Eddie Petryshen, conservation specialist with Wildsight, recently published a column discussing the practice of salvage logging following wildfires.
The Bulletin reached out to Petryshen, a regular source in the newspaper, to learn more about his insight on the matter.
"Some of the world’s best forest ecologists call salvage logging, or post-disturbance logging, after a fire or insect infestation a tax on natural ecological recovery and it can set those ecosystems back, just as they’re starting to recover," Petryshen explained.
When machinery is used in post-fire stands, it can disturb or destroy nitrogen-fixing plants like fireweed or ceanothus, which are among the first to sprout from charred soils.
"Historically in a lot of these more fire-dominated regions, we’ve suppressed fire and things like cultural burning haven't happened," Petryshen said.
"In a lot of those places, like in places like the Rocky Mountain Trench, there’s these huge fire deficits where that ecosystem has missed six, eight fire cycles and those forest are very in-grown and that’s a huge part of the puzzle along with the extreme drought conditions in relation to these massive fluctuations and that sort of climate weirding that we get, as a result of fossil fuel burning and increased temperatures."
Petryshen discussed how the province of B.C. is currently further incentivizing salvage logging. According to a government press release, the Province introduced new measures to "streamline the salvage process, making it easier for the forestry sector to recover and repurpose damaged wood and regenerate forests."
The release says this is to "increase the use of wildfire-damaged timber and support land recovery." Effective Apr. 1, 2024, changes were made to the Interior Appraisal Manual to "increase flexibility and establish pricing policy for forestry operations and First Nations wanting to salvage wildfire-damaged timber in B.C."
The release indicates that salvage logging allows for quicker reforestation and land recovery, but Petryshen says this isn't necessarily the case. He was recently at a town hall meeting in Nelson, where Premier David Eby spoke.
"For logging companies the incentive is that sort of short-term profit can be realized and the province reduces the stumpage rate, the amount of money they will pay per cubic metre for that wood," Petryshen said. "[Premier Eby] mentioned, and incorrectly asserted, that wildfire-burned forests are intended to be logged because they’re second-growth and I think that’s a huge misconception, because these ecosystems recover and in some cases it might take longer for conifer species to get back into these stands, but they are very good at recovering.
"A lot of the time we’re forcing a forest on these places that may be shifting to grasslands, because in places like in the White River we’ve seen two really big fire cycles in the last 10 to 20 years and we’ve seen these younger plantations burn and some of those places are going to be shifting into grasslands in the future, and is it ecologically appropriate to force a forest onto these places?"
In addition to damaging nitrogen-fixing plants that sprout soon after fires, Petryshen said another impact is on water. He cited a recent study from the southern Rockies in Alberta that found that sediment was nine times greater in burnt watersheds than in unburnt, but 37 times greater in salvage-log watersheds.
"You get that kind of pulse of sedimentation and you already get that in a burnt watershed, but you get it more so in a salvage log watershed, because for one there’s no trees, but there’s also more roads and human infrastructure and all of that work with heavy machinery is being done on these very sensitive and recovering soils."
In cases where heavy machinery is on exposed mineral soil, there is the potential for higher erosion and sedimentation rates. Too much sediment in streams can bury fish eggs and degrade water quality.
Petryshen said he believes it's important not to salvage log in order to make the province more resilient. He said the short-term benefits to timber supply shouldn't outweigh the science indicating the many impacts and complexities the practice has on the ecosystem and the species that occupy it.
Going forward, Petryshen would like to see legally-binding standards and clear guidelines for best manage practices for salvage logging implemented by the provincial government. He said these guidelines should be guided by the best science available.
"Some of the legal requirements kind of go out the window after a fire and I don’t think that’s appropriate," he said. "Things like cut block sizes and green-up requirements, which means you can’t log a block adjacent to an older cut block or a piece of forest adjacent to an older cut block until that new forest reaches a certain height, or age. Those requirements go out the window and that can have a huge impact on wildlife, because there’s essentially no secure cover left in that landscape if you take everything."
He said if post-disturbance logging continues, the logging companies should do it in a limited way and only do it in a cautious manner.
"We’d like to see what the province has committed to and that’s a paradigm shift from what we call timber-focused management," Petryshen said. "Currently we’re still in this place as a province where the overarching priority continues to be getting timber to the mill and we’d like to see that no longer be the focus. And yes we can still do forestry and logging on the landscape, but we have to shift and realign our priorities and what we value."
