The dramatic impact climate change is having on BC’s landscapes are being felt intensely in our forests, impacting the ecosystem, biodiversity, forest-reliant economies, and more.
Lead scientist in the Ministry, Colin Mahoney spoke to a crowded room on the research his team is working on to adapt our forests for climate change. But he cautioned that adaptation can only go so far if climate change is not brought to equilibrium.
“There's a lot we can do in forest policy and community action to make our forest and communities safer, but all these efforts will be futile if we don't stabilize our climate,” he said. “Since most of our greenhouse gases come from fossil fuels, that means that we need to phase out fossil fuels as rapidly as possible to stabilize the climate. We need to decarbonize our economy by 2050, as committed by the BC government.”
“Forest fires have burned through decades of land use plans we spent years developing,” said Eamon O’Donoghue, the associate deputy minister in the Ministry of Forests. The burns have added urgency to changes already underway in the way the Ministry undertakes forest planning.
“If we don’t change our land management after this year, nature will do it for us whether we like it or not," O’Donoghue said.
For decades, land use planning for timber harvest areas have been done by companies who hold the timber leases, with limited input from the neighbouring communities. That’s changing with the Ministry’s new process, Forest Landscape Plans (FLP), that repatriates the process to communities, with inherent collaboration with First Nations. FLPs have a focus on co-governance, biodiversity, and a smooth transition for forest-based economies.