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gunter: facts don't back up guilbeault's denial of parks canada's fire prevention mismanagement at jasper
the empire is beginning to strike back against the narr...
jul 30 2024
3 minute read
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the empire is beginning to strike back against the narrative that parks canada’s woke environmentalist magnified the wildfire that devastated a third of jasper townsite in alberta last week.
a number of foresters, alberta government officials, academics and even former parks canada employees have been writing that the federal agency in charge of the rocky mountain national parks refused for decades to allow “mechanical thinning” (i.e. logging) of thousands of hectares of diseased trees thereby ensuring hundreds of thousands of dry, beetle-killed pines were left standing in the park ready to ignite during a fire and propel that fire to do far more damage.
about 44% of the forest in jasper national park had been killed by mountain pine beetles over the years. yet repeated warning of the danger of leaving so many kindling-dry trees in place were dismissed by parks canada, which felt the forest should be allowed to renew itself naturally.
but on monday, environment minister steven guilbeault, who’s department is in charge of parks canada, insisted it was “simply not true” that his department mismanaged fire prevention at jasper.
“to think over all those decades we would not have deployed all the resources necessary to try and do everything that is humanly possible to protect the town from a forest fire is simply not true,” guilbeault told reporters.
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of course, the cbc also rode quickly to the government’s defence. in an article on tuesday, the state broadcaster claimed, “decades of work to safeguard the community of jasper against the threat of wildfires is being widely hailed for saving the town from total destruction.”
“wildly hailed” by whom?
the two sources quoted by cbc for most of their “proof” were richard ireland, jasper’s mayor, who must work with park administrators on a daily basis, and ron hallman, who is (surprise, surprise) the president and ceo of parks canada.
the facts don’t back up guilbeault’s or the cbc’s denials of government culpability.
an implementation report for the 2022 jasper national park management plan – signed by guilbeault and endorsed by the liberal cabinet – admitted “fire has not yet been applied for whitebark pine restoration.” that was just two years ago. some “mechanical thinning has been completed in 1.6 hectares,” but that is against thousands of hectares of dead trees killed by beetles.
some prescribed burns did take place between 2014 and 2021, according to the implementation report. but of the 285 recommended during the eight seasons covered, just 132 prescribed fires (46%) occurred.
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before 2020, 53% of schedule fires were carried out. in 2020 and 2021, just 23% were, with covid being blamed for the sharp drop off. why? did government scientists imagine rangers standing around watching timber burn would be susceptible to the virus?
the rate of burns did not pick up markedly after the covid emergency ended.
when drawing up its 2022 report on the state of fire prevention and reforestation, parks canada projected “it is likely 520,000 seedlings may be required,” to replant the forest devasted by pine beetle destruction. however, in the first six years covered in the report, just 18,000 seedlings were planted.
that’s a mere 3.5%.
turns out liberal governments and federal civil servants just aren’t very good at planting trees.
remember prime minister justin trudeau’s 2019 campaign pledge to plant 2 billion trees across canada? so far just about 110 million have been planted, and only because the feds include trees that are paid for by ottawa, but are planted by others (mostly municipalities and some companies).
the 2-billion-tree promise is supposed to be fulfilled by 2031, but at the current rate, it’s a fairytale that even as many as 400 million will get planted.
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just as it’s a fairytale that federal mismanagement didn’t contribute, bigtime, to jasper’s destruction.
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