Two experts hired by the B.C. government to review the future of the province’s forestry sector did more than just issue recommendations this week. They quietly shredded more than five years of New Democrat forest policy that underpins Premier David Eby’s entire approach to the industry.

Foresters Garry Merkel and Shannon Janzen co-authored a report proposing a wholesale shift from government-led forestry decisions to as many as 100 community-led, area-based planning bodies.

It would be the most significant overhaul in forest policy in decades, with the goal of stabilizing the collapsing sector. Implicit in that recommendation is a blunt verdict on the current system: It isn’t working or sustainable. Forests Minister Ravi Parmar said he’ll discuss the recommendations with cabinet.

Whether the Eby government follows the expert advice remains to be seen. But simply continuing on the current trajectory is becoming less of an option, especially with the damage done to those policies by the analysis of Merkel and Janzen.

Merkel took aim at the NDP government’s old-growth deferral process, which began in 2021, and was supposed to temporarily protect 2.6 million hectares of old-growth trees from logging until First Nations, forest companies and the province could agree on permanent future land use planning.

Almost five years later,........

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