelings ofhope and despair are very
(30:22):
paralyzing and I think what thispodcast has taught me is that
there's so much hope andstrength in community and
meeting and talking to peoplewho really care about Canada's
forests and their importance andlearning about the work that
they're involved with to protectthem.
(30:43):
I mean one of the top, the topone point blank that comes to
mind is the work of David Floodwith Wakotuin development and
the incorporation of two-eyedseeing Indigenous knowledge into
everything that they do.
Seeing Indigenous knowledgeinto everything that they do.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
That is the purposing of what Cotuin is to actually
turn that page and find thevehicles, find the pathways to
accelerate that resurgence ofmoving us to that inherent
rights jurisdiction andhonouring what Section 35 was
meant to and actually showingthat we can lead the way, both
through ownership and forestryassets.
(31:23):
It doesn't mean we support thesystem that's in place for
harvesting, but someone's goingto do it anyway, and so we're
working in multiple angles.
We want to change the wayforests are managed.
We want to be involved in theeconomy of forest.
We want to be involved indiversification of it.
We want to actually getinvolved in self-supplying our
own homes.
We've got to come up withanother way of making available
(31:45):
that fiber in some mannerthat'll be effective in our
communities.
So it's well.
My utopia as a land user and aharvester and a manager is to
understand who you're actuallysustainably managing the
resources for.
You know, and at the end of theday, if we actually do it right
(32:09):
and lean into the way FirstNations want to see the
landscape managed, it'llactually benefit the world.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
I mean, that's actually been proven time and
time again world I mean that'sactually been proven time and
time again Like they're reallythinking of how they incorporate
their culture and interactionwith the land into how we do
that in today's world and thestate of our forest today,
bringing back Indigenousguardians, rekindling their
(32:37):
relationship and stewardship ofthe land.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
I was just going to say.
I don't think I'll ever forgethis story about the little frog.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Instead of like spraying 50 to 100, 1500
hectares and having those littletree frogs sitting on the trees
with all the leaves falling offgoing.
Oh, I'm supposed to try and getfrom here to that standing
cover of forest over there andit's a kilometer away.
How does that little frog dothat?
He doesn't.
He dies.
And there's many, many frogs inthe forest like that, many mice
(33:10):
, many small animals.
We call them all our relationsright the crawlers, the walkers,
right the swimmers.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Yeah, how does that little tree frog that's left in
the middle of a clear cut makeit to safety?
That is, you know, severalhundred meters away and what
does it, you know.
So, just in terms of the waythat the whole thinking behind
Wakotuin and how they thinkabout forestry, it, you know,
deeply humbles me in terms ofthe first principles that bring
(33:59):
to the process.
It's just incredible.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Yeah, those are very different principles than feed
the mill for sure, theirancestral lands and resources
and how they're actually notonly doing that, but we're we're
learning about and through thatwe're learning about a better
way to do joint lands andresources management with
indigenous peoples, and I thinkthat's that's so important.
Um, in what's next for Canadianforest management?
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah, great.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
And, um, you know I'm going to go back to Michelle
with my last, with my last topline message of hope.
Speaker 8 (34:53):
There's a kind of like elevated professionalism
that gets in the way of regularpeople being involved in
advocating for natural forestprotection and I think that
deters a lot of people fromgetting involved.
That's definitely the case inBC.
This kind of like.
Only experts have the right tocomment on the destruction of
(35:14):
biodiversity.
That is not the case.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
I think that is really meaningful and I think
really helps me, and I hopeanyone who has been listening to
the podcast really takes thatto heart, because I mean, if you
care about the naturalresources, maybe it's you live
in a community that's dependenton the forest, or you travel,
(35:41):
you like to do recreation in theforest, like, or if you just
care about Canada's forestsbecause of their global
significance for climate changeand biodiversity, like you don't
have to have a master's inforestry to be able to advocate,
or maybe you like to breathe,you know things like that.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Right, I mean because that's the thing you talk about
the global significance butthese wildfires are impacting
air quality and last time we sawthem affecting air quality all
the way down to washington right, like in uh, in dc, um, you
know so, so it's, it's it.
It really is like, if you liketo breathe or you like your
climate to be safe, any of thosebasic things, then you can
(36:23):
engage on what's happening onforests, and even if you do some
takeaways from ours and applythem to the US forestry, it's
also relevant right Like how weharvest and what we harvest and
how much we harvest isabsolutely an important piece.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Yes, oh, definitely, definitely.
Yeah, I enjoy breathing fromtime to time.
That's kind of the those topline messages of hope that I've
garnered from the podcast.
When I was an undergrad I reada book called the Uninhabitable
Earth by David Wallace-Wells.
(36:58):
He's a reporter at the New YorkTimes and there's an article, a
short version article, of hisbook that you can find online as
well, but he writes about thenotion that if humans have
created the environmentaldisaster, we are capable of
undoing it.
And he writes the path we areon as a planet should terrify
(37:20):
anyone living on it.
But, thinking like one people,all the relevant inputs are
within our control and there isno mysticism required to
interpret or command the fate ofthe earth, only an acceptance
of responsibility.
And I really like that call toaction, I like the call to
action from Michelle and I likeI've been really inspired by all
(37:42):
of the work that our guestshave been doing on the clear cut
.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Yeah, it's.
Maybe I'll just reference acouple of other things is that
we also heard from Kim talkingabout urban forestry and how
that's hope right in your ownbackyard if you're living in an
urban or near urban area thatthere are many uh foresters that
are across canada and down intothe us that are thinking about
the urban environment and whatdoes that mean for trees and
(38:11):
what does what do more treesmean for the urban environment?
I think that's a big piece.
One of the other updates I'lljust give you is um and this is
just because I've been doingsome work since k Kai has been
out getting prepared for lawschool that apparently there is
going to be.
One of the challenges that wehave with what's happening in
(38:31):
our forests is the data layersthat we've been looking at are
at this 30 meter resolution,especially if we want to have a
time capsule, like you want tobe able to back cast and see how
forestry you know what happenedto that forest and then where's
it at now.
