ith its vast expanses of forest, Canada has the most “certified” sustainable timber operations of any nation, according to the nonprofit organizations that attest to the environmental soundness of logging practices.
Such forestry-standards groups were born in the 1990s out of rage over tropical rainforest destruction. Today, they put their leafy seals of approval on toilet paper, two-by-fours and other wood and paper goods to assure eco-conscious consumers and investors they were responsibly produced.
Yet research shows Canadian forests have seen some of the world’s largest declines in ecologically critical primary and old-growth woodlands over the last two decades, even as sustainability-certification programs grew to include nearly all of Canada’s logging.
To track destruction of older woodlands in these certified zones, Reuters analyzed forestry data in Ontario, a major logging province. The analysis found that about 30% of the certified boreal forests harvested from 2016 to 2020 were at least 100 years old. That resulted in the loss of 377 square miles of these older forests, an area the size of New York City and Washington D.C. combined, the analysis found.
Canada’s forests – accounting for 9% of the world’s total – are considered critical to containing global warming. Environmental advocates have long pushed to end logging in primary or old-growth forests, which soak up far more climate-damaging carbon than logged-and-replanted areas. Primary forests are those that show no sign of previous harvesting. They can include old-growth areas – some with trees hundreds or thousands of years old – but also relatively newer woodlands that, for instance, might have regrown after wildfires.
Forest-certification nonprofits have chosen to allow logging of older forests through a host of concessions to industry. The harvesting of such areas in Ontario came despite the fact that 94% of the province’s managed forests are certified by one of the two dominant environmental-certification organizations in Canada, the analysis found. Reuters analyzed satellite-derived logging data, government forest-age estimates and forest-certification maps to estimate the harvest of forests at least 100 years old in Ontario’s certified zones.
“Why the heck are they allowing logging – certified logging – in primary forests that are over 100 years old?” asked Dominick DellaSala, a conservation biologist with environmental group Wild Heritage who studies Canadian logging impacts. “For Canada to claim that it’s doing sustainable management, it’s laughable. To put a certification seal of approval on it is more alarming.”
A sign warns motorists about logging in British Columbia. The province, a showcase of Canada’s raw natural beauty, has seen more than half of its old-growth forests disappear over the past two decades, research shows. REUTERS/Chris Helgren
The rapid loss of older Canadian forests highlights the flaws of certification programs that have come under heavy influence of the logging and forest-products industries, a Reuters investigation has found. The damage has come under the watch of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the world’s first such certification organization, founded in 1993 with environmentalist support; and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), a rival founded by a timber and forest-products trade group the following year.
This account is based on the Reuters analysis of Ontario forests, a review of hundreds of pages of FSC and SFI audits, along with policy and strategy documents, and interviews with 20 current or former FSC employees or members and more than a half-dozen researchers who study the environmental effects of Canadian logging.
In a statement, FSC said it has not wavered from its original commitment to responsible forest management and that its certification standards are “robust and credible.” SFI said its standards are “strong and continuously improving” and that its certification has become a “highly trusted solution” to the growing demand for products from sustainably managed forests.
Neither organization commented on the Reuters analysis or on whether they considered harvesting large sections of century-old forests to be sustainable.
The FSC and SFI certify logging companies’ practices in specific forests and examine consumer-product supply chains. Their seals of approval – a leaf insignia for SFI, and a tree with a checkmark for the FSC – have become essential to timber and forest-products firms amid rising pressure for environmental stewardship.
The FSC Mix label, shown here on toilet paper, means that a product likely includes a mix of wood from logging operations certified as sustainable and those with no certification.
The Sustainable Forestry Initiative logo. SFI, a nonprofit group, is criticized by many environmentalists as having weak standards and strong ties to industry.
But these companies hold immense leverage over the big forest-certification nonprofits, which depend heavily on the industry for funding through certification fees, Reuters found. And since its inception, the FSC has watered down its forestry standards in response to the competitive threat posed by SFI and other industry-friendly certifiers, according to environmentalists and more than a dozen current and former FSC staffers and members, who advise the organization on policy and strategy.
Companies are free to choose which certifier to use, allowing them to avoid those with stricter standards and giving them clout to lobby all certifiers for permissive policies, said the FSC staffers and members.
“It’s easy to pull the wool over people’s eyes about what is good forestry.”
Herb Hammond, forest ecologist
Widespread certification of British Columbia timber operations over the past two decades hasn’t stopped the disappearance of more than half of the province’s old-growth woodlands over that period. Logging caused the vast majority of the declines in the biggest old-growth trees storing the most carbon, according to one 2021 study in the Canadian Journal of Forest Research and another last year in the journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change. Studies in 2009 and 2017 examined areas of Quebec woodlands and found sections of forests dominated by trees more than a century old had dwindled to between 13% and 28% of the forest amid heavy logging. Without logging, these older sections would account for between 40% and 68% of these woodlands, the researchers estimated.
Herb Hammond, a veteran forest ecologist, ran a British Columbia nonprofit organization that conducted some of Canada’s first FSC audits in the late 1990s. He later left the organization, frustrated with what he described as too many compromises with industry.
“It’s easy to pull the wool over people’s eyes about what is good forestry,” he said. “Certification has turned out to be a bit of a dog’s breakfast. It doesn’t really mean anything.”
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https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/canada-forests-climate/