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TabGroup♦ Short-sighted governments have razed Canada's forests and depleted her fisheries, demonstrating that they cannot be trusted as custodians of precious resources. Environment Probe's surveys of countries that are protecting their natural resources have found that decentralized holdings – whether community based or privately held – generally serve the environment and the economy well. Environment Probe's campaigns to decentralize natural resource holdings have garnered praise from divers interests, from native forestry activists to Australian fishermen.
♦ A year-long study of Ontario's wilderness areas by Environment Probe found that Ontario's provincial parks are worth at least $6 billion. On a per hectare basis, provincial parks generate eight times more revenue than that of timber harvesting on crown land, yet the government continues to hand over public land to industry for environmentally destructive resource extraction.
♦ An Environment Probe study found that logging in the Carmanah Creek watershed, a unique and beautiful wilderness area on Canada's west coast, had been planned without any consideration of the economic benefit from logging, which is, in fact, very low. Non-timber benefits are likely to exceed the benefits from logging this pristine area.
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Logging a majestic stand of hemlock and balsam in British Columbia's coastal rainforest costs logging companies $100 a cubic metre. Selling the hemlock gets them an average of $60 a cubic metre, the balsam gets them less. "We lose $40 on every cubic metre of hemlock that we bring to the sawmill," explains Steve Crombie of Interfor, one of B.C.'s large product exporters. read more »
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How dumb does Prime Minister Jean Chrétien think President George W. Bush can be? Very, very dumb, judging by the arguments over softwood lumber that our Cabinet ministers and trade officials had been floating prior to Mr. Chrétien's meeting with Mr. Bush yesterday. Only someone as thick as a plank could buy the lulus put out by our government leaders in what -- at over $10-billion per year -- is by far the most important trade dispute between the two countries. read more »
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The eco-extremists are poised to win their biggest battle yet over British Columbia's vast forest lands. But the eco-extremists aren't environmental groups. The extremists are the B.C. government and major forestry companies who are hell-bent on destroying the splendour of the province's landscape, even if they must do so at a loss. read more »
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Toronto's ban on cutting healthy, mature trees on private property will likely do more harm than good, an environmental group warns.
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Toronto City Council could not have thought up a surer way to destroy the urban forest than to pass a bylaw forbidding property owners to sell trees without the city’s permission.
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An interview, for CBC Radio's Ideas program, with Lawrence Solomon about the ways in which competition, privatization, property rights, and other market mechanisms can work to preserve the environment. read more »
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RECREATIONAL use of Ontario's forests has the potential to bring far greater riches to the provincial economy than logging, a new study commissioned by the province suggests. read more »
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A Toronto-based environmental group, arguing that there's no longer any economic benefit to logging in Vancouver island's Carmanah Valley, is asking the British Columbia government to preserve the entire valley. read more »
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Shareholders in the forestry giant MacMillan Bloedel Ltd. would make more money by investing in Canada Savings Bonds than they will by logging British Columbia's disputed Carmanah Valley, a study says. B.C. taxpayers will also make less money from the timber harvest than politicians are leading people to believe, according to the study, to be released today by Environment Probe in Toronto. read more »
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AT FIRST GLANCE Larry Solomon seems like the answer to a businessman's prayers. An environmentalist who believes passionately in the free-market system, his call for the privatization of Crown land and public utilities has won him the praise of the conservative Fraser Institute — and the wrath of fellow environmentalists. read more »
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Wherever trees grow on private land, forest owners seem to draw the ire of their governments. The government of Ontario has a problem with the way many of its small, private woodlot owners tend their forests: They won't cut down their trees. The government's surveys conclude that these smallholders - mostly farmers, professionals and retirees, who control more that 10 million acres of timberland - have what government experts call "a rather indifferent attitude" toward their land. read more »