So if you're going to figureout the carbon impact, you have
to know well, we cut it in 1982and now it's, you know, 2024 and
(38:55):
this much is regrown or thismuch less or whatever, but you
need to be able to do that math.
My understanding is there isgoing to be a new data layer
that will be available.
It won't allow you to backcastin any way, but it will give you
a real-time or at least a veryrecent time, one-meter
(39:15):
resolution for the tree canopyheight cover.
So this is actually going to be,I think, changer.
And it's planetary, so it's not, uh, you know, restricted to
just north america, or whatwe've seen with some of the more
recent spatial analysis hasbeen, uh, very focused on the
tropics and has ignored thenorth, which is, uh, we discuss
(39:39):
in our episode with etel Ygeni,and that is, you know, basically
blaming the global south fordeforestation and not taking
ownership of the deforestationand degradation that happens in
the north.
But this new day layer,apparently, is going to be out
very soon, or, if not, it'salready out.
(39:59):
So that's a big piece.
And then the other one thatI've seen coming from Ontario,
which is the province I live in,is they're talking about having
a 30 centimeter, I believe, a16 or 30 centimeter data layer
for all of Ontario by 2027, Ibelieve will be a big game
(40:25):
changer because you'll be ableto see the spatial disturbance
in reality and what's going on,not just this 30 meter, which is
not showing things that arelike three to four meters wide,
which are the roads and thelandings that get put in place
when you're doing a full treeharvesting.
So I think those could well begame changers and I think we may
be on the cusp of some of thesenew ways of analyzing the
(40:47):
forest, being able to providebetter information so we can
make better decisions, and notjust relying on the the word or
the promise of the industry orgovernments that hey, hey, we're
sustainable because we requireit, which is right now, quite
frankly, really the way thingsare operated is sustainability
(41:10):
is required.
Therefore, we tell the rest ofthe world that we're being
sustainable because it'srequired, but we aren't.
I don't know how those thingscan be true and still have
caribou ranges collapsing.
So yeah, that's a big, that's abig miss.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing those come out
.
I mean, even though I'll be inlaw school, I will be keeping
track of all of the ongoings inin this space.
And yeah, I love to hear whatyou can count.
You can change.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Absolutely.
The other one that we did agreat episode on and I know Kaya
was very interested in becauseshe is going to law school and
she's interested in legal meansis how the different legal
frameworks are going to beaffecting forestry globally, and
that is the EU has come outwith a directive on degradation
(42:05):
and deforestation where they'renot going to accept fiber from
regions where or fiber that hascome from a region with
deforestation or degradation,and that is I think it's
supposed to be in force by theend of this year.
Go back and listen to thatepisode for the exact details.
(42:27):
But that was also something Icould see Kaya's eyes light up
across the cameras from me thatyou know this was a big deal,
and right now Canada has beenarguing that you know we have no
deforestation and almost nodegradation over time.
And that over time piece isreally important because it's
(42:48):
saying, basically, eventually,the models because we run
forestry models, we do all thiscalculation, we feed in all this
data Sometimes it takesmillions of dollars to produce
these forest management plantsand we run the models out and
then it says, ah, the forest isregrown in 80 years.
We don't have the luxury ofwaiting that long.
No, and, quite frankly, we canlook at forest management plans
(43:09):
that were supposed to becompletely sustainable, and
logging scars demonstrates thatafter 35 years, those areas that
we thought were going to beregrown are just not so I think
there is great hope in havingthe degradation deforestation
procurement policies coming outof the EU and we're also seeing
(43:31):
those now popping up in variousUS states and the fact that it
also got bipartisan support inCongress was crazy.
Congress, Congress was crazy.
So.
So I think that there is somehope here that that it's not
just young people who want tosee these things, but it's
actually the very systems ofpower that are now starting to
(43:52):
wrestle with these, these ideas,and put this in.
And you know, Canada's fightingagainst it.
We have the proof of that.
We have the letters.
They're online.
Please check out the Italigoneepisode.
It will say more about that.
But certainly, in terms of those, that degradation piece is
going to be a very big piecethat Canada is going to have to
(44:14):
wrestle with.
And, very specifically, I don'tknow how we can have almost no
degradation when our caribouranges are collapsing because
they're in exceedance of thedisturbance regimes that we've
put out there.
So those two things cannot beoh, it's all sustainable, but
caribou are in massive decline,and one of the ways that you can
(44:38):
measure this is the federalgovernment just did a safety net
order in Quebec, because Ithink it was three ranges have
been deem, deemed to be extremerisks.
That not even just a protectionorder.
It was a safety net or, orsorry, a protection order a
section 80.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Has cabinet?
Has cabinet voted on?
Speaker 1 (44:57):
It got approved and it's already been issued.
There is now consultationhappening on this.
It was brought by the FirstNations there, but maybe we can
actually provide a link to thatso people can actually read
about it.
In case I've misnamed it, butit is an emergency order.
It's not just a safety netorder, so check that out.
(45:18):
It's a section 80 under theSpecies Risk Act that the
federal government has done onthree ranges in Quebec.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
That's awesome.
Thank you, environment MinisterStephen Guilbeault for bringing
that forward.
I was actually going to thankyou on the train when I was
coming back from Toronto.
Saw you in line boarding.
But I'll thank you on thepodcast.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Okay great.
So, kaya, that is one heck of awhirlwind wrap up and, as you
can see, there are still issuesthat I'd love to keep unpacking.
Going forward, we will be onhiatus and I'll let people know
when we're ready to resume andwhat kind of format.
I will also say that, foranybody who's listening to this,
(46:02):
you can maybe catch up with uson our email listserv that we
have.
If you haven't signed up forthat, you should, because it
will include updates on thispodcast, but also updates on all
of our work.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Yeah, I mean also to anyone who has been listening to
the podcast.
I'd like to just extend mysincerest thank yous for
listening to me ramble on for 40minutes to an hour sometimes
every week.
