The fight for British Columbia’s forests

I walked along a path that ran under a grove in British Columbia’s inland tropical rainforest on a cold afternoon last autumn. The ground was covered in moss as thick as a mattress. The branches were adorned with gray-green lichen beards. The inland rainforest is located on the province’s eastern flank, bordering Alberta. It receives much less attention than BC’s coastal rainforests. There, activists blockades of old growth tracts frequently make the news. However, inland rainforests with cold climates are even more rare.

Michelle Connolly, my guide, explained that the older the forest, it has more lichen. She is an ecologist who recites their names like poetry. This forest is home to many new species, making it one of the most lichen-dense places on the planet. She described the remnants of ancient cedars that can grow up four meters in diameter, and can be as old as 2,000 years. The inland rainforest houses around 2,400 plant species, some of which are rare, and wildlife like wolves, wolverines, or southern mountain caibou.

This patch of forest is also at risk. Connolly authored a peer reviewed study in 2021 that found that BC’s inland forest, once covering more than 1.3million hectares, was at risk of ecological collapse if current logging practices continue. The study showed that 95 percent of the forest core, which is located over 100 meters from a road in BC, was gone since 1970. Connolly states that they were fighting over the remaining pieces.

While lumber and pulp mills used to process most of the wood from BC, Connolly is now focusing on a newer, more rapidly growing industry: wood pellets. Wood pellets, also known as biomass, are roughly the same size as cigarette filters. They have long been a niche fuel for wood burning stoves, furnaces, boilers and boilers. However, the demand from overseas electricity plants that can switch from burning coal into pellets with relative ease has led to a dramatic increase in production. From less than 2million tons globally at the beginning of the millennium, to 60 million in 2018, there was a significant increase in production. According to a 2020 estimate from a U.S. research company, the global pellet market will double in the next five year. European power plants have been among the biggest consumerspellet-fired power plants are uncommon in North Americabut demand from Japan and South Korea has also increased in recent years.

According to the Wood Pellet Association of Canada, BC’s forests produce more pellets per hectare than any other place in the world. Prince George is located approximately 10 hours north from Vancouver and is the industry’s epicenter. Connolly also calls it home. Connolly is a project manager at Ecotrust Canada. However, Connolly (43), runs Conservation North. This tiny volunteer environmental group has been a buzzard for local pellet companies.

Connolly is not the only one. Global backlash has been directed at the pellet industry for claiming that wood burning, unlike coal and other fossil fuels is carbon neutral and helps to stop climate change. The pro-pellet logic is that if new trees can be planted to replace the ones that are being cut, as required in BC, the emissions from burning pellets will be reduced as the new trees will sequester the carbon. This logic is supported by the Paris Climate Agreement, which excludes burned wood from a country’s carbon budget, provided that forests are replanted.

Critics argue that this science is flawed. It may take up to a century for a forest of saplings to mature into an ecosystem that has as much carbon as the one it replaces. A letter was sent to world leaders last year by 500 economists and scientists warning that burning pellets will likely add two to three times the carbon to the atmosphere than using fossil fuels. A similar letter was signed by nearly 800 academics and scientists in 2018, including two Nobel laureates, and three winners of The National Medal of Science. The basic idea is that burning things emits carbon quickly while regrowing things to sequester the carbon takes time. Mary Booth, director for the Partnership for Policy Integrity (a U.S-based environmental nonprofit critical to the pellet industry), says the whole thing boils down. This means that climate change will have already wrought havoc long before the young trees mature into an eco-system that holds as much carbon and as their predecessors.

Connolly states that BC has destroyed so many of our forests, that it is crucial for everything to remain in its natural state. The pellet industry can obliterate what is left. This is the trajectory she wants to stop.

The pellet industry producesThere are many green claims, including the fact that pellets can be made from wood waste. This claim is based upon the fact that pellets can also be made from lumber waste such as sawdust or slash (larger logging debris). Lumber waste was the main raw material in the early days of pellet manufacturing. However, Conservation North, which monitors local plants, discovered that whole trees are now a major source of feed for the industry.

Connolly invited my to visit the Pacific BioEnergy Plant in Prince George, to demonstrate. The company was forced to close permanently by rising operating costs. Pinnacle Renewable Energy, a competitor, purchased its contracts. Connolly was the second-largest producer of pellets in BC at the time. This was Exhibit A to Connolly’s argument that pellet companies don’t consider trees for which they don’t have a use waste. Connolly donned black combat boots as she climbed up an earthen bank in order to inspect the enormous pile of logs. As she walked along the pile, Connolly slid her hand across each end, noting the species, stringy red bark of cedar and the rough brown bark Douglas fir. Some trees were larger than others, though most were less than a foot in height. She stooped and counted the rings on the oldest tree, which was more than 200 year old. Connolly saw this as a clear sign that the industry was not slash. She says that the industry hides its true nature by using obscure language regarding waste and forestry residuals.

Pacific BioEnergy declined to respond to multiple interview requests. However, its website acknowledges the use whole trees as raw material. It also claims to use low-grade timber that is of no economic value. This refers to trees that are unsuitable for lumber or that have been affected by fire, rot, and insects. These trees are still of great ecological value. Connolly says that wildfires and bark beetle outbreaks are natural disturbances that help forests recover. He cites evidence that disturbed forests are more important for wildlife than unmanaged ones. Low-grade trees still contain plenty of carbon.

