ME eee)
Fletcher Challenge forms
environmental task force

CAYCUSE, B.C. — As a result of
growing pressure from its workforce
and the public, Fletcher Challenge
Canada has set up two Environmen-
tal Task Force groups on Tree Farm
Licence #46 on Southern Vancouver
Island.

The Task Forces are in operation in
the company’s Caycuse and Renfrew
Logging Division and are in their
early stages.

The Lumberworker visited the
Caycuse operation in October to get
an insight into this new Task Force
and how it operates.

Struck in November of 1988, the
Task Force was established “‘as a body
independent of the company to pro-
vide a communication link to both
management and the workforce and
make recommendations to the Man-
ager on areas requiring attention,”
according to a company leaflet.

Fletcher-Challenge has set up a
four-member committee consisting of
two IWA members — faller Joe Saysell
and hook tender Alf Atkinson along
with two staff employees; grade fore-
man Gordon Sturgeon and forester
Randy Hart.

Since the program has begun, envi-
ronmental consciousness in the log-
ging operation has improved dramat-
ically.

As the result of direct-action by the
task force, several early successes are
reported.

Staff has been educated, on a formal
basis, in proper road construction
techniques, back spar rehabilitation
and fish-stream awareness. Road-
building has also been done with a
minimum of side casting and flyrock
control. A fifty per cent reduction in
flyrock was reported at the nearby
sawmill in Youbou.

Out in the woods, fuel storage tanks
have been eliminated and proper pro-
cedures have been worked out for oil
and lubricant handling and disposal.

Anenvironmental manual has been
installed in vehicles along with emer-
gency response contact numbers.

The Task Force is examining log-
ging plan options and in addressing

© Task Force member Joe Saysell examines progressive clearcut on southern Vancouver Island. Fletcher Challenge has committed
itself to avoid such gigantic clear cuts in the future.

the issue of clear-cutting in the nearby
Walbran area. The company is on
record in committing not to allow
continuous clear-cutting in the water-
shed, one of the TFL’s last virgin
drainages.

Duncan Local 1-80 First Vice-
President Bill Routley says that the
continuous clear-cut is one of the
IWA’s major concerns.

“In the past this is something we
haven't talked about,” says Routley.
“Now we realize that we can be respon-
sible for policing ourselves and have

some worker input into what is wrong
or right.”

Currently, the company is develop-
ing logging plans for long-line har-
vesting systems and has leased a
sky car carriage system to train some
crew members.

With new government restrictions
on wood waste, there has been a natu-
ral improvement in fibre utilization.
All the felled timber at Caycuse is now
yarded to roadside areas where it can
be assessed for avoidable waste
standards.

Joe Saysell says that the move by
the company was a step in the right
direction. He hopes it will eventually
expand to other Fletcher Challenge
logging operations as well as mills.

Logging Manager Bill Hannah
says, “Our goal is to make the envi-
ronment as much a part of our every-
day life as anything else we do.”

Time will tell. The Task Force will
conduct an independent audit in the
future to see if their recommendations
have had an impact on the logging
operations.

Conference recommends changes in forestry

NANAIMO, B.C. — A conference
which presented sustainable forest
management concepts for Vancouver
peter was held here on October 27.
“The State of the Islands Conference”,
sponsored by a non-profit coalition of
concerned residents of Vancouver
Island and surrounding areas, heard
a collection of speakers address the
question of sustainable forestry.

Included among the speakers were
Ken Lertzman, a director of Wildlife
Habitat Canada in Ottawa, Dr. Chris
Maser, Assistant Professor of For-
estry at the University of Portland,
Bob Nixon, Publisher of Forest Plan-
ning Canada Magazine, and a critic of
B.'s Ministry of Forest Senior Exec-
utive, and Lyn Kistner, an IWA faller
from Port Renfrew.

IWA-CANADA Forest and Land Use

Director, Clay Perry was present to
sit on a panel of speakers and fielded
questions about the union's position
on sustainable forester 5
Brother Perry told the audience
that the IWA commits itself to a visi-
bly sustainable forest policy and
commended the conference for its

exploration of that task. _
He also said that British Colum-

bians must contribute to the solution
for the world environmental and eco-
nomic dilemma. Perry urged the audi-
ence to realize that the province has

an obligation to produce at least the
equivalent of physical goods which it
consumes.

“To do less is simply to export the
ecological stress necessarily attached
to our own lives,” commented Perry.

Brother Perry also said that the
IWA is calling for community and
worker participation not only in
approval or disapproval of tenure
plans, but also in the preparation of
the plans.

e University of Oregon Professor, Dr.
Chris Maser was keynote speaker at
Conference.

In the keynote address to the con-
ference, Dr. Chris Maser, the author
of the recently released book “The
Redesigned Forests” explained to the
audience the biological difference
between natural forest regeneration
and human or “plantation” regenera-
tion.

He criticized the government’s and
industry’s approach of liquidating old
growth forests without having ob-
tained new evidence of how subse-
quent forests will sustain over time.

Although Maser supports restora-
tion forestry, he believes today’s
“intensive forest management” is
based on a lack of biological knowl-
edge of forest regeneration.

Maser said that an “old growth
laboratory” is necessary for genetic
preservation and that some harvest-
ing should be done on a two to three-
hundred year rotation, mixed with
varying shorter rotations.

The conference concluded with a
list of recommendations to be submit-
ted to the provincial Forests Ministry.

Those recommendations included a
request that the B.C. Ministry of For-
ests expand its woodlot program on
Vancouver Island and the surround-
ing Gulf Islands. A removal of for-
ested lands from Tree Farm Licence
holders and smaller management
units was also recommended.

The conference also called for the
full restoration of Forest Service and
the resolving of unextinguished
aboriginal and native land claims to
the Island.

Similar to demands being made by
IWA-CANADA, the conference called
for the development of value-added
and remanufacturing industries
within the province and research and
development into low impact forestry
techniques.

The IWA also shares the Island
Conference's goals of creating a mean-
ingful dialogue and round-table dis-
cussion amongst different forest
users.

ATTENTION B.C.
MEMBERSHIP

New application forms for
the J. Stewart Alsbury
educational assistance
scholarship fund are now
available at your local
union office. Deadline for
application is
March 31, 1990.

LUMBERWORKER/DECEMBER, 1989/15