I hope you learn as much aboutCanada's forests as I did.
(46:38):
And yeah, and also thank you somuch to the team at Wildlands
and Jan for you know havingfaith in me in the editing
process for this.
I really appreciate them andyou know obviously, all of our
listeners.
It's been really great to seethe podcast grow over the past
(46:58):
year and I will miss everyone somuch.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
Yeah, we couldn't have done it without you, kaya.
When Kaya and I started, we hadan external contractor who was
helping us produce the show, andthen, finally, kaya just said
to me I can do this.
So she did it, picked it up,did it better and did a great
job, and so we are deeplygrateful for all of Kaya's
incredible work behind thescenes, and I will miss you, but
(47:24):
I'm really looking forward tohow you just explode into the
next episode in your life.
So, uh, go forth and do greatwork oh, thank you.
Thank you so much please thanks,thank you, thank you.
Welcome to the Clear Cut.
Hi, I'm Janet Sumner, ExecutiveDirector at Wildlands League.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And I'm Kaya Adelman, Carbon Manager at Wildlands
League.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Wildlands League is a Canadian conservation
organization working onprotecting the natural world.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
The Clear Cut is bringing to you the much needed
conversation on Canadian forestmanagement and how we can better
protect one of Canada's mostimportant ecosystems, as our
forests are reaching a tippingpoint.
Welcome back.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yeah, nice to see you , Kaya.
It's been a few weeks sinceKaya and I sat down across the
Zoom and recorded an episode.
So before we started recording,I said to Kaya, what the heck
are we going to talk about today?
And the reason I said that isbecause we have come to the end
(01:01):
of our time with Kaya.
We're going to have to saygoodbye to her and that's and
that's really sad for me.
Uh, I have loved every minute ofour recording sessions and our
time together, and this pastyear has been really a treat to
work with her.
Um, it also keeps me, um,thinking and refreshes my
mindset, and it's, uh, really,really good for me to be working
(01:21):
with somebody acrossgenerations, which is absolutely
something that we have to keepdoing.
For me, kaya's going to be abig miss on the podcast, and
we'll see if we can get back upand running in September, maybe
with a new host or justcontinuing with boring old me,
and we'll see where we go.
(01:41):
But the podcast will be goingon hiatus after this for a few
weeks and then we'll see wherewe are.
Back in September, kaya cantell us a little bit more about
where she's going and what she'sgoing to be doing, and maybe we
could start with that.
And congratulations, kaya, forthis next stage in your life.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
And you know, likewise I'm.
This is a very bittersweetrecording for me because I mean,
as as excited as I am to go onto the next uh stage in my, in
my career, um, this has been avery, um amazing experience and
you know, I've learned so muchum in the work that I've done
(02:22):
and seen everyone else do atWildlands League.
And I will just say, janet, um,you know, even though you think
that you're from an oldergeneration, I will say, when you
reached out to me to schedulethis final recording, your intro
was hope, you've been having abrat summer, so you are very
with it.
(02:42):
You know I don't think thepodcast would be, you know with
it.
You know I don't think I don'tthink the podcast would be, you
know, culturally irrelevant.
I do like the color chartreuse.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
I do like the color chartreuse.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah, I must confess.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, so I am going to law school in the fall.
I am moving back to the US andI'm going to law school in the
fall.
I am moving back to the US andI'm going to be attending
Rutgers University in Newark andhopefully that will be the
start of my journey towards acareer in environmental law,
which has kind of always been alifelong goal for me.
(03:19):
The law school has kind ofalways been a stage point in my
life, since I was very young.
Um, I think a lot of myenvironmental advocacy work has
also tied into that as well.
Um, and I've from from a veryyoung age.
(03:42):
You know, I grew up in a, I wasraised in a Jewish household
and the ideas of service andgiving back to your community
and making the world a betterplace were very ingrained in me,
and working on these very bigissues climate change and
biodiversity and nature losshave always been very poignant
(04:04):
and, yeah, so it's always beenon the trajectory.
But, yes, and I've been verygrateful to gain all the
experience and be able to workon the podcast at Wildlands.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Well, I'm looking forward to seeing what Kaya does
and how she grows out in theworld and what she brings to it.
She's a very detailed person,as many of you may have heard me
on the podcast, kaya is the onewho does the research and
figures out what everybody haswritten or done before and when
they come to the podcast.
We're well armed with all ofthat information so we can make
the interviews the best wepossibly can and then also
(04:42):
provide all of the details andlinks on the various people that
are in each episode.
And if you haven't listened tothe podcast before, go back and
listen to all the differentepisodes.
But for this episode kaya isgoing to walk us through.
We thought it might just be goodto to sort of walk through all
the various episodes and whatKaya had taken from her journey
(05:06):
and learned along the way,because we're going to get a
chance to discuss that and alsodiscuss it in relevance to today
and what's happening right now.
Like we've got wildfires.
I'm thinking about doing someof the work in Eastern Canada
with folks to regrow the Acadianor reestablish the Acadian
forest out there.
So anyway, taya, you take itaway and start walking us
(05:29):
through all the things thatyou've taken away from this
podcast, and it's going to bemostly you.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yes, I love to yap, so I guess, top of mind, what
have I learned from the clearcut?
And first of all, so much aboutCanadian forests.
I mean, I have a degree inenvironmental studies basically.
So I mean I have some trainingand have done a lot of learning
(05:58):
about ecology and environmentalsciences et cetera, et cetera,
but I think I definitely got ahuge crash course in everything
that there is to know.
But even that's the thing, it'snot everything that there is to
know.
There's so much more that wehaven't covered on the podcast
that there is to know aboutCanada's forests and their
global significance.
(06:19):
We learned about how forestryand how forests you know what
their ecological value is acrossthe country.
We went to BC, we were inAlberta, we were in Ontario, we
were in Atlantic Canada.
So there's definitely likeecological and structural
(06:42):
nuances surrounding the forestsacross the country.