Pacific BioEnergy marketing materials portray a virtuous circle of carbon-sequestering and forestry byproducts as well as power production. However, audits by the Sustainable Biomass Program (a third-party certifier) reveal a completely different story. In 2020, the company’s use for whole logs increased from 6 percent to nearly 50% of their feedstock in 2019. Satellite imagery of the site, taken from Living Atlas of the World’s geographic image database, seems to show a rapid transition away from waste-based pellets. In a 2015 image, the only visible feedstock at Pacific BioEnergy is lumber residuals. This is because waste materials are well-known in the industry. Logs cover an area approximately equal to residuals in a 2018 photo; log piles are spread out over the equivalent of four soccer pitches around the plant in an April 2020 Google image, approximately six times as large as residuals.

Connolly and I saw orange flagging tape with Pacific BioEnergy printed on it, tied around trees in the forest we visited. This was to identify them as future logging sites. Connolly appeared on the evening news in 2020 when Conservation North first found this. She called the forest “old growth.” John Stirling (at the time Pacific BioEnergys CEO) countered that assessment live: We aren’t clearing-cutting in old growth forest!

Technically, he was correct. Connolly claims that trees older than 140 year old in BC’s drier landscapes meet the provincial definition of old growth. However, Connolly says that old growth is defined in the rainforest as being more than 250-years old. As with the logs she found in the Pacific BioEnergy facility, the trees in her tract were only a few years shy of the threshold. Connolly however, says that this is irrelevant. It was old growth to an ecologist such as me. However, it was, even according to the foresters definition, old growth for the future.

Connolly claims Stirling told Connolly after the news segment ran that they would be considering conserving the tract. (Stirling didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment. She says they were on cordial terms. Pacific BioEnergy seemed open for new sustainable sources of pellets. This included secondary forests that have been replanted, or have regrown naturally, after being cut. Connolly says that things turned sour when workers from the company saw us inspecting their log stack. Stirling sat in his pickup as we pulled out of her pickup to go, blocking our exit. He was furious.

Michelle, I can see how you work now, he said. This is not okay.

Youre right, John. Connolly said, “I’m sorry.” He regularly inspects log piles at plants as well as on forest roads in the region. Next time, I’ll ask permission.

Stirling stated, “I don’t think you’ll get it.”

Connolly has shaved his hairA no-nonsense attitude and a strong personality. She was raised in Vancouver’s suburbs and moved to Prince George in 2011 to complete her graduate studies at the University of Northern British Columbia. There she received a degree for environmental studies. She fell in love the inland rainforest and a wildlife biologist plans to settle in a small homestead just outside of this town of 80,000.

Prince George is the center of a sparsely populated area. It is a place where the acrid smell of smoldering piles lingers in air. Lots on the outskirts are filled with freshly milled telephone poles and two-by-fours ready for export. The famous eight-meter tall wooden statue of a lumberjack, Mr. PG, looms above a main intersection. But the economy is changing. Despite the sharp rise in lumber prices over the past few decades, mills have been steadily closing down over the last two decades. BC has lost about 50,000 forestry jobs in the past decade, or half of its provincial sector. In recent years, lumber production has dropped in BC. However, lumber’s export value is more than ten times higher than pellets. Biomass is on the rise.

Outside of Conservation North, there isn’t much else in Prince George. It is run out of Connollys house. The four-woman operation organized small rallies around town. The crew gathers on a four-wheel drive truck to explore the logging roads that branch off like mycelia in Prince George.

We met a local trapper one Saturday who provided valuable tips on where logging was taking place. His traplines once netted around 200 martens a type weasel that has valuable fur each year. However, habitat loss from the logging has meant that I now only catch twenty. We can only trap animals that are produced by habitat. We would be out-of-business if we started trapping base population.

Despite the clearcuts that we passed, the mood was positive. There was a lengthy discussion about the importance of fallen trees, not the living ones, that accumulate in mature forests and act as habitats. Jenn Matthews (ex-communications coordinator for Conservation Norths), joked that they were obsessed with dead trees and weasels.

Connolly may come across as politely eco-nerdy, but her ultimate goal for the forest industry may seem radical to some environmentalists. She wants to end all logging of BC forests that are not already disturbed by industrial activity. Ecologists call them primary forests. Future logging will be restricted to secondary forests. We drive through a variety of landscapes, including barren clearcuts and uniform secondary forests. These areas are treated with herbicides to stop the spread of undesirable broadleaf plants. They are left to re-grow for a few decades, before being harvested. She believes that primary forests have a greater ecological value than secondary forests. They not only provide richer habitats for wildlife, but also store between 50-60 percent more carbon. Connolly states that primary forests are non-renewable. They never come back. What we are proposing is reasonable.

Conservation North gathered 10 government data sets to complete the picture, as it was unable to find a list of all primary forests in the province. The resulting map, which Conservation North titled Seeing Red, looks like a splotch oozing blood across the landscape. It shows their main finding: 75 percent of the province’s primary forests were cut.

