Writer Lyndsie Bourgon has seen first-hand the damage that poachers do to the ancient forests of BC, where Douglas firs, cedar or Sitka firs, which had previously been tall, have been reduced to “a stump in the woods.”
“Sometimes branches and twigs are left because the tree has been cut and trimmed, and prepared for transport to the back of a truck,” said Bourgon, author of the new book Tree Thieves: Crime and Survival in North America’s. Forests.
“And in some cases, there were actually quite large chunks of the trunk … for later recovery,” he said. The Current guest host Duncan McCue.
Bourgon realized the problem almost a decade ago, when an 800-year-old cedar was taken from Carmanah-Walbran Provincial Park in BC The province saw a series of illegally felled trees last year, which are believed to be linked to the rising cost of timber during the pandemic.
In an email to The Current, the BC Ministry of Forests said it was investigating 180 incidents of unauthorized logging in 2021. Figures for 2022 have not yet been tabulated, the ministry said, but s expects them to be lower, in line with falling wood prices this year. course.
MIRAR | Tree thefts cause a call for more application:
The eruption of tree thefts on Vancouver Island calls for more application
Some Vancouver Island residents are calling for stricter enforcement and tougher sanctions following a recent eruption of tree theft in the area, which may be related to rising wood prices. This year about 100 trees have been extracted from a forest reserve, including a valuable red cedar.
Although the problem is well known in BC, Bourgon said it is happening in North America and is becoming a bigger problem on the east coast of Canada, where poachers are looking for black walnuts and maples, which they secretly cut them down and drag them to sell them.
“In North America in general, the conservative estimate is that poached wood is worth about $ 1 billion a year, and in British Columbia, that figure is about $ 20 million a year,” he said, adding that accurate figures are difficult to establish because it is difficult to establish. identify stolen wood once it enters the supply chain.
The BC Forestry and Forestry Practices Act prohibits damage, destruction, or disposal of wood growing on Crown lands, with penalties of up to $ 1 million or three years in prison, or both. There are also administrative penalties of up to $ 100,000 per hectare, or $ 200 per cubic meter. Proponents, however, say the fines often end up being just a few hundred dollars and have called for harsher sanctions.
Lyndsie Bourgon has explored the history and motivations of poaching in her new book Tree Thieves: Crime and Survival in North America’s Woods. (Photo by Stacey Krolow)
The Ministry of Forestry told The Current that its Compliance and Compliance Branch has issued 966 sanctions over the past 12 years, “resulting in fines of approximately $ 123,700 in violations and more than $ 1 million as result of administrative hearings “.
Bourgon said authorities depend on the public to report suspicious activities, or that mill operators contact them if they are offered wood that looks like old vegetation or comes from a protected area. Over the years, signs with line telephone numbers have been placed in the woods, as well as hidden cameras in areas where authorities think logging can occur.
Who steals these trees? During his research, Bourgan found that the decline of small towns helped answer that question.
“Poaching usually occurs in small towns, around protected areas. And those small towns have really struggled, as a result of the deindustrialization and the kind of slowdown in the timber industry,” he said.
“Poverty has been increasing in these rural areas, as well as the consumption of hard drugs, especially methamphetamine,” he added.
Bourgon said not all poachers he interviewed identified with poverty or substance abuse problems, but law enforcement and forest officials told him they saw it as a motivating factor, driven by social change. .
“It really showed how a change in culture, and a change in environmental conservation and our priorities, really affected that region,” Bourgon said.
Tree poaching “was downstream of that … an implication of what happened,” he said.
Historic poaching, in protest
Bourgon began writing Tree Thieves thinking it would be a true crime story, but said it quickly became a historical account of how poaching goes back centuries.
Her research took her to 11th-century England, where “access to forests was seen as a human right because forests gave life.”
“It provided materials to take refuge, provide a home for wildlife that was then hunted, it was a place where people walked,” he said.
This right to the forest began to be eradicated in the late 11th and 12th centuries, as wooded areas were designated solely for the use and pleasure of kings and aristocracy.
Bourgon said people began going to the forest to steal firewood and animals at night, both to survive and to protest the resources that had taken them.
A Douglas fir poached on Vancouver Island in the spring of 2019. The BC Ministry of Forests investigated 180 incidents of unauthorized logging in 2021. (Submitted by Lyndsie Bourgon)
In the thirteenth century, the Charter of the Forest, a document accompanying the Magna Carta, restored the public right to the forest.
But Bourgon believes some of the modern poachers he interviewed “felt really the same way” as poachers in protest, hundreds of years ago.
He said some people may feel marginalized by changes in the timber industry or that “their particular appreciation for the forest is no longer respected.”
Under these circumstances, “you can really get hooked on this story of these poachers … and grab some of the rich and bring it back to your community,” he said.
He added that while much of the poaching in Canada occurs in provincial parks and crown lands, “it still seems to many people that powerful decision-makers have made the decision to remove land from common use. “.
He believes that public opinion is on the side of those who fight poaching, but that the challenges of capturing poachers give them a hand.
On the other hand, these poachers live with “the kind of socioeconomic differences that make poaching desirable and worthwhile,” he said.
“This inequality … affects them the most.”
A poaching site in the Sunshine Coast Community Forest, BC, in October 2019. (Veronica Alice)
Irreplaceable old forests
Illegal logging also occurs on a larger scale, such as when timber companies operate far beyond the areas allowed by their permits, Bourgon said.
“Often, falsified documentation allows this wood to be sold to exporters, who then sell it to manufacturers, who then export, again, this product to North America,” he said.
This wood ends up in the Canadian supply chain in the form of things like hardwood floors and musical instruments, he said.
Lyndsie Bourgon has explored the history and motivations of poaching in her new book Tree Thieves: Crime and Survival in North America’s Woods. (Books by Greystone)
Environmental impacts are important, especially when targeting ancient forests, Bourgon said.
“They contain a significant amount of carbon per acre … [and] they are incredibly rich biodiversity habitats, ”he said.
But even though old trees are “by definition irreplaceable” in our lives, or even in the lives of our children and grandchildren, Bourgon said it can be hard to get people to care.
There is a “disparity between protecting landscapes and flora … rather than simple wildlife, and charismatic wildlife in particular: elephants, rhinos, lions and tigers,” he said.
“Everyone needs protection, but it’s often a little easier to argue for animal protection.”
Written by Padraig Moran. Produced by Howard Goldenthal.