122-Tree Thieves with Lyndsie Bourgon

Our forests are being stolen! One tree at a time! And it can all be blamed on poverty. After logging towns are surrounded by protected areas and all of the industry has stopped, what are the people who have created a life there for generations supposed to do? It is their identity, who they are, it is all they know, logging, and it has been taken away. Some of those desperate people continue to do what they know, and it is costing the rest of society dearly. ResourcesLyndsie’s profile Lyndsie’s book Pre-order now!SponsorsWest Fraser: https://www.westfraser.com/ GreenLink Forestry Inc.: http://greenlinkforestry.com/ Damaged Timber: https://www.damagedtimber.com/ Forest Proud: https://forestproud.org/ Quotes32.43 - 32.52: “Because old growth is a carbon sink,... For an old growth to be stolen has quite an impact on the environment and a forest’s ability to adapt.”TakeawaysTree sleuthing (8.43)The first time Lyndsie heard about tree poaching was when one of the largest red cedars in Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park on Vancouver Island was poached in 2012. Following the trails (17.21)On Vancouver Island, Lyndsie shadowed natural resource officers and discovered that old growth douglas fir and cedar are the most poached there. Drugs and poaching (21.33)There is widespread drug use in the poaching community, so the poacher takes the wood directly to the drug dealer. The damage (29.24)In the USA, poaching of forest service land is valued at 20 million dollars a year, accounting for 1 in 10 felled trees being poached, which has reduced the amount of old growth left. The person, the poacher (34.15)The poachers shared the challenges of living in a community that never recovered from stopping industrial logging in their interviews with LyndsieLumber families (37.49)Lyndsie shares that one of the towns she went to had families who had moved there for logging and saw it as a part of their lineage and identity. Revenge poaching (50.25)In the pacific northwest, logging towns that were once stable economies degenerated into hubs of unemployment, homelessness and drug use after logging was stopped. Million missteps (56.05)Lyndsie believes that the poachers need to be listened to and systems changed since many mistakes have been made over the history of conservation to lead to this place. Multinational economy (1.01.01)Lyndsie found some similarities in her research in Peru and BC. Immediate financial security from poaching has taken away from the consequences of reducing old growth. Whose land? (1.05.29)Hiring people in desperate poverty to poach a tree on a foreign land who may not question what they are being asked to do, damages the Indigenous people’s ancestral property. Trees changing hands (1.09.39)Lyndsie outlines the many places a tree goes when it is poached, and how difficult it is for investigators to intercept the process, due to its transport process and proving the source. Community (1.19.01)There is a community forest right outside Lyndsie’s door and she sees community forests as providing a way to conserve that also incorporates use. A perfect storm (1.25.58)A poacher acknowledged that the history of clearing land in North America is associated with disenfranchising Indigenous peoples.