The 'silent crisis' in BC's forest industry

I grew up in logging camps on the BC coast. My father and grandfather were loggers. So was I, briefly, when young. My forebears worked in the forest with pride, and with a sense that the forests would always provide. Back then, we didn’t talk about “sustainability.” Trees were cut and people moved on. 

Today, that word is everywhere — but the way we’re managing BC’s forests tells a different story. 

We call current forestry “sustainable,” but it isn’t — not in any real or lasting way. The problem lies beneath our boots in the soil, in the duff, in the deep biological networks that make a forest thrive. Each time we harvest timber, we’re not just removing wood, we’re removing nutrients. And when those nutrients are gone, they don’t come back quickly. 

In a natural forest, when trees die, they decay where they fall.  Nutrients are slowly recycled through complex, interconnected, interdependent processes that take centuries. But modern forestry speeds everything up. We log, burn, mulch, pelletize. We ship out whole trees. Doing so, we break down the slow nutrient accumulation cycle. The soil is left depleted. New growth is weaker. Forest health declines. 

This process is called nutrient drawdown, and it’s the silent crisis of BC’s forest industry. Recent research shows that up to 70 per cent of nutrients accumulated since the last Ice Age have already been removed by harvesting from some of our old-growth forests. After a clearcut, it can take 250 years or more for nutrient levels to recover — if we leave the forest alone. But instead, we re-enter every 60 to 80 years, long before the system can restore itself. 

If we did this in agriculture, harvesting crops without replenishing the soil, farmers would go broke. Yet, we continue this practice in forestry, pretending it’s sustainable. 

So how do we fix it? We start by grounding forest policy in ecology, not economics alone. And that means setting a real, science-based harvest limit to maintain nutrients in our forest ecosystems. 

Over the years, I’ve looked to nature for answers — studies that track sustainable consumption in wild ecosystems. They point to a surprising consistency: studied predator-prey systems balance at around 15 to 20per cent of annual population growth. Peregrine falcons eat murrelets. Polar bears hunt seals. Leafcutter ants harvesting tropical leaves. Even Indigenous harvesting practices, like the Maori’s use of seabird eggs, follow this rule. It’s a pattern that shows up across species and across time. 

If we applied this ecological rule to forestry, it would mean taking no more than 15 to 20 per cent of the forest’s mean annual increment, its yearly growth. Not 50 per cent. Not clearcuts. A modest share allows the system to keep functioning over generations. 

This isn’t just theory. It’s a practical and adaptive standard. If monitored forest growth increases, harvests can grow. If growth declines due to climate change or past over-harvesting, extraction slows down. It’s a flexible, measurable framework, and it would put BC on a path to true sustainability, not just lip service. 

I know this kind of shift would have real economic impacts. I also know we’re already feeling them. Timber supply is dropping. Mills are closing. Companies are moving south. The current model isn’t just ecologically unsound, it’s economically unsustainable. 

If we’re sincere about long-term sustainability, we need to change course now. Let’s roll out a new system gradually over the next decade. Keep more timber in the province. Invest in local milling and value-added production. Support workers in transitioning.  

Expanding community forest tenures around BC’s forest-based communities will introduce creative generational thinking into the planning process from people who appreciate that the long-term viability of their community is intimately connected to the sustainability of their forests.

It’s about leaving behind forests that can thrive for hundreds of years, long after we’re gone. 

We inherited a legacy of abundance. It’s high time to return that gift to future generations, not with slogans, but with action.

Bruce Ellingsen has lived and worked on Cortes Island since 1946 and has been concerned about how to achieve sustainable forest management in BC for over 30 years. He is a board director of the Cortes Island Community Forest, an equal partnership with the Klahoose First Nation.