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Robert Rivard of the Canadian Lumbermen’s Association would like to go back to “the old free trade deal.” He feels the previous arrangement reflected a more Canadian brand of free trade that better served his association’s members. read more »
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Environment Probe turned 20 this year. To our surprise and delight, we also learned this year that our foundation maintains Canada's most popular environmental web site. The reason, we suspect, is that the public doesn't like top-down environmentalism, and we have the field of community-based, market-oriented environmentalism pretty well to ourselves. read more »
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Our governments are paying forestry companies to tear down our Crown-owned forests and ship them to the U.S. and Asia. Here's how our "forest management system" works, taking British Columbia's rainforests as an example. read more »
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Logging a majestic stand of hemlock and balsam in British Columbia's coastal rainforest costs logging companies $100 a cubic metre. Selling the hemlock gets them an average of $60 a cubic metre, the balsam gets them less. "We lose $40 on every cubic metre of hemlock that we bring to the sawmill," explains Steve Crombie of Interfor, one of B.C.'s large product exporters. read more »
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How dumb does Prime Minister Jean Chrétien think President George W. Bush can be? Very, very dumb, judging by the arguments over softwood lumber that our Cabinet ministers and trade officials had been floating prior to Mr. Chrétien's meeting with Mr. Bush yesterday. Only someone as thick as a plank could buy the lulus put out by our government leaders in what -- at over $10-billion per year -- is by far the most important trade dispute between the two countries. read more »
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This is an unusual appeal. I am writing to ask you to help environmental groups in your area rethink their approach to wilderness protection. read more »
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The eco-extremists are poised to win their biggest battle yet over British Columbia's vast forest lands. But the eco-extremists aren't environmental groups. The extremists are the B.C. government and major forestry companies who are hell-bent on destroying the splendour of the province's landscape, even if they must do so at a loss. read more »
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These are bad times for Canada's forests. We are slowly losing our forested areas across the country, as new growth fails to keep up with increased harvests. And we are plagued by bitter conflicts over how forests should be managed. In Northeastern Ontario's Temagami region, disputes over logging have resulted in demonstrations, blockades, arrests, court challenges, and even an explosion. The Ontario government has opened up vast areas in the region to logging and mining. But native people claim the area's lands as their own and demand the right to manage them. Meanwhile, environmentalists insist that the provincial government close access roads and set up a wildland reserve to preserve some of our last remaining old-growth white pines. read more »
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Back in 1989, Environment Probe campaigned to turn free trade to the environment's advantage. Since then, the environmental impacts of free trade have been hotly debated. Critics have rightly pointed out that, in theory, governments may be hamstrung in imposing certain environmental standards. But other enterprising environmentalists have capitalized on free trade to reduce subsidies to—and raise standards in—our environmentally destructive resource sectors. read more »
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Toronto City Council could not have thought up a surer way to destroy the urban forest than to pass a bylaw forbidding property owners to sell trees without the city’s permission.
read more »
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Can you imagine a greater example of incompetence than the federal government's stewardship of the east coast fishery, where the cod stocks have been recklessly depleted and entire communities are now on welfare, losing both their economic independence and their dignity? When the welfare runs out in several years, many of the communities will become ghost towns, emptied like the fisheries nearby. read more »
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An interview, for CBC Radio's Ideas program, with Lawrence Solomon about the ways in which competition, privatization, property rights, and other market mechanisms can work to preserve the environment. read more »
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Between 0.6% and 9.3% of provincial lands exist as more protected wilderness areas, wilderness zones or protected national parks. These protected areas comprise between 48% and 95% of total park lands in the provinces. Commercial timber harvesting occurs in Manitoba’s provincial parks, two Ontario provincial parks, and one national park (Wood Buffalo National Park). Mineral extraction occurs in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Nova Scotia parks. Oil and natural gas wells are found in four Alberta parks, in two Saskatchewan parks and in one Manitoba park.
