Victoria watershed

Continued from previous page

“Sometimes I don’t think we're get-
ting a fair shake with the press in
town (Victoria),” says Brother Kral.
“They seem to lean a bit towards the
preservationist side.”

That is a shame. The crew in the
Victoria watershed is one of the most
versatile and multi-skilled ones that
exist in the province.

In fact, nowhere else do workers
perform so many tasks. They just
don’t log. They plant trees, thin and
prune second growth and do a variety
of other tasks in the watershed area.

The intensive silviculture work is

what the union would like to see more
of.

“All of the guys are pretty keen on
doing all types of work,” says Kral.
“We don’t have the harvesting pro-
gram that we used to and it means
that we have diversity amongst the
crew. Everyone here can do just
about any job, right from falling trees
to tree planting to running equip-
ment.”

In March the provincial government
unveiled the Forest Renewal Plan, in
which a greater stress will be placed
on creating jobs through intensive sil-
viculture and improve the health of
forests. That has been happening all
along in the Victoria watershed.

Most of what the Forest Renewal
Plan proposes has taken place in the
Watershed for many decades. The wa-
tershed workers are really doing what
the forest worker of the future will be
doing.

“These workers are already there,”
say Brother Routley. “They know how
to do alot of jobs and have developed
the skills to do them well.”

Jim Birtwhistle has worked in the
watershed for 19 years has done a
large number of jobs. Since earlier
this year he has tree planted, tree
pruned, worked on fire breaks, ran
yarder, operated skidder, and done se-
curity detail in the watershed.

“I don’t mind changing jobs at all,”
say Brother Birtwhistle, although he
admits that he would much rather be
logging.

Local 1-80 member George Ped-
neault has worked in the watershed

¢ Near old logging road where workers are clearing more right-of-way are l. to r. Brian Butler, faller Don Beale,

Mike Kral, Bill Routley, and faller George Pedneault.

for over 34 years. In addition to falling
trees, he has done alot of work in the
thinning and pruning of the second
growth forests. For him, taking care
of the forest is nothing new and the
recently annouced Forest Renewal
Plan is like “reinventing the wheel.”

From experience Brother Pedneault.
says that pruned tress yield quality
trees sooner. He also says that the
lands that have been commercially
thinned are much healthier that those
that have not been touched.

The workers have done some com-
mercial thinning after which some of
the thinnings have gone for logs,
fence rails, and fire wood.

Don Beale, who has fell timber for
22 years, is another multi-talented

worker. In recent years he has fell
timber, ran log loader, planted trees,
cut slash, operated front end loader,
and driven gravel truck.

Brother Routley says that in most
operations, workers are not offered
other jobs.

“Some new types of jobs may even
sound humourous but when you real-
ize that it’s going to be the way of the
future in order to get a full work year
in then we are going to find a way to
get a level of comfort in doing this
type of work,” says the local union
president.”Maybe our crew is going to
do work part of the year doing some-
thing elseto get their 180 or more days
in”

"Those who know and understand

the watershed should be the ones to
work in the area.

“When you are managing an area
this size with this many people in it
you need people that are trained in
forestry and know how to take care of

it,” say Cam Webb, a local union mem-
ber.

“The knowledge and expertise is
here,” says Brother Webb. “People
who have worked for 20 and 30 years
here know the area, know what they
have to do and are aware of problems
that develop here.”

Good forestry practices not only
create additional work now, but they
clearly add value to our forests and
hopefully will create more job oppor-
tunities in the future.

Parliamentary report defends
clearcutting following hearings

Clearcutting is an accceptable and
defensible method of timber harvest-
ing, says a parliamentary committee.

Rejecting claims of environmental
groups, the all-party House of Com-
mons Standing Committee on Natural
resources reports that it finds clearcut
logging to be consistent with environ-
mental concerns, as well as with
worker safety, forest management
and economic factors.

The committee’s report is based on
evidence presented by scientists, envi-
ronmental groups, aboriginal organi-
zations, and IWA-CANADA.

In its presentation, the union sug-
gested that increased reliance on se-
lection logging would undermine
workers’ safety.

“When we decide between available
forest practices or harvesting technol-
ogy ... we believe that one of the pri-
mary factors must be workers’
safety,” said union third vice-presi-
dent Warren Ulley. “Forest harvesting
is extremely dangerous work that
should not be made more dangerous.”

Ulley’s testimony was part of four
days of hearings on clear-cut logging
in April.

Ulley and IWA-CANADA director of
environment and land use Kim Pol-
lock laid out the union’s concerns for
worker safety whenever loggers work
in closely confined situations such as
they face constantly in selection log-
ging.

“Logging in dense forest is danger-
ous and the more confined you are,
the more dangerous it becomes. You
have to be pretty callous to disregard
that,” Ulley told MPs.

The union brief points out that any
choice of harvesting techniques in-
volved a “balancing act”, where many
factors must be weighed.

“With very few exceptions, progres-
sive clearing of hundreds of hectares
of forest is a thing of the past in
British Columbia,” especially with the
introduction of the proposed new For-
est Practices Code.

But whereas small patch harvesting
of relatively small blocks - the new
Code sets a 40-hectare limit — repre-
sents a reasonable tradeoff between
safety and ecological concerns, “safe-
ty is a major concern in any harvest-
ing system that involves manual as
opposed to mechanized falling or that

involves the possibility of ‘hang-ups’ -
one large tree getting caught up in an-
other,” it adds.

The report cites Worker Compensa-
tion Board statistics and other re-
search that affirms that “some 60
percent of deaths in the B.C. woods
result from hang-ups.”

In short, “if fallers are forced to fell
timber with less open ground for trees
to fall into; with less room to manoeu-
vre when the unexpected happens
and with less protection, then the like-
lihood of death and injury greatly in-
creases.”

Ulley also noted that serious acci-
dents increase in frequency whenever
workers are faced with uncertainty or
are anxious about their workplace, for
instance when there are protests and
blockades.

“In the past 15 years or so we’ve
gone through hell,” he told a hushed
committee room.

The same session also heard a high-
ly-charged exchange between Patrick
Moore of the Forest Alliance of
British Columbia and environmental
groups.

Moore, a founder and international
director of Greenpeace, said that
Greenpeace’s attack on clearcutting is
“right off the rails”.

“Tt’s a laugh and it’s childish to
claim that we should ban clear-cutting
worldwide and that we should have a
label that says clear-cut free. It’s just
to raise money, it’s just an ad slogan,”

he chided environmentalist groups.

Moore’s presentation also systemat-
ically questioned Greenpeace’s argu-
ments on clearcutting, which he
suggested amounts to the application
of urban notions of order and beauty
onto a world that is different.

“It is ludicrous to take the position
that the good or bad of a situation can
be judged just by looking at it,” he
warned MPs.

For their part environmental groups
appeared surprised by the strong op-
position their positions roused among
other participants. By the second day
of hearings they felt called on to deny
they were spread “misinformation”
and to deny suggestions that they are
urging an international boycott of B.C.
forest products: “What we are doing is
practicing consumer education”,
Karen Mahon of Greenpeace told the
committee.

Committee members also heard
from a representative sample of biolo-
gists, forest ecologists and profession-
al foresters.

Chairman Robert Nault promised
that MPs will travel to the west coast
to hear additional evidence sometime
in May.

The Ottawa hearings, aired on na-
tional television during the weekend
of April 16-17. Following the commit-
tee’s Ottawa hearings the MP’s also
travelled to British Columbia, Alberta,
and New Brunswick for a first-hand
look at forestry operations.

a

LUMBERWORKER/JUNE, 1994/7