https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...ix/590476/
EXCERPT: . . . Sometime during the previous few days, the tree had been illegally felled, and the wide end of its trunk abandoned. This was unusual—poachers usually take the “butt end” of a tree first, since it has the most wood—and Clarke speculated that the culprits would soon be back to pick it up. He photographed the trunk like a crime scene [...] “Literally, this is what we’re finding every day,” said Blid. “I’m sure it’s the same people I caught the other night too,” said Clarke. Trees are often poached from this area, and he surmised that the group he had stopped to question earlier in the week had been scouting for stands of promising trees. “Man,” Clarke said a few minutes later. “I just wish I could pull an all-nighter out here.”
[...] Over the past five years, the NROs in British Columbia have reported 2,300 forest crimes, mostly along the north and west coasts, with the most common being timber theft, illegal harvesting, and arson. Only half of these cases were investigated, and only 140 have made it to the courts. Last year, just over 70 timber-harvest “tickets,” or fines, were issued, ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. Poaching incidents are rarely investigated because by the time a site is discovered, the poachers are usually long gone.
Timber poaching is tightly tied to the price of timber products. During a spike in thefts throughout the Pacific Northwest and California last year, timber prices were running hot for several North American species, including Douglas fir. [...] For many of the poachers on Vancouver Island, however, market demand is only part of the motivation. More and more, timber poaching looks like a quick and relatively easy way for poachers to satisfy some desperate demands of their own.
[...] Many ... have struggled to adapt as second-home owners and telecommuters have moved to the city from the mainland, driving up property values. “Look around and it looks like it’s developing, but people can’t afford to live here,” McCormick says. “It’s a challenging kind of place.” British Columbia, like much of the Pacific Northwest region, is facing the intertwined crises of homelessness and opioid addiction. Last year, Nanaimo was home to the largest tent city in Canada.
[...] In British Columbia, opioid-related deaths began to spike in 2015, and in 2018, 1,489 people in the province died of suspected drug overdoses. In 2017 and 2018, 89 people died of overdoses in Nanaimo alone.
[...] Clarke encountered a man he’d previously charged with timber theft; it turned out that he was living in the nearby facility.** “He’s pretty hard up, and is honest and transparent with me when I ask him questions,” Clarke says. “He says you make money just selling firewood.” While it’s possible to make upwards of $800 selling 1,000 board feet of Douglas fir to mills or manufacturers, poached wood most often makes it into the system as firewood, sold for as little as a couple of hundred dollars per truck-bed-ful. Many poachers use tools such as Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji to advertise loads of split fir firewood, for instance—this wood can be off-loaded quickly, so the risk of being caught is low.
Timber poaching in much of British Columbia is driven by incontrovertible human needs—the need for shelter, food, and, in some cases, the next hit of the painkiller that has taken hold of one’s brain. “I don’t think [poaching] is going to slow down if timber value goes down,” says Clarke. “Those greater socioeconomic issues—those aren’t going away anytime soon, and with that, I don’t think the timber theft is going away.”
Forest crimes such as timber poaching are punishable by fine under the province’s Forest and Range Practices Act, and while those fines can, in theory, reach up to $1 million, three-quarters of the fines handed out from 2007 to 2013 were for less than $5,000. The maximum amount has never been imposed. “It’s sort of shocking to me how low these penalties are, because they’re not providing the deterrence they should,” says Nowlan. “The severity [of the crime] and how we value it in society just hasn’t penetrated to decision makers.” (MORE - details)
EXCERPT: . . . Sometime during the previous few days, the tree had been illegally felled, and the wide end of its trunk abandoned. This was unusual—poachers usually take the “butt end” of a tree first, since it has the most wood—and Clarke speculated that the culprits would soon be back to pick it up. He photographed the trunk like a crime scene [...] “Literally, this is what we’re finding every day,” said Blid. “I’m sure it’s the same people I caught the other night too,” said Clarke. Trees are often poached from this area, and he surmised that the group he had stopped to question earlier in the week had been scouting for stands of promising trees. “Man,” Clarke said a few minutes later. “I just wish I could pull an all-nighter out here.”
[...] Over the past five years, the NROs in British Columbia have reported 2,300 forest crimes, mostly along the north and west coasts, with the most common being timber theft, illegal harvesting, and arson. Only half of these cases were investigated, and only 140 have made it to the courts. Last year, just over 70 timber-harvest “tickets,” or fines, were issued, ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. Poaching incidents are rarely investigated because by the time a site is discovered, the poachers are usually long gone.
Timber poaching is tightly tied to the price of timber products. During a spike in thefts throughout the Pacific Northwest and California last year, timber prices were running hot for several North American species, including Douglas fir. [...] For many of the poachers on Vancouver Island, however, market demand is only part of the motivation. More and more, timber poaching looks like a quick and relatively easy way for poachers to satisfy some desperate demands of their own.
[...] Many ... have struggled to adapt as second-home owners and telecommuters have moved to the city from the mainland, driving up property values. “Look around and it looks like it’s developing, but people can’t afford to live here,” McCormick says. “It’s a challenging kind of place.” British Columbia, like much of the Pacific Northwest region, is facing the intertwined crises of homelessness and opioid addiction. Last year, Nanaimo was home to the largest tent city in Canada.
[...] In British Columbia, opioid-related deaths began to spike in 2015, and in 2018, 1,489 people in the province died of suspected drug overdoses. In 2017 and 2018, 89 people died of overdoses in Nanaimo alone.
[...] Clarke encountered a man he’d previously charged with timber theft; it turned out that he was living in the nearby facility.** “He’s pretty hard up, and is honest and transparent with me when I ask him questions,” Clarke says. “He says you make money just selling firewood.” While it’s possible to make upwards of $800 selling 1,000 board feet of Douglas fir to mills or manufacturers, poached wood most often makes it into the system as firewood, sold for as little as a couple of hundred dollars per truck-bed-ful. Many poachers use tools such as Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji to advertise loads of split fir firewood, for instance—this wood can be off-loaded quickly, so the risk of being caught is low.
Timber poaching in much of British Columbia is driven by incontrovertible human needs—the need for shelter, food, and, in some cases, the next hit of the painkiller that has taken hold of one’s brain. “I don’t think [poaching] is going to slow down if timber value goes down,” says Clarke. “Those greater socioeconomic issues—those aren’t going away anytime soon, and with that, I don’t think the timber theft is going away.”
Forest crimes such as timber poaching are punishable by fine under the province’s Forest and Range Practices Act, and while those fines can, in theory, reach up to $1 million, three-quarters of the fines handed out from 2007 to 2013 were for less than $5,000. The maximum amount has never been imposed. “It’s sort of shocking to me how low these penalties are, because they’re not providing the deterrence they should,” says Nowlan. “The severity [of the crime] and how we value it in society just hasn’t penetrated to decision makers.” (MORE - details)