But there are many connectingthreads, as we've learned,
between how forest managementworks and operates in Canada,
and the biggest connectingthread is this feed-the-mill
paradigm paradigm and thatforest management ultimately
(07:05):
serves the purpose of maximizingthe amount of cubic meters of
forest, of timber, that you canfit through a mill.
In our episode with Dr PeterWood, now professor at UBC.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
We've learned that we have a volume-based system
which allows companies toharvest a certain number of
cubic meters, and then we haveTFLs tree farm licenses that are
sort of spatially explicitareas that a company might be
allowed to harvest, and theyhave a requirement to replant.
(07:41):
And this really is the mindsetwe have a farm, we have a tree
farm license, so this is aperpetual growth of trees over
time and that really isreflective of a paradigm.
Right, that's a way of thinkingof the world.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
And then in our episode on the circular economy
of forestry with former ForestStewardship Council President
Francois Dufresne, he says Well,a large portion of our forest
is still viewed as a commodity.
In our episode that we did withthe Canadian Parks and
(08:19):
Wilderness Society, SouthernAlberta chapter.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Josh Killeen says there's this assumption that the
timber supply must be obtained,the mill must be fed and that
must increase over time, we mustincrease shareholder value, and
so on.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
And then we had our very own Dave Pierce, senior
forest conservation manager fromWildlands, on the show to talk
about forestry in Ontario.
Speaker 6 (08:46):
And he talks about how they looked at the forest
and said you know what?
They sent out timber cruisers.
I think there's this much onthere and we're going to
basically harvest enough to feedthe mills.
And they built these huge millswithout really understanding
what they could sustain.
And the battle has been eversince to try to sustain these
(09:06):
wood flows, which were in mostcases inflated.
They didn't know that theforest you know how the forest
was going to grow back.
They didn't really know howmuch timber they had.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
And then, of course, back in British Columbia.
Speaker 7 (09:19):
We had the folks from Stand Earth, richard and Tegan,
on, and Tegan describesforestry in British Columbia as
such a boom and bust economySome people have called it the
continuation of the gold rusheconomy and communities are
still really suffering from theimpacts of mills that continue
(09:39):
to curtail their shifts or shutdown completely after having
taken all of these resourcesfrom the local lands.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
So there really was, I think, throughout the podcast,
this underlying frame that wehave built these mills and our
forestry aims are ultimately toserve the sustaining of those
mills serve the sustaining ofthose mills.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Yeah, so when we talk about forestry being
sustainable, it's often reallyabout sustaining wood flows, not
making sure that the forest isa sustainable forest.
I think that's what you'rehighlighting.
I think that's a really greattakeaway and it was certainly
one of the things because I cameto Wildlands League not having
a forestry degree and it wascertainly one of the things
because I came to WildlandsLeague not having a forestry
degree.
But you know, 20 years later,you really you learn a thing or
(10:29):
two, and I think it really isthe presumption that you're
going to sustain the andmaximize the wood flow to the
mill.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yeah, yeah, no-transcript.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
I would also just one last comment.
Francois is transitioning outof FSC, so I think the new
person coming is Monica Patel,so she'll be the new president
or CEO at the FSC in Canada.
He hasn't quite finished yet.
He'll be finished in December.
So, depending on when youlisten to this podcast, he could
have already gone or he'salmost leaving.
(11:33):
So we wish him well.
Speaker 5 (11:34):
But one of the things he also said we can actually
look at what the forest canprovide or sustain naturally and
more responsibly for futuregeneration by actually adapting
our economic opportunities withthose values.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
And then actually do our metrics, as opposed to hey,
we've got a mill, we've got tofeed it.
So, that's a very different andthat's from an industry guy
just thinking completely in thereverse way.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, it was great to have Francois on the podcast
and kind of in that same line ofthinking about metrics.
One other key takeaway I hadwas that the way we monitor the
overall health and resilience ofour forests, which are so
globally important, kind of alsofits into the umbrella of this
(12:29):
feed the mill paradigm.
We interviewed the NRDC andNature Canada about their forest
carbon accounting report thatthey put out a few years ago.
That episode is called FlawedForest Carbon Accounting and
they talk about how in Canadawe're not looking at the
explicit industrial carbonimpacts of logging.
Speaker 10 (12:54):
Like the implications of this policy
failure, beyond the fact thatwe're basically systematically
misleading Canadians aboutwhether or not the logging
industry is a challenge, thatwe're basically systematically
misleading Canadians aboutwhether or not the logging
industry is a challenge that wehave.
But the policy implications areenormous because the logging
(13:15):
industry has been allowed tobasically sit outside of the
regulatory process that thefederal government has been
developing.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
You know how we'll be able to alleviate the pressures
of climate change and theability of our forests to act as
a carbon sink if we don't knowhow our acute footprint in the
forest is impacting thosedynamics and that system?
We saw it in our logging scarsepisode that we did with Dave
Pierce how we're unable to seethat logging scars footprint
(13:47):
that we described and itsrelated ecological impacts if we
don't monitor our forests atthe resolution that they're
visible at.
The Canadian government hasdata on our forests at a 30
meter resolution and you can'treally see the acute impacts of
logging scars and clear-cutharvesting on the landscape at
(14:08):
that level and therefore wecan't make informed decisions
about how our forests are doing.
Information and the sciencethat exists when its
implications are inconvenientand maybe don't support this
(14:28):
overarching feed.
The mill paradigm has also comeup.
We interviewed Justina Ray fromthe Wildlife Conservation
Society, canada and our very own, anna Baggio, on caribou.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Caribou.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
So caribou are a conservation challenge for us in
Canada and they're veryemblematic of healthy and intact
boreal forests and, if youremember, the status of caribou
populations helps inform us onthe overall health of boreal
landscapes.
And we learned that cariboupopulations are declining across
Canada.
And yet we know that thefederal caribou recovery
strategy identifies 65%undisturbed habitat in a range
(15:17):
as the disturbance managementthreshold, which provides a
measurable probability 60% for alocal population to be
self-sustaining.
