P.E.I. not following its own forest management policy, says auditor general

With more and more catastrophic weather events hitting P.E.I., the province's auditor general is sounding the alarm on the way the government is managing forests on the Island. 

The province is not following its own legislation on forestry management and it doesn't track information on growth, yield and forest use as required by law, said Darren Noonan, who released his forest management report Wednesday. 

"All indications are that catastrophic events will become a more frequent event for us," said Noonan. 

"So I think the policy needs to be updated and the act as well, so that we're more prepared for the current situation than what it had been in the past." 

The report found that the province's forest policy, created in 2006, hasn't been updated or reviewed since then. 

"That was a bit concerning … especially after [Hurricane] Dorian had already occurred in that period as well. So that was a bit of an eye opener for us," said Noonan. 

"With Fiona hitting in September, [forestry] is probably an area that needs more attention than it's had."

P.E.I. Environment Minister Steven Myers raised concerns about the state of the province's forests almost two years ago in the legislature, saying damage from a decade of deforestation would take a generation to repair. 

"We have to look at protecting our forests, we have to look at better ways to encourage people to protect … and I think we have to look at what our options would be to penalize people for taking that away," said Myers in May 2021. 

Forest reports delayed

Another concern for the auditor general is the government's delay in publishing its State of the Forest report, which comes out once a decade. 

That report was scheduled to be released in spring 2022. In December, government officials said it will now come out this coming June, a year late. 

"The longer you wait to take action, the harder it is to take corrective action," said Noonan.

"You could have a situation where there's a problem that's been going on, but you don't find out about it till three years down the road, and by that time it's too late to fix it."

The last two State of the Forest reports were also released late, Noonan found. 

The AG's report looked at the period between Dec. 1, 2018 and March 31, 2022. 

It also found that the government is not properly tracking whether wood harvested for biomass to heat some of P.E.I.'s public buildings is being harvested sustainably. 

P.E.I. is counting on using forests to capture carbon, as a crucial component of its goal to reach net zero emissions.