The main Quebec research institution on the forest was not invited to the Legault government’s “Reflection tables on the future of the forest”, which were also held barely more than two years after another government consultation on the same subject, the report of which is still awaited.
“More than 40 national organizations gathered in Quebec to discuss solutions surrounding the future of the forest in Quebec,” underlined the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forests (MRNF) in a press release published Thursday, at the end of the “National Meeting” held the same day to close this consultation exercise.
But the Forest Study Center (CEF), which has 80 researchers from 11 Quebec universities, and whose “central mission” is scientific research and training on the forest, was not among them.
“I can only think that it is an oversight, but one that looks like a willful oversight,” he told The Press the biologist Pierre Drapeau, director of the CEF from 2010 to 2022 and co-author of the dissertation that the institution nevertheless wrote as part of this consultation.
With its range of scientists in cutting-edge research areas, the CEF would have been able to make a significant contribution to the exchanges, believes Mr. Drapeau, stressing that the invitation to regional meetings of a few professors attached to the Center, speaking as individual of their respective expertise, does not have the same scope.
The absence of the CEF was also raised by other participants in the “National Meeting”, who felt that the consultation was very focused on logging, to the detriment of other functions of the forest.
“The solutions put forward focus on a very specific vision where the forest is mainly used to power 2×4 factories,” lamented Nature Québec in particular in an open letter published on Saturday in The Press.
In terms of forest management, the government’s priority must be to ensure the sustainability of the forest, and not just the sustainability of wood volumes for forestry companies.
Alice-Anne Simard and Mathieu Béland, respectively general director and analyst of Nature Québec
Quebec, on the other hand, invited the Boreal Forest Alliance to its consultation, an organization made up of municipal elected officials including a The Press had demonstrated proximity to the forestry industry and practices raising questions a year ago.
“Very inclusive” consultation
The Tables for reflection on the future of the forest were intended to be a “very inclusive” approach and the Forest Study Center had the possibility of submitting a brief, argued in an interview with The Press the Minister of Natural Resources and Forests, Maïté Blanchette Vézina.
“Fueling reflection through science was at the heart of the process, through the presence of the chief forester,” she added, also referring to the participation of environmental groups and various researchers.
The consultation made it possible to provide “a very broad overview [et on n’a] not just talking about forestry,” the minister objected to the criticism.
Yes, we talked about the sustainability of the trees and the forest following the fires, but I remind you that this is very much linked to a recommendation from our chief forester […]who also asked us to do this exercise.
Maïté Blanchette Vézina, Minister of Natural Resources and Forests
Second consultation on the same subject
The holding of the “Reflection tables on the forest” comes a little more than two years after a “major public consultation” which was to enrich the Strategy for adapting forest management and development to climate change.
The report of this exercise, also held in autumn 2021 by the ministry responsible for Forests, has still not been made public, nor has the strategy itself.
“That’s incredible! », Exclaims Pierre Drapeau, deploring that the government has “abandoned the exercise”, before being overtaken by the catastrophic fires of 2023.
The Forest Study Center also produced a memorandum on this occasion, written by 18 researchers, which made 22 recommendations, which remained a dead letter.
We got no feedback, zero then one bar! We received an acknowledgment of receipt, that’s it.
Pierre Drapeau, director of the Forest Study Center
A new consultation was necessary, “beyond the vision and perception of climate change and the effect it was going to have [que nous avions] in 2021,” says Minister Blanchette Vézina, citing the scale of the forest fires in the summer of 2023.
The 2021 consultation “was much more elaborate in terms of the questions and themes addressed in connection with climate change and their consequences on the management and development of forest land” than that of 2024, rather “centered on the function of wood production », retorts Pierre Drapeau.
The report on the 2021 consultation will be published in June, said the minister, adding that the Strategy for adapting forest management and development to climate change will follow “in due course”.
Imminent publication of the caribou strategy
Quebec will not wait for the conclusions of its new consultation on the forest to publish its caribou protection and recovery strategy, postponed for years, assured Minister Maïté Blanchette Vézina. “These are steps that we take in parallel,” she declared to The Press, closing the door to requests to wait for the fruit of the Tables of reflection on the future of the forest to move forward. “We are very aligned to be able to deploy something soon,” said the minister, refusing to put forward a date. A source familiar with the matter, but not authorized to speak publicly about it, told The Press that the strategy must be announced before the expiration of the ultimatum given by Ottawa, which ordered Quebec to present it before 1er may.
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- 1.3 million
- Number of hectares of forest affected by the 2023 fires in Quebec, in total
source: Forest Study Center
- 920,000
- Number of hectares of forest affected by the 2023 fires in Quebec, below the northern limit of forests attributable to the forestry industry
source: Forest Study Center