Speaker 9 (15:29):
We are failing terribly.
I'm like we know what thespecies needs.
The scientists have told us, weknow what's threatening the
species and we know what needsto be done.
I mean, the species is on acollision course right now with
industry and the resource sector, because the resource sector
wants all those trees, themining sector wants it for
critical minerals, people wantto build roads, people want to
(15:51):
have transmission lines.
All that is carving up thehabitat, fragmenting the habitat
, destroying the habitat,degrading the habitat.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
With the information that we do have.
You know we're not seeing thatinformation being applied to
policy or at the governmentlevel, and you know the same
thing applies to what we learnedabout wildfires in our episode
with fire ecologist Jen Barronout of the University of British
Columbia.
Speaker 11 (16:23):
So over the past hundred years we've been so
successful at putting out firesthat in the absence of that fire
a lot of fuel has accumulated.
So in the past more frequent,lower severity fires would have
removed a lot of that ingrowth,those seedlings that are
regenerating the branches in theunderstory.
In the absence of those fires,because we've put all of the
fires out so successfully forthe past hundred years, there's
(16:45):
a lot of fuel that's accumulatedand that's layered on top of a
lot of other land use changesrelated to forest management.
So, starting back in the early20th century with widespread
harvesting practices, highgrading, and then the legacies
of those changes, clear cuts andreplanting of forest ecosystems
and also the way that we treatresidue in the forest industry.
(17:08):
So the slash that's left behindafter harvesting has a big
influence on fire behavior.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
We now know that our harvesting practices leaving
unmerchantable timber on theharvest site, dragging heavy
machinery across the landscapesis one of the contributors to
the major extreme wildfires thatwe've been seeing last summer
and this summer, unfortunately,and there's still a huge push to
log more faster as a solutionto this issue.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Yeah, I just want to go back on that and say, in
terms of that, that's a reallybig piece that the wildfire
response that we're seeing inCanada right now is to get out
and log more faster.
And yet the fuel load and howwe've actually built up that
fuel load from forestry is notbeing addressed.
We've got this fire suppressionmodel which basically, you know
, says don't allow some of thosesmaller burns to occur, which
(18:08):
is exactly what makes your forcea little bit more fire
resistant.
It also in terms of our treeplanting, we're not planting
back the deciduous trees orwe're not keeping them as much
as the coniferous trees, andthen that actually those, those
create a bit of a fire break.
And you can hear more aboutthat, certainly more
articulately than I justdescribed, from Jen Barron, the
(18:29):
fire ecologist that weinterviewed and then talked
about that in that episode.
Because that's, that's a bigpiece of the pie and we have got
massive wildfires happeningagain in Canada and it's just,
it's so depressing to see theresponse I've seen yesterday and
maybe a couple of days ago inthe papers written by a former
minister in Alberta saying yeah,you know, the right solution is
(18:52):
really to log more faster andclimate.
It's not about climate changewhich is just it's so
disheartening to see that thisis the response.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yeah, I was really thinking of, you know, al Gore's
, who is a US presidentialcandidate.
An inconvenient truth, and thescience is inconvenient.
But because it doesn't serveour you know overall aims with
(19:23):
forest management in Canada, wemight not be listening to it or
implementing it into the policylandscape.
Yeah, but kind of speakingabout the, we need to log more
faster.
That is definitely a messagingthat we've seen come from some
industry groups.
I think a big piece for me fromthis podcast was learning about
(19:46):
sustainable forest management,this new branding that we have
on forest management in Canadaand its ability to fit into the,
I guess socially acceptable, uh, uh socially defensible.
Yes, that is a good way to putit.
That's what I wanted to saySocially defensible um narrative
(20:09):
that we have oftentimes on, youknow, business practices today.
You know this is not new toanyone who has been listening to
the podcast for a while, but ifgreenwashing has no haters,
then I'm dead.
So obviously not to speak onbehalf of all young people
because, like any, my generationhas a lot of diverse ideas and
(20:34):
opinions about environmentalissues.
But a lot of young peoplereally do care about these
issues.
We want to be able to build afuture and forge our own path in
a clean, safe planet, but theidea that our approach to fixing
these solutions are wrapped upin glossy advertising and
(20:56):
campaigns is just so incrediblyfrustrating and to me it's just
a super insidious way tocapitalize on the very real
threat of climate change andloss of nature, and it presents
a huge roadblock to implementingany real and meaningful change.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
Lots of our guests on the podcast comment about the
sustainable forest managementparadigm, and Dr Peter Wood, who
we interviewed, says you know,this attempt to kind of rebrand
what kind of forestry we'redoing rebranding as sustainable
forest management was quite acoup for the industry because it
(21:38):
allowed them to say that whatthey were doing took into
consideration you know, allthese multiple values, that it
was this sort of very broad termthat allowed everybody to read
into it what they wanted to see.
It was very difficult tochallenge.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
We also interviewed Michelle Connelly from
Conservation North out ofBritish Columbia.
She says in our episode isforestry pathological.
Speaker 8 (22:08):
People invested in industrial forestry are putting
forth the idea that we cansomehow improve these things by
just logging natural forestsbetter, and we heartily disagree
.
We've seen this experiment playout our whole lives and it's
failing.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
So not only this idea that forest management in its
current state is now all of asudden sustainable, it's this
idea that it's a solution toaddress pest outbreaks,
wildfires, other, you know,natural functions, oftentimes
natural functions of the forestin the effort to serve mainly
(22:50):
economic interests or theinterests of the mill
interesting that you're bringingall those together because
you're basically.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
My takeaway from what you're just saying is that when
you look at the messages and wehaven't done this kind of scan
back, but you are doing it nowwhich is, we have a number of
guests who've all saidsustainability is really about
sustaining the amount of fiberor the amount of cubic meters
going through the mill.
That's number one.
(23:20):
Number two is the messages comeback is that we've branded
forestry as sustainable andwe're also now purporting it to
be a solution to climate changeand to insect outbreaks etc.
