Greenpeace accuses province of screwing up forests

NEWS RELEASE

GREENPEACE

****************************** Greenpeace report fails McGuinty on forest management

TORONTO - A new Greenpeace report, issued today to spark discussion during campaigning for the fall provincial election, shows the McGuinty government has mismanaged Ontario’s boreal forest, has let down northern communities and has failed to save threatened woodland caribou.

The comprehensive Greenpeace report, entitled A Failing Grade: The McGuinty Government’s Management of Public Forests, details government mismanagement that allows massive and unscientific clearcuts, has not stemmed the tide of losses of forestry jobs and has not helped the forest industry take advantage of new, green markets for forest products.

"The McGuinty government has had two mandates to increase protection of wilderness areas of the boreal forest and also bolster the forest industry, yet its failures have exposed the threatened woodland caribou to extinction,” said Catharine Grant, Greenpeace forest campaigner.

The Greenpeace report shows the McGuinty government has:

- Allowed fragmentation of the southern boreal forest to continue and if the present depletion isn’t stopped all intact wilderness areas will be gone by 2025;

- Subsidized damaging logging practices;

- Permitted massive clearcuts that aren’t supported by science;

- Allowed forest companies to get away with inadequate regeneration of clearcut forests, creating a serious problem for future generations;

- Enabled forest company planners to determine what constitutes acceptable performance on forest sustainability by weakening its regulations;

- Not addressed advice that forest companies in eight management units were either not in compliance with the Crown Forest Sustainability Act or should not have their licence extended.

The problems in Ontario’s boreal forest are significant.

In two key conservation “hotspots,” the Ogoki Forest and the Trout Lake Forest, there will be substantial loss of wildlife habitat, including vital caribou habitat.

MNR has admitted to “uncertainty about the long-term effectiveness” of the forest management guidelines for caribou, and the province’s own science panel has said that the government’s approach to caribou conservation will fail to protect the species.

In addition, the McGuinty government is planning to further weaken protection for caribou by exempting forestry and other extraction companies from adhering to requirements in the Endangered Species Act to protect caribou habitat.

The government has given Terrace Bay Pulp - a controversial company with a history of social and environmental conflict - approximately $22 million in subsidies without any requirements to improve logging practices.

Terrace Bay, now implicated in a lawsuit over its tenure, is owned by Buchanan Forest Products which owed the government $26 million in unpaid stumpage fees as of July 2010.

“The mismanagement of Ontario’s boreal forest is significant, but there is time to act. The nine recommendations in the Greenpeace report, if adopted, could turn the Ontario forestry industry into profitable players in the new, green market and also protect wilderness and woodland caribou. During the election campaign we are calling on Premier McGuinty and the leaders of the two opposition parties to commit to building a sustainable legacy in the boreal forest.”

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