Crown Lands And Forests

Past Liberal and Conservative governments have given control over Crown forests to private corporations. The result has been widespread clear-cutting, herbicide spraying, and undermining of the private woodlot sector, which has supported rural families for generations. Wealth from our public forest is now concentrated in very few hands. The native forest and the species that depend on it are in decline.

A Green government would:

• Take Crown forest management away from forestry corporations and give it to a publicly accountable Forest Stewardship Commission that would establish co-management agreements with First Nations.
• Cancel all 25-year Crown land contracts signed with the forestry companies in 2014.
• Restore private woodlots as the primary source of wood supply to mills and return marketing powers to the local forest products marketing boards.
• Make sure one-third of forest land is managed to maintain wildlife habitat and biodiversity. 
• Require forestry companies to protect natural water flows and fish habitat, sustain native wildlife communities, and restore forest diversity.
• End large scale clear-cutting.
• Ban the spraying of herbicides such as glyphosate on Crown forests.