And so this starts to build upa, I guess, a body of um words
(23:44):
or approaches that, in ourworldview, would be seen as
greenwashing, because it'strying to put a patina on this
forestry that suggests it's oursolution and it doesn't have any
problems, which is, yeah,that's that's.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
That's a really great way to frame that and bring
that back together yeah, it'slike an, it's an unscrutinized
uh view of uh of forestmanagement in canada.
Um, I, I feel like and knowwhen I think about the time and
money invested into thesustainable forest management
(24:23):
greenwashing.
We had journalist Joan Baxteron our podcast talk about some
of the Canadian forestindustry's PR campaigns and she
talked specifically about theForestry for the Future campaign
.
Specifically about the Forestryfor the Future campaign.
Speaker 12 (24:43):
So there will be cross-platform digital
advertising, earned and paidmedia relations, which is really
worrisome.
Of course, the media are introuble, so they take any money
they can get from anything andany content they can take
Out-of-home advertising which isin transit, shelters and
airports.
They have money, obviously.
(25:03):
Multi-medium flagship contentthe Capturing Carbon documentary
, canadian Forestry Can Save theWorld podcast, animated video
shorts and creative assetproduction TikTok and Instagram,
influencer partnerships,indigenous partnerships,
community development andreal-time knowledge building and
(25:26):
their purpose was to let me seesaturate target audiences and
increase public opinion of thesector and to create a more
amenable environment to advancethe sector's policy priorities.
Well, any industry's policypriorities are going to take
(25:48):
precedence over other prioritiesfor me, which would be the
health of the forests.
So it was a deliberate and verywell thought out and no doubt,
very, very expensive campaigndesigned to help the industry
get exactly what it wants, whichis more access to the forest,
and to be able to do more ofwhat they want in what's left of
(26:10):
the forests.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
So I guess this is just getting back to what I was
saying earlier is that we'reputting a lot of not only are we
rebranding the forestry.
That we was saying earlier isthat we're putting a lot of not
only are we rebranding theforestry, that we're doing
without scrutiny, we're puttinga lot of time and effort and
money into this um rebrandingwhen we could be, you know,
putting more of that towardsthinking through real paradigm
(26:35):
shifting solutions.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
I think one of the big things I think about is that
, like, when you say a paradigmshift and I think that is short
form for let's actually talkabout what the principles are
behind forestry and what it'sset up to do so if we set the
table to basically maximize thevolume of trees going through a
mill, then what's the newparadigm?
(27:05):
What does that look like?
And we're going through anenergy transition right now.
We're transitioning from oneparadigm in terms of how we
provide energy to hopefully, anew one that actually functions
better with the climate andhelps secure a safe climate.
So what is the new transitionfor forestry?
What does that look like?
(27:25):
How does it better serve us interms of keeping a robust,
thriving natural world and howdoes it also contribute to
securing a safe climate?
Because it's got a big role toplay in terms of absorbing CO2
or carbon based greenhouse gasesand how we prevent it from
(27:48):
producing and releasing thosegases to the atmosphere.
So it's got all of those rolesand so we start with that as our
fundamental, as opposed totrying to make sure we maximize
the fiber going through a mill.
I think that's different.
Also, starting with, how do wemaximize jobs, and that might be
a very different question thanhow we maximize the amount of
(28:08):
timber or amount of throughputwe have in a mill.
Like that's going to get jobs inthe mill, but is it the maximum
number of jobs in an area for aforest dependent community?
Maybe it's producing community,maybe it's producing products,
maybe it's making things, maybeit's harvesting other
ingredients out of the forest,maybe it's.
You know, different kinds ofways of thinking about the
forest and the economic valuesyou can, whether it's carbon or
(28:31):
whether it's tourism, or whetherit's other products or
synergistic products, like interms of different types of I
think they're maple syrups, butalso other kinds of birch bark
syrup, all those kinds of things.
And just thinking in a verydifferent way and starting to
bring it all together as opposedto we have one industry, one
goal, one thought process and wehave lost more jobs to
(28:56):
mechanization of forestry thanwe've, you know, and we have not
started to rethink how weactually secure those jobs.
So I think that paradigm shift,that thinking that you're
suggesting, is really asking usto relook at this whole problem
from first principles.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Yeah, like I so agree , and I think what I've loved
about doing the podcast with youis that all of our guests have
been very forthcoming andsharing what they imagine the
world to look like, or what theyimagine Canadian forest
management to look like, youknow, in a paradigm shifting way
(29:36):
, in a paradigm shifting way,and so that's given me a lot of
hope.
I think there's, rightfully alot that's happening in the
world that can ignite feelingsof hopelessness and despair.
It can be feel veryoverwhelming to think about.
You know, how do I, as anindividual, change how Canadian
(29:58):
forest management works whenthere's so many other things
that we're confronted with,oftentimes at an individual
level the increasing cost ofliving, health care, taxes,
unemployment, debt, child care,you know and these feelings can
be very paralyzing and you knowthere's a lot of research that
backs up that those feelings ofhope and despair are very
(30:22):
paralyzing and I think what thispodcast has taught me is that
there's so much hope andstrength in community and
meeting and talking to peoplewho really care about Canada's
forests and their importance andlearning about the work that
they're involved with to protectthem.
(30:43):
I mean one of the top, the topone point blank that comes to
mind is the work of David Floodwith Wakotuin development and
the incorporation of two-eyedseeing Indigenous knowledge into
everything that they do.
Seeing Indigenous knowledgeinto everything that they do.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
That is the purposing of what Cotuin is to actually
turn that page and find thevehicles, find the pathways to
accelerate that resurgence ofmoving us to that inherent
rights jurisdiction andhonouring what Section 35 was
meant to and actually showingthat we can lead the way, both
through ownership and forestryassets.
(31:23):
It doesn't mean we support thesystem that's in place for
harvesting, but someone's goingto do it anyway, and so we're
working in multiple angles.
