Their rationale was that the stuff was harmless. It was virtually safe and just knocked back the unwanted vegetation
like weeds in a garden.
Every year the British C
olumbian government continues to authorize
the widespread, broadcast spraying of our public forests with the toxic glyphosate herbicide VisionMax.
This chemical, which is identical to
RoundUp, kills almost every leafed plant it touches, leaving insects, frogs, possibly fish if it enters waterways, and this
long list of berries, shrubs, and trees dead:
At Risk: Alder, Black Cottonwood, Black Gooseberry,
Black Huckleberry, Black Twinberry, Douglas Maple, Dull Oregon Grape,
False Azalea, Fireweed, Highbush Cranberry, Lady Fern, Ocean Spray,
Paper Birch, Pinegrass, Red Elderberry, Red Huckleberry, Red-osier,
Dogwood, Red Raspberry, Saskatoon Berry, Salmon Berry, Snowberry,
Soopollalie, Sitka, Valerian, Thimbleberry, Trembling Aspen, Willows,
Wild Blueberry, Wild Strawberry.
A grove of dead aspen and dying shrubs a week after spraying, Blackwater Road, August 2010
Unsprayed side of road, 1400 Road Southwest of Prince George, early June, 2011
Sprayed
side of road, 1400 Road southwest of Prince George, early June 2011.
Note the dead grass, blueberry and aspen, almost a year after it was
sprayed in August 2010.
This chemical:
In any given year, 4000 hectares of young forests will be sprayed by
BC Timber Sales in the Prince George District alone. This does not
include the annual contribution of spraying provided by Canfor or other
forestry companies. This practice is required by law, and in forestry
jargon is known as the “free growing rule.”
The benefit of killing all of these plants is presumably the people’s
dream of an artificially accelerated reforestation cycle. By
short-circuiting the natural stage where these “brush” species dominate,
we can trick the forests into producing more wood. This allows a higher
rate of logging and resource extraction in the present. In a
mind-twisting stretch of logic, herbicide spraying is now cast as a tool
of sustainability.
The short-sightedness of this practice is evident in the limitations
of our knowledge. It is impossible for forest managers or scientists to
claim there are no negative effects from spraying millions of hectares
of forest with a toxic chemical, shifting the landscape-wide balance of
tree-species towards increasing conifer monocultures of primarily
lodgepole pine. This is at best a shot in the dark. Here are some
questions:
- How do we know the dramatic increase in conifer monocultures is even
going to reach maturity? Recent studies are suggesting that
broadleaves we kill can keep forests healthier and less prone to
disease.
- How do we know that lodgepole pine, the primary species we are trying to nurture, will even be around in fifty years? Recent studiessuggest it could disappear from much of its present range due to climate change.
- How do we know that aspen and birch won’t have increasing commercial
values into the future? Unlike the annual cycle of agriculture, tree
farming takes place over decades, during which time markets and demand
can change dramatically. The species we are killing now could find new
uses in the future.
- How do we know that aspen and birch and the many other shrubs we
kill don’t play a critical role in forest soil replenishment? Our
understanding of interactions between soil fungal networks and nutrients
is in its infancy. How can we be sure we aren’t missing something?
How do we know aspen, birch and other “weeds” don’t benefit the conifers
we eventually wish to harvest?
- How do we know that the slower-burning aspen and birch won’t play a
critical role in suppressing wildfires as warmer conditions prevail?
- How do we know that spraying a chemical that is a known toxin to
frogs, insects and invertebrates is not going to have a long-term effect
on our forest soils? Frogs are the keystone predator species in forest
soil ecosystems and the most important vertebrate in terms of biomass
in our forests. Yet we have conducted not a single study in B.C. on
the impact of herbicide spraying on these animals or what impact it
could be having on our forest soils.
- How can we be sure herbicide spraying is not affecting mammal and
bird populations? Aspen are the most important tree species to wildlife
and are crucial to biodiversity. What impact will spraying have on
these populations?
The fact that we authorize spraying despite having little idea of the
long-term implications is extremely short-sighted, irresponsible, and
presumptuous.
A long-standing practice, we’ve sprayed or manually brushed over 1.3
million hectares of forest across the Province since 1980, an area a
third the size of Vancouver Island. We still spray around 15,000
hectares a year today, mostly in the Central Interior.
In the late summer of 2010, a helicopter landed at my parent’s ranch
in Punchaw, BC, southwest of Prince George. Strapped to its belly was a
large herbicide tank of Monsanto’s VisionMax glyphosate, which the
pilot, a gregarious ex-US Army pilot, was going to employ against the
surrounding forests. 
