The Legault government’s intentions to reform the forest regime are raising the hopes of environmental groups and opposition parties in the National Assembly, according to whom protecting the forest from climate change is a first-order “emergency”.
“The way the forest is exploited in Quebec is not sustainable,” said the general director of Nature Québec, Alice-Anne Simard, on Friday, in reaction to the decision of the Minister of Forests, Maïté Blanchette Vézina, to modernize the Sustainable Forest Development Act. “A reform of the forestry regime is welcome. »
Without specifying when, Mme Blanchette Vézina announced in the pages of Duty that it would “rapidly” carry out an overhaul of the forestry regime in force since 2013 in Quebec. She will also be working there this summer. The elected representative of the Coalition Avenir Québec wants the forestry industry to do “more with less”.
In an interview to present the results of her Reflection Tables on the Future of the Forest, the Minister committed to “including the concept of adaptation to climate change” in the current management system, to reviewing the use of forest roads and to increasing the contribution of private forests to production. According to the general director of the Quebec section of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS Quebec), Alain Branchaud, these are some great solutions for the future.
“To have sustainable forestry that is healthy and profitable for society, we will have to make significant changes. When we went to the consultation table on the future of the forest, the slogan we repeated was: cut less, cut better,” he emphasized on the other end of the phone on Friday. .
The forest as a “whole”
According to Alice-Anne Simard, the minister will have carried out a successful overhaul “if and only if it ensures the future of the forest and all its uses”. “The climate crisis must not be used as a pretext to turn to an agricultural and artificial vision of the forest,” she stressed in a statement published on social networks.
After numerous reforms to the forest regime, the former director of the Forest Study Center (CEF) and professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Quebec at Montreal Pierre Drapeau cautiously welcomes the ambitions of the Legault government. While waiting to see the content of the proposed legislative changes, the forestry and forest ecosystems expert would like to say one thing to Mr.me Blanchette Vézina: the forest is not just a wood factory.
” [Elle] has a great vocation, which is to provide jobs and to live off the profits from the harvest of wood, and no one in the scientific community disagrees with the fact that this is one of the great missions of our forest. But the forest is also an ecosystem that provides other services than wood,” Mr. Drapeau stressed in an interview with The duty.
He names among other things the role of the forest in protecting biodiversity, its recreational tourism benefits, but also its central place in indigenous cultures. This was one of the major findings of the Commission d’étude sur la gestion de la forêt publique québécoise, commonly called the “Coulombe Commission”, he recalls.
“We must develop the forest as a whole, as an ecosystem,” he stressed on Friday.
In a memorandum co-signed by Mr. Drapeau and published as part of the Discussion Tables, the CEF proposed in particular that the forestry industry carry out “intensive management” of forests by concentrating logging sectors in “defined and limited portions of the territory “. Asked about this idea, Minister Blanchette Vézina opened the door to studying it.
When asked about this subject again, Pierre Drapeau advocates increasing silviculture practices in Quebec, which would fit perfectly, in his eyes, into the technique of “intensive management.” “We still do far too many total cuts,” he said.
Joined Friday by The dutythe Quebec Forest Industry Council, which represents nearly 100 members of the forestry sector, preferred to wait before commenting on Mr.me Blanchette Vézina. In its brief submitted to the Tables de réflexion sur l’avenir de la forêt, the organization had nevertheless pushed for “more intensive” silviculture, while calling for “improving rather than maintaining the productive capacity of the forest.”
Reform expected in the National Assembly
In Quebec, the idea of a new forest regime is going down well. Solidarity MNA Alejandra Zaga Mendez, who tabled and had adopted a motion in the House earlier this month to “increase the resilience of forests by quickly tabling a strategy for adapting forest management to climate change,” welcomed the CAQ government’s new intentions on Friday.
“With the forest fires that we experienced last year and the summer that is coming, it is unthinkable to continue with the current law, which does not even mention the question of adaptation to climate change,” a- she underlined in a written declaration sent to the Duty“I will study the bill carefully when it is presented, but I hope to see the notion of adaptation to climate change be absolutely preponderant in it.”
According to the Parti Québécois, the announcement of a new reform “is not […] not premature.” “Both the industry and the communities are in great need of it, and have been for years,” said the political party’s spokesperson for natural resources and forests, Pascal Bérubé.
The Quebec Liberal Party was unable to comment on Friday. However, until last week it advocated a review of the forestry regime “in collaboration with stakeholders in the field.”