We want to change the wayforests are managed.
We want to be involved in theeconomy of forest.
We want to be involved indiversification of it.
We want to actually getinvolved in self-supplying our
own homes.
We've got to come up withanother way of making available
(31:45):
that fiber in some mannerthat'll be effective in our
communities.
So it's well.
My utopia as a land user and aharvester and a manager is to
understand who you're actuallysustainably managing the
resources for.
You know, and at the end of theday, if we actually do it right
(32:09):
and lean into the way FirstNations want to see the
landscape managed, it'llactually benefit the world.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
I mean, that's actually been proven time and
time again world I mean that'sactually been proven time and
time again Like they're reallythinking of how they incorporate
their culture and interactionwith the land into how we do
that in today's world and thestate of our forest today,
bringing back Indigenousguardians, rekindling their
(32:37):
relationship and stewardship ofthe land.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
I was just going to say.
I don't think I'll ever forgethis story about the little frog.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Instead of like spraying 50 to 100, 1500
hectares and having those littletree frogs sitting on the trees
with all the leaves falling offgoing.
Oh, I'm supposed to try and getfrom here to that standing
cover of forest over there andit's a kilometer away.
How does that little frog dothat?
He doesn't.
He dies.
And there's many, many frogs inthe forest like that, many mice
(33:10):
, many small animals.
We call them all our relationsright the crawlers, the walkers,
right the swimmers.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Yeah, how does that little tree frog that's left in
the middle of a clear cut makeit to safety?
That is, you know, severalhundred meters away and what
does it, you know.
So, just in terms of the waythat the whole thinking behind
Wakotuin and how they thinkabout forestry, it, you know,
deeply humbles me in terms ofthe first principles that bring
(33:59):
to the process.
It's just incredible.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Yeah, those are very different principles than feed
the mill for sure, theirancestral lands and resources
and how they're actually notonly doing that, but we're we're
learning about and through thatwe're learning about a better
way to do joint lands andresources management with
indigenous peoples, and I thinkthat's that's so important.
Um, in what's next for Canadianforest management?
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah, great.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
And, um, you know I'm going to go back to Michelle
with my last, with my last topline message of hope.
Speaker 8 (34:53):
There's a kind of like elevated professionalism
that gets in the way of regularpeople being involved in
advocating for natural forestprotection and I think that
deters a lot of people fromgetting involved.
That's definitely the case inBC.
This kind of like.
Only experts have the right tocomment on the destruction of
(35:14):
biodiversity.
That is not the case.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
I think that is really meaningful and I think
really helps me, and I hopeanyone who has been listening to
the podcast really takes thatto heart, because I mean, if you
care about the naturalresources, maybe it's you live
in a community that's dependenton the forest, or you travel,
(35:41):
you like to do recreation in theforest, like, or if you just
care about Canada's forestsbecause of their global
significance for climate changeand biodiversity, like you don't
have to have a master's inforestry to be able to advocate,
or maybe you like to breathe,you know things like that.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Right, I mean because that's the thing you talk about
the global significance butthese wildfires are impacting
air quality and last time we sawthem affecting air quality all
the way down to washington right, like in uh, in dc, um, you
know so, so it's, it's it.
It really is like, if you liketo breathe or you like your
climate to be safe, any of thosebasic things, then you can
(36:23):
engage on what's happening onforests, and even if you do some
takeaways from ours and applythem to the US forestry, it's
also relevant right Like how weharvest and what we harvest and
how much we harvest isabsolutely an important piece.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Yes, oh, definitely, definitely.
Yeah, I enjoy breathing fromtime to time.
That's kind of the those topline messages of hope that I've
garnered from the podcast.
When I was an undergrad I reada book called the Uninhabitable
Earth by David Wallace-Wells.
(36:58):
He's a reporter at the New YorkTimes and there's an article, a
short version article, of hisbook that you can find online as
well, but he writes about thenotion that if humans have
created the environmentaldisaster, we are capable of
undoing it.
And he writes the path we areon as a planet should terrify
(37:20):
anyone living on it.
But, thinking like one people,all the relevant inputs are
within our control and there isno mysticism required to
interpret or command the fate ofthe earth, only an acceptance
of responsibility.
And I really like that call toaction, I like the call to
action from Michelle and I likeI've been really inspired by all
(37:42):
of the work that our guestshave been doing on the clear cut
.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Yeah, it's.
Maybe I'll just reference acouple of other things is that
we also heard from Kim talkingabout urban forestry and how
that's hope right in your ownbackyard if you're living in an
urban or near urban area thatthere are many uh foresters that
are across canada and down intothe us that are thinking about
the urban environment and whatdoes that mean for trees and
(38:11):
what does what do more treesmean for the urban environment?
I think that's a big piece.
One of the other updates I'lljust give you is um and this is
just because I've been doingsome work since k Kai has been
out getting prepared for lawschool that apparently there is
going to be.
One of the challenges that wehave with what's happening in
(38:31):
our forests is the data layersthat we've been looking at are
at this 30 meter resolution,especially if we want to have a
time capsule, like you want tobe able to back cast and see how
forestry you know what happenedto that forest and then where's
it at now.
So if you're going to figureout the carbon impact, you have
to know well, we cut it in 1982and now it's, you know, 2024 and
(38:55):
this much is regrown or thismuch less or whatever, but you
need to be able to do that math.
My understanding is there isgoing to be a new data layer
that will be available.
It won't allow you to backcastin any way, but it will give you
a real-time or at least a veryrecent time, one-meter
(39:15):
resolution for the tree canopyheight cover.
So this is actually going to be,I think, changer.
And it's planetary, so it's not, uh, you know, restricted to
just north america, or whatwe've seen with some of the more
recent spatial analysis hasbeen, uh, very focused on the
tropics and has ignored thenorth, which is, uh, we discuss
(39:39):
in our episode with etel Ygeni,and that is, you know, basically
blaming the global south fordeforestation and not taking
ownership of the deforestationand degradation that happens in
the north.
