Wednesday, January 30, 2019 | Your community newspaper since 1916
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
String Machine Sean Kemp, a violinist with The Atlantic String Machine, performs a concert Tuesday afternoon at the Brunswick Street Seniors Activity Centre. The show is part of the Come in From the Cold community outreach series to be held at various times and venues around town during the Coldsnap music festival.
Land eyed for treaty settlement Wildfires hurting climate, Sierra Club says raises questions in Summit Lake The wildfires that ripped through B.C. forests during the last two summers have done the province no favours when it comes to carbon emissions, according to an environmental advocacy group. In a report released Monday, Sierra Club B.C. says that both the 2017 and 2018 wildfires took out more than 1.2 million hectares, eight times more than the 10-year average. In the process, the 2017 fires emitted an estimated 190 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and produced a similar amount in 2018. According to the latest data, released by the B.C. government in December, B.C.’s total emissions in 2016 were about 62 million tonnes. And Sierra Club B.C. says that’s on the low side, claiming the government failed to take into account emissions from “destructive logging and slash burning” that amounted to nearly 50 million tonnes in the last three years. The practices have turned B.C. forests from a carbon sink to a carbon emitter, the Sierra Club B.C. says and adds that if the provincial government continues to use its current method, it will have undercounted emissions from B.C.’s forests by more than 200 million tonnes, once data becomes available for 2017 and 2018. “Turning a blind eye to these massive amounts of carbon pollution allows governments to act
as if new pipelines and fracked LNG terminals can be accommodated within climate action plans,” Sierra Club B.C. senior forest and climate campaigner Jens Wieting said in a statement. The organization is calling on the province to provide more thorough estimates and to collect regional data and data on management practices, distinguish between carbon-rich forests and less carbon-rich forests, and distinguish emissions from “destructive practices” and selective logging. It is also calling on the province to set out targets for protecting carbon-rich old-growth, to phase out slash burning, and ensure all communities at risk of wildfires are fully participating in Fire Smart programs. In an emailed reply to The Citizen, Environment and Climate Change Strategy Minister George Heyman said the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change dictates that non-human related activities are not reported in greenhouse gas emission inventories. However, he said forest fire emissions are included in the Provincial Greenhouse Gas Inventory for transparency but they are not counted towards the reported totals by either B.C. or Canada, in line with international practice. “We know the last two years have been the two worst fire seasons on record. Most fires are natural events, outside of our direct control, though climate change is clearly intensifying the impact,” he said.
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Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca Summit Lake residents are seeking answers after learning Crown land within the townsite could be transferred to the West Moberly First Nations as part of a treaty settlement agreement. The news was enough to draw 50 to 60 people meeting in the community north of Prince George on Sunday afternoon, said Terry Burgess, the alternate director for Fraser-Fort George Regional District electoral area G (Crooked River-Parsnip). “It was just us talking, there was nobody there from the government,” he said. Word got out in the form of an email to a guide outfitter from the Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation that was then circulated among the residents. It came with a map with a significant portion of the townsite marked out as being of interest to West Moberly. Burgess said those who attended had no problem with West Moberly taking over the land in question but felt blindsided by the way it has reached them. He said they are also concerned about the form that ownership would take. The preference is that it be in the form of fee simple, in which West Moberly would own the land outright rather than through the federal government but also make the band subject to the same regulations as adjacent property owners.
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A provincial government map shows the land in Summit Lake being considered as part of the treaty settlement for West Moberly Lake First Nations. “Nobody wants the community surrounded by a big reserve,” Burgess said. “If it’s reserve land, there there is no control over what happens to the land... none of the regional district rules or the provincial rules would apply to reserve land.”
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Burgess’s sense is that West Moberly would want it in the form of fee simple too, so it can be used as collateral for loans or be sold. Either way, Burgess said the land being considered is largely low-quality. — see ‘EVEN THE, page 3
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