The beautiful forests of British Columbia are currently in danger of being cut down. Forests are being logged everyday to provide us with raw materials such as timber to make paper, build homes, and make many other different products for our use. Forests are also cut down to make room for human settlement. Multi-level buildings, homes, and roads are built on top of what used to be dense areas of trees that wildlife used to call home. It is as rare as ever to find a forest with trees even just a hundred years old. When forests are cut down, wildlife lose their homes. Animals are forced to relocate or die. All the plant species in the forest die, and biodiversity is lost.
Spotted owls are an endangered species in Canada and are close to becoming extirpated. They naturally occupy older forests and require older forests for their survival. But as forests are constantly being cut down, it is becoming harder and harder for spotted owls to find old forests to live in.
The benefits that come from logging do not only include the collection of resources and more space for human settlement, but also benefits to our economy. One of the biggest industries in Canada is our logging industry because we have vast amounts of forests that not many other countries have. Logging also provides jobs for thousands of people across the country.
But is logging forests more economically valuable than conserving them? Looking past our moral obligations to protect the habitats of our countries wildlife, which is more valuable? Most people would think that logging forests adds more economical value to the country but that is false. Most people also think conserving forests is too expensive, but that is also false.
Duncan Knowler and Kristen Dust who are researchers at Simon Fraser University conducted a study to see the economic value of older forests. They proved that forest conservation was not too expensive and that conserving forests is actually more economically valuable than not.
Knowler and Dust looked at 81 different scenarios, and out of the 81, 72 of them showed that conserving the forests would benefit the economy more than logging them. Log prices could rise for many different reasons. For example, the demand for logs could become a lot higher than the amount of logs there are, and the cost of logs would rise. Underestimating that the price of carbon is $75 a tonne with a 4% discount rate, the net value of forests would be 1.76 billion dollars. But with even just limited conservation of forests, the net value already rises to 1.82 billion dollars and with high conservation of forests the net value rises to 1.83 billion dollars.
If log prices stayed the same because the demand for logs was the same as the amount there were, the trend would be the same for if log prices rose. The more the forests were conserved, the higher the net value became. Log prices could become lower because there are more logs than needed, or because the quality of the wood gets worse. Old trees have better fibres in the wood which make them better quality than the wood of new trees. Again, if more forests were better conserved the net value of forests would rise in this situation as well. Less carbon taxes would have to be paid with less logging and there might possibly be even some left to sell which would save even more money.
Forests do not only benefit our economy but also benefit us in many other ways. Conserving forests provide chances for people to take walks in nature and do other recreational activities. They also reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the air and increase our quality of water. They also provide other raw materials rather than logs to go to use and be manufactured. Many other benefits would come with conserving forests, including the habitats of spotted owls to be saved.
This study has showed that it is better to conserve forests than log them. It is better for the environment, better for the economy, and also better for the endangered spotted owls in British Columbia. There are many different strategies that are being put into effect to save these birds such as the 1997 Provincial Spotted Owl Management Plan, but we may no longer stick to the status quo. Conserving forests should become a priority and it will benefit us all.
Reference:
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/publications/downloads/2008/Knowler-Dust.pdf
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