But this new day layer,apparently, is going to be out
very soon, or, if not, it'salready out.
(39:59):
So that's a big piece.
And then the other one thatI've seen coming from Ontario,
which is the province I live in,is they're talking about having
a 30 centimeter, I believe, a16 or 30 centimeter data layer
for all of Ontario by 2027, Ibelieve will be a big game
(40:25):
changer because you'll be ableto see the spatial disturbance
in reality and what's going on,not just this 30 meter, which is
not showing things that arelike three to four meters wide,
which are the roads and thelandings that get put in place
when you're doing a full treeharvesting.
So I think those could well begame changers and I think we may
be on the cusp of some of thesenew ways of analyzing the
(40:47):
forest, being able to providebetter information so we can
make better decisions, and notjust relying on the the word or
the promise of the industry orgovernments that hey, hey, we're
sustainable because we requireit, which is right now, quite
frankly, really the way thingsare operated is sustainability
(41:10):
is required.
Therefore, we tell the rest ofthe world that we're being
sustainable because it'srequired, but we aren't.
I don't know how those thingscan be true and still have
caribou ranges collapsing.
So yeah, that's a big, that's abig miss.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing those come out
.
I mean, even though I'll be inlaw school, I will be keeping
track of all of the ongoings inin this space.
And yeah, I love to hear whatyou can count.
You can change.
Speaker 1 (41:42):
Absolutely.
The other one that we did agreat episode on and I know Kaya
was very interested in becauseshe is going to law school and
she's interested in legal meansis how the different legal
frameworks are going to beaffecting forestry globally, and
that is the EU has come outwith a directive on degradation
(42:05):
and deforestation where they'renot going to accept fiber from
regions where or fiber that hascome from a region with
deforestation or degradation,and that is I think it's
supposed to be in force by theend of this year.
Go back and listen to thatepisode for the exact details.
(42:27):
But that was also something Icould see Kaya's eyes light up
across the cameras from me thatyou know this was a big deal,
and right now Canada has beenarguing that you know we have no
deforestation and almost nodegradation over time.
And that over time piece isreally important because it's
(42:48):
saying, basically, eventually,the models because we run
forestry models, we do all thiscalculation, we feed in all this
data Sometimes it takesmillions of dollars to produce
these forest management plantsand we run the models out and
then it says, ah, the forest isregrown in 80 years.
We don't have the luxury ofwaiting that long.
No, and, quite frankly, we canlook at forest management plans
(43:09):
that were supposed to becompletely sustainable, and
logging scars demonstrates thatafter 35 years, those areas that
we thought were going to beregrown are just not so I think
there is great hope in havingthe degradation deforestation
procurement policies coming outof the EU and we're also seeing
(43:31):
those now popping up in variousUS states and the fact that it
also got bipartisan support inCongress was crazy.
Congress, Congress was crazy.
So.
So I think that there is somehope here that that it's not
just young people who want tosee these things, but it's
actually the very systems ofpower that are now starting to
(43:52):
wrestle with these, these ideas,and put this in.
And you know, Canada's fightingagainst it.
We have the proof of that.
We have the letters.
They're online.
Please check out the Italigoneepisode.
It will say more about that.
But certainly, in terms of those, that degradation piece is
going to be a very big piecethat Canada is going to have to
(44:14):
wrestle with.
And, very specifically, I don'tknow how we can have almost no
degradation when our caribouranges are collapsing because
they're in exceedance of thedisturbance regimes that we've
put out there.
So those two things cannot beoh, it's all sustainable, but
caribou are in massive decline,and one of the ways that you can
(44:38):
measure this is the federalgovernment just did a safety net
order in Quebec, because Ithink it was three ranges have
been deem, deemed to be extremerisks.
That not even just a protectionorder.
It was a safety net or, orsorry, a protection order a
section 80.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Has cabinet?
Has cabinet voted on?
Speaker 1 (44:57):
It got approved and it's already been issued.
There is now consultationhappening on this.
It was brought by the FirstNations there, but maybe we can
actually provide a link to thatso people can actually read
about it.
In case I've misnamed it, butit is an emergency order.
It's not just a safety netorder, so check that out.
(45:18):
It's a section 80 under theSpecies Risk Act that the
federal government has done onthree ranges in Quebec.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
That's awesome.
Thank you, environment MinisterStephen Guilbeault for bringing
that forward.
I was actually going to thankyou on the train when I was
coming back from Toronto.
Saw you in line boarding.
But I'll thank you on thepodcast.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
Okay great.
So, kaya, that is one heck of awhirlwind wrap up and, as you
can see, there are still issuesthat I'd love to keep unpacking.
Going forward, we will be onhiatus and I'll let people know
when we're ready to resume andwhat kind of format.
I will also say that, foranybody who's listening to this,
(46:02):
you can maybe catch up with uson our email listserv that we
have.
If you haven't signed up forthat, you should, because it
will include updates on thispodcast, but also updates on all
of our work.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
Yeah, I mean also to anyone who has been listening to
the podcast.
I'd like to just extend mysincerest thank yous for
listening to me ramble on for 40minutes to an hour sometimes
every week.
I hope you learn as much aboutCanada's forests as I did.
(46:38):
And yeah, and also thank you somuch to the team at Wildlands
and Jan for you know havingfaith in me in the editing
process for this.
I really appreciate them andyou know obviously, all of our
listeners.
It's been really great to seethe podcast grow over the past
(46:58):
year and I will miss everyone somuch.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
Yeah, we couldn't have done it without you, kaya.
When Kaya and I started, we hadan external contractor who was
helping us produce the show, andthen, finally, kaya just said
to me I can do this.
So she did it, picked it up,did it better and did a great
job, and so we are deeplygrateful for all of Kaya's
incredible work behind thescenes, and I will miss you, but
(47:24):
I'm really looking forward tohow you just explode into the
next episode in your life.
So, uh, go forth and do greatwork oh, thank you.
Thank you so much please thanks,thank you, thank you.
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