Environment North is a…

Environment North is a registered charitable organisation based in Thunder Bay. Since 1972, Environment North has been promoting sustainable communities and conservation of our resources. We have played a significant role in many regional environment issues and policies over the decades.

These comments address the draft of Ontario’s Forestry Sector Strategy.

We appreciate and support the government’s efforts to diversify the forest industry and also to provide educational opportunities in particular for indigenous youth.

We do have concerns regarding “promoting stewardship and sustainability”, one of the four pillars of the Strategy, is not sufficiently developed.

The government held seven round table sessions across this province in order to develop the Strategy. Missing from the categories of groups that participated in the round table sessions are some key groups of stakeholders including those with expertise in the environment, such as forest and wildlife ecologists as well as tourism operators.

There are no details on how biodiversity will be enhanced and endangered species be protected. In fact, the recent changes to the Crown Forest Sustainability Act weakened the requirements of the Endangered Species Act. The forest industry is now permanently exempt from this Act, while wildlife such as the woodland caribou are in decline. In addition most of the forest management units in northwestern Ontario are not Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified which is considered the highest standard.

The Strategy mentions climate change but is weak in discussing planning for the forests of the future which will be increasingly impacted by climate change. There is some discussion on how the forestry industry can assist with greenhouse gas reduction. We stress that determining the carbon emissions and offsets in industrial forest activities is challenging. Methods of calculation are still being improved so that all emissions are accounted for. This process needs to be transparent and be evaluated by an independent agency to ensure that the industry is truly achieving its stated climate goals of emission reductions. (For example, some accounting systems would not include emissions from the burning of wood pellet products for energy or the carbon released from rotting cut roots after logging.)

In contrast to the pillar of stewardship and sustainability, the Strategy outlines a number of initiatives pertaining to the other three pillars: “putting more wood to work”, “improving cost competitiveness” and “fostering innovation markets and talent.”

The Ontario Forest Sector Strategy stewardship and sustainability pillar needs to include details on how the health of forest ecosystems will be protected and improved. In the future, when forming the Forest Sector Strategy Advisory Committee, the pillar could be further strengthened with adequate representation by individuals with a background in forest and wildlife ecology, climate change expertise and non-industrial forest users.

Graham Saunders,
President Environment North