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Over the years, British Columbia’s public forest managers have promoted increasing timber yields from public forests in the belief that more timber volume means more processing, more jobs and therefore greater benefit to society. Timber yields have increased manifold over the years, as new techniques and economies have opened up virtually all of British Columbia’s crown forests to industrial forest management. But a large proportion of the present allowable annual cut (AAC) makes no economic or technical sense. As much as one-fifth of BC’s AAC occurs by government fiat. A central tenet of this policy is utilization standards.
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Defining the future demand for wilderness recreation means defining demand - identifying the Ontarians that value Ontario's wilderness, and the value they place on it - and defining supply - identifying the amount of wilderness available, its accessibility and its value for recreation. read more »
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Canada is blessed with one of the natural wonders of the world, the magnificent Carmanah Valley in British Columbia. Home to 30-story-high Sitka Spruce, the tallest in the world; to Red Cedars that are 1,000 years old; to Western Hemlock that are among the largest in the world; and to majestic Cypress that were alive when Christopher Columbus discovered North America, this virtually untouched valley is one of the world's last remaining temperate rainforests. read more »
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TabGroup2Books, Studies and Reports
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Between 0.6% and 9.3% of provincial lands exist as more protected wilderness areas, wilderness zones or protected national parks. These protected areas comprise between 48% and 95% of total park lands in the provinces. Commercial timber harvesting occurs in Manitoba’s provincial parks, two Ontario provincial parks, and one national park (Wood Buffalo National Park). Mineral extraction occurs in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Nova Scotia parks. Oil and natural gas wells are found in four Alberta parks, in two Saskatchewan parks and in one Manitoba park.
read more »
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Over the years, British Columbia’s public forest managers have promoted increasing timber yields from public forests in the belief that more timber volume means more processing, more jobs and therefore greater benefit to society. Timber yields have increased manifold over the years, as new techniques and economies have opened up virtually all of British Columbia’s crown forests to industrial forest management. But a large proportion of the present allowable annual cut (AAC) makes no economic or technical sense. As much as one-fifth of BC’s AAC occurs by government fiat. A central tenet of this policy is utilization standards.
read more »
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Defining the future demand for wilderness recreation means defining demand - identifying the Ontarians that value Ontario's wilderness, and the value they place on it - and defining supply - identifying the amount of wilderness available, its accessibility and its value for recreation. read more »
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The objective of this study is to determine the cost to society of preserving the Carmanah Creek watershed in its natural state. The cost of preserving the valley is viewed as the cost of forgoing the opportunity to harvest the timber. A complete cost-benefit analysis would compare the economic benefit of logging with the benefit from preserving the timber. Only if the benefits from logging exceed those from preserving should the timber be harvested. But due to the difficulty of measuring intangible non-timber benefits, the cost of the forgone opportunity to harvest the timber is the best measure of the cost of preservation. If the cost of preservation (the benefit of harvesting) is relatively low, then intangible non-timber value are more likely to exceed timber values—the prudent decision would obviously be not to harvest. read more »
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TabGroup3
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Logging a majestic stand of hemlock and balsam in British Columbia's coastal rainforest costs logging companies $100 a cubic metre. Selling the hemlock gets them an average of $60 a cubic metre, the balsam gets them less. "We lose $40 on every cubic metre of hemlock that we bring to the sawmill," explains Steve Crombie of Interfor, one of B.C.'s large product exporters. read more »
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How dumb does Prime Minister Jean Chrétien think President George W. Bush can be? Very, very dumb, judging by the arguments over softwood lumber that our Cabinet ministers and trade officials had been floating prior to Mr. Chrétien's meeting with Mr. Bush yesterday. Only someone as thick as a plank could buy the lulus put out by our government leaders in what -- at over $10-billion per year -- is by far the most important trade dispute between the two countries. read more »
|
|
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|
|
|
|
|
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The eco-extremists are poised to win their biggest battle yet over British Columbia's vast forest lands. But the eco-extremists aren't environmental groups. The extremists are the B.C. government and major forestry companies who are hell-bent on destroying the splendour of the province's landscape, even if they must do so at a loss. read more »
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Toronto City Council could not have thought up a surer way to destroy the urban forest than to pass a bylaw forbidding property owners to sell trees without the city’s permission.
