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Failed audits, destruction of intact forests: Report reveals AbibitiBowater’s miserable logging record in Ontario

Feature story - December 2, 2009
A new Greenpeace report shows that despite receiving advice to not extend AbitibiBowater’s licence in the English River Forest, the Ontario government allowed Canada’s largest logging company to clearcut thousands of hectares of vital woodland caribou habitat in Northwestern Ontario, increasing the threat to the survival of caribou, a provincially listed species at risk.

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A new Greenpeace report shows that despite receiving advice to not extend AbitibiBowater’s licence in the English River Forest, the Ontario government allowed Canada’s largest logging company to clearcut thousands of hectares of vital woodland caribou habitat in Northwestern Ontario, increasing the threat to the survival of caribou, a provincially listed species at risk.

The report, "Crisis in our Forests: A case study of AbibitiBowater's irresponsible forestry in the English River Forest," shows that AbitibiBowater was allowed to clearcut intact and old growth areas fragmenting 80,000 hectares of forest over a 10-year period. The report notes that, since logging began in the English River Forest, Ontario has allowed successive companies to reduce the original intact, old growth areas in the forest unit to about 300,000 hectares from approximately one million hectares.

Key Findings :

  • AbitibiBowater is the largest logging company in Canada and the world's largest newsprint manufacturer.
  • AbitibiBowater manages the largest area of publicly owned forestland in Canada. It currently holds more than19 million hectares of forested land, mostly in Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia - an area larger overall than the state of New York.
  • It is estimated that since AbitibiBowater began logging in the English River Forest in 1998,  80,000 hectares of intact forest has been lost.
  • The English River Forest, covering about 10,320 square kilometers (km2), or 1,032,000 hectares - roughly the size of Jamaica or twice that  of Prince Edward Island - is classic boreal or northern forest, characterized by rugged, rocky landscapes and sparkling mosaics of lakes and rivers.
  • The woodland caribou population on the English River is one of the most southern in Ontario's continuous range; it can be found just one hour's drive north of the Trans Canada Highway.
  • Because companies like AbitibiBowater have been pushing logging in Canada's Boreal Forest further and further north, intact forests are rapidly disappearing.  Already 41 per cent of the treed area of the Canadian Boreal Forest has been fragmented by logging or industrial development and 45 per cent has been allocated for logging.

The independent forest audit of the English River Forest in 2005 revealed a substantial lack of precaution in the modeling of the future forest condition. The forest management took an approach of "harvest now, reduce later," according to auditors. The English River Forest was among the most heavily logged units in Ontario between 1989 and 2001.

Satellite image interpretation by Global Forest Watch Canada indicates that the English River Forest experienced 11.23% land-cover change due to human impacts, mostly from logging and road-building, during the aforementioned period alone.

This new Greenpeace case study reveals how the Ontario government hasallowed AbitibiBowater to so badly mismanage the English River Forestthat remaining populations of woodland caribou are in real danger ofbecoming extinct in this area. 

The Greenpeace case study shows how the problems in the English Riverunit are examples of what occurs across the southern Boreal in Ontario.The province leaves important areas of intact forest in the hands oflogging companies that don't manage the forest properly. This isresulting in the continued destruction of high-value conservation areasand caribou habitat.

The record of AbitibiBowater is an important source of information forthe tenure reform and caribou conservation planning processes currentlyunderway in Ontario.

Read the news release here

The kind of wide-scale mismanagement seen in the English River Forest does not stop in Ontario. The "Crisis in Our Forests" report includes a French-language companion document that shows that AbitibiBowater along with Domtar have serious problems managing the Waswanipi-Broadback forest in northern Quebec. 

Downloads:

The English language report is available here

The French language report is available here

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