The industry continues to grow. Peak Renewables plans Canada’s largest pellet mill in the heart of the boreal forest, north of Prince George. These forests, which stretch across Alaska and into Siberia store twice as much carbon as tropical rainforests. Canada’s boreal forests are responsible for about 17 percent of the earth’s carbon. They have been called a carbon bomb or a giant carbon shield, the former if they are destroyed and the latter if they remain intact.

At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow last years, activists protested an event hostedby the World Bioenergy Association. One protester stopped a train of wood pellets heading for the Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire. The company claims that the station produces enough electricity to power approximately 4 million homes. Drax has been infiltrating the pellet industry in Canada since it bought Pinnacle Renewable Energy. In the southern United States, Drax is North America’s other pellet hotspot. Drax, which is subsidized in part by the UK government, consumes pellets at a rate of about 194 ha (three-quarters mile) per day, according one estimate.

I asked the BC Ministry of Forests for clarification on the province’s reasons for promoting the pellet industry as sustainable, despite the fact that the pellet-burning power plant emits more carbon per kilowatt of electricity than the coal-fired ones. A spokesperson replied with a series of bullet points. He said that sustainable resourced BC forest products are essential to our international efforts to address climate change.

Booth, the American scientist thinks that this is completely wrong. She claims that nothing that is combusted belongs in the same climate-friendly category as solar and wind, which are free of emissions. Booth: I get that people burn wood. It is just that incentivizing wood as renewable energy is a big mistake. Every dollar spent subsidizing pellets to be a green fuel does not go to wind, solar, and other truly clean energy sources.

Forestry, which contributed $5.6 BillionBC’s GDP in 2020 accounts for almost a third the province’s export value. Mike Morris, Prince George region’s provincial legislator, wants to make a change in the economy. For the past seventy-five year, the industry has been a dominant force at all levels of government. We are nearing a point where there are no more harvestable trees. And I think BC has the potential to change its direction. I think it will be forced on the province, whether they want it or not.

A Prince George forester said to me that he sympathizes with Connolly’s concerns but believes her idea of making pellets from only secondary forests is economically impossible. I have submitted cutting permits for approximately 5 million cubic meters timber. A cubic meter is roughly equal to the volume of a telephone pole. The forester didn’t want his name to be used as he didn’t have permission to speak to the media. He said that BC’s secondary forest is generally less than 60 year old and has not yet matured sufficiently to allow logging on large scale. He says that if you didn’t log primary forests, there wouldn’t be a saw-mill industry, no wood-pellet industry and no forestry industry.

Bob Simpson, Quesnel’s mayor, has a vision of what a future with lower pellets might look like. The Forestry Initiatives Program of the town was established in response to numerous mill closures and recognition that pellet plants cannot take up the slack. Simpson states that we have seen the signs and were making a transition.

Currently, 90 percent of Canadian pellets are exported. The pellet plants, which are dominated by machines, employ about 300 people in the province. This means that they have not done much to replace the forestry jobs that were lost in BC. The Wood Pellet Association of Canada estimates that the industry employs approximately 2,500 people, when indirect jobs are added.

Simpson believes that the pellet boom has more benefits for shareholders than it has for rural communities. Given its climate disadvantages, Simpson would like to see support shift to other forest products, especially so-called value-added product that results in a higher number of people working per tree. Simpson sees potential in furniture manufacturing but also in mass timber, a class of engineered wood products that can replace steel beams in large buildings. He also believes in mass timber technology, which can convert wood fiber into ingredients that can replace petrochemicals used in adhesives, plastics and personal protective equipment. These wood products not only provide economic diversification but also store carbon.

Simpson was just returning from a meeting with Drax staff when I spoke with him. We pointed out that they were just replacing the burning coal with another source of carbon. This kind of accounting is a mystery to him. You assume that the pellet emissions will be captured by the forests that you are regrowing. This is not true, especially with climate change accelerating. This is a fact Quesnel has experienced in recent years. Simpsons telling is that the conversation didn’t go well. I disagreed with the fellow from the UK.

BC’s inland forestOnce there were large numbers of southern mountain caribou. They survived the snowy winters by hunting for lichen. The caribou are now endangered, with only a few thousand left in the province, partly due to forest loss from logging.

Before leaving BC, Connolly drove me two hours north of Prince George to a spot where one of the last remaining herds congregates in the autumn rut. Antlers clashed. Lichen were munched. Some caribou slept on the ground, while others danced around, their breath steamed in the cold. Connolly says that caribou, as migratory species are particularly sensitive to climate change. Ground lichen is their main food source. Once the snow has melted, the caribou will travel to lower elevations to feed on species such as horsehair lichen or witches hair lichen. These species can be found on branches that reach three meters above ground. They are able to reach those branches because their hooves are too large. Otherwise, the lichen would not be possible.

Caribou may become hungry if they can’t reach their grazing areas because of the way development has made the corridors more difficult to travel. Connolly says that survival variables are so precise that there is little room for error. As the climate changes, they will need more space to move around and to adapt. However, that spacemay have already been used to make pellets from forest.