read more »
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|
|
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An interview, for CBC Radio's Ideas program, with Lawrence Solomon about the ways in which competition, privatization, property rights, and other market mechanisms can work to preserve the environment. read more »
|
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|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Wherever trees grow on private land, forest owners seem to draw the ire of their governments. The government of Ontario has a problem with the way many of its small, private woodlot owners tend their forests: They won't cut down their trees. The government's surveys conclude that these smallholders - mostly farmers, professionals and retirees, who control more that 10 million acres of timberland - have what government experts call "a rather indifferent attitude" toward their land. read more »
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Robert Rivard of the Canadian Lumbermen’s Association would like to go back to “the old free trade deal.” He feels the previous arrangement reflected a more Canadian brand of free trade that better served his association’s members. read more »
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|
|
TabGroup5
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Environment Probe turned 20 this year. To our surprise and delight, we also learned this year that our foundation maintains Canada's most popular environmental web site. The reason, we suspect, is that the public doesn't like top-down environmentalism, and we have the field of community-based, market-oriented environmentalism pretty well to ourselves. read more »
|
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Our governments are paying forestry companies to tear down our Crown-owned forests and ship them to the U.S. and Asia. Here's how our "forest management system" works, taking British Columbia's rainforests as an example. read more »
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|
|
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|
This is an unusual appeal. I am writing to ask you to help environmental groups in your area rethink their approach to wilderness protection. read more »
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
These are bad times for Canada's forests. We are slowly losing our forested areas across the country, as new growth fails to keep up with increased harvests. And we are plagued by bitter conflicts over how forests should be managed. In Northeastern Ontario's Temagami region, disputes over logging have resulted in demonstrations, blockades, arrests, court challenges, and even an explosion. The Ontario government has opened up vast areas in the region to logging and mining. But native people claim the area's lands as their own and demand the right to manage them. Meanwhile, environmentalists insist that the provincial government close access roads and set up a wildland reserve to preserve some of our last remaining old-growth white pines. read more »
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Back in 1989, Environment Probe campaigned to turn free trade to the environment's advantage. Since then, the environmental impacts of free trade have been hotly debated. Critics have rightly pointed out that, in theory, governments may be hamstrung in imposing certain environmental standards. But other enterprising environmentalists have capitalized on free trade to reduce subsidies to—and raise standards in—our environmentally destructive resource sectors. read more »
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|
|
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Can you imagine a greater example of incompetence than the federal government's stewardship of the east coast fishery, where the cod stocks have been recklessly depleted and entire communities are now on welfare, losing both their economic independence and their dignity? When the welfare runs out in several years, many of the communities will become ghost towns, emptied like the fisheries nearby. read more »
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Canada is blessed with one of the natural wonders of the world, the magnificent Carmanah Valley in British Columbia. Home to 30-story-high Sitka Spruce, the tallest in the world; to Red Cedars that are 1,000 years old; to Western Hemlock that are among the largest in the world; and to majestic Cypress that were alive when Christopher Columbus discovered North America, this virtually untouched valley is one of the world's last remaining temperate rainforests. read more »
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Let me share with you some comments made by Adam Zimmerman, Chairman of Noranda Inc., after the Australian government denied his firm the right to build a polluting pulp mill in the Tasmanian forest. read more »
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TabGroup4-
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Canadian Institute of Forestry Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports -
Forest Stewardship Council of Canada Friends of Clayoquot Sound Haliburton Forest and Wild Life Reserve Ontario Woodlot Association Valhalla Wilderness Society Western Canada Wilderness Committee Woodlot Association of Alberta World Rainforest Movement
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