Grassroots group Stop the Spray raises public awareness to stop BC’s toxic forestry policy

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In 2010, employees of a forestry company made an unexpected house call to James Steidle, owner of an apiary and cattle farm in Prince George, BC (unceded lands of the Lheidli T’enneh). 

“They just kind of showed up one day saying they were going to spray around our property.” Steidle explains, “They told us, it’s just Roundup, don’t worry about it. And that they would just do a light pass. But we didn’t want them to spray because we had honey bees — and they did anyway.” 

It turns out, there was cause for worry.

Twelve years later, glyphosate contamination continues to be an issue for Steidle. “They undermined our grazing tenure lands by spraying it. When they get rid of the aspen trees, they change the ecosystem that our animals depend on. The understory from aspen creates significantly more food for animals — if you walk through an aspen forest you are up to your hips in vegetation.” 

Each year, logging companies, required by British Columbia forestry policy, destroy natural fire buffers, biodiversity and wild foods with an herbicide spray mandate on over 37,000 hectares of logged forests. Aspen and birch trees, which are known to be resistant to wildfires and serve as fire breaks, grow as forests naturally regenerate. Yet, they are targeted by herbicide spraying to make room for commercially viable monocrop tree plantations of pine and Douglas firs. 

Traditional Indigenous foods and medicines, such as salal and huckleberries, are also seen as pests to be eliminated by herbicides. 

Glyphosate, one of the chemicals used in B.C. ‘s herbicide sprays, is controversially known for its use in Roundup, subject to ongoing lawsuits related to its carcinogenicity. It has also been found to contaminate vegetation for up to 12 years and have impacts on groundwater. Since 1980, over 1.3 million hectares of forest across the province have been sprayed with herbicides. 

In 2015, the World Health Organization determined that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Bayer, which owns Roundup after purchasing Monsanto in 2018, has faced numerous lawsuits over claims the product causes cancer and in 2020 agreed to pay $10 billion to settle thousands of claims, according to the New York Times. 

The herbicide spray also eliminates naturally regenerating forests and replaces them with highly flammable monocrop tree farms — increasing the province’s risk of wildfires. “[Monocultures of conifers are] going to increase the risk of burning at least for a couple of decades relative to if you had a mixed stand of pine and aspen,” says Dr. Steve Cumming, Canada Research Chair in Boreal Ecosystems Modeling (via a publication on the Stop the Spray website). And at a time when climate change causes more frequent and intense wildfires, these natural wildfire defense mechanisms are critical for public health. 

After years of wondering why such a harmful practice was not only allowed but encouraged, Steidle launched the grassroots organization, Stop the Spray, to raise public awareness and spur action. Eventually Steidle got a hold of Suzanne Simard, forest ecology professor at the University of British Columbia and author of Finding the Mother Tree. “She was one of the few people willing to speak out against it. These trees they are killing with glyphosate sequester carbon, mitigate pest impacts, and support natural wildfire resistance.” Suzanne Simard would later add her name to Stop the Spray’s first press release.

Yet, Stop the Spray struggled to garner sufficient public awareness for several years until they shifted their approach from traditional media outlets to social media campaigns that gained significant traction in 2017. 

Stop the Spray garnered more than 130,000 signatures on a petition that called for an end to herbicide spray mandates. The group also submitted FOI requests to release maps of anticipated spray sites from the logging companies. BC is the only province where the public isn’t notified of an herbicide spray beforehand. Alberta for example, will publish a list of locations that will get sprayed. 

In March, Stop the Spray supporters, Angelina Hopkins Rose and Ronnie, launched an impactful social media campaign. They highlighted the provincial policy’s language that refers to traditional Indigenous plants and foods, as pests to be eliminated with herbicide. Their campaign resulted in coverage by The North Shore News, Vancouver Sun, Global News, and The Narwhal. In just one month, by early April, the BC Green Party alone said they had received some 2,000 emails from concerned constituents, according to The Narwhal. 

To learn more, Future of Good sat down with Steidle for a conversation about Stop the Spray’s approach to activism, the support they need from the social impact world, and more.

Maia Wikler: What approaches has Stop the Spray taken in their activism?

James Steidle: Public awareness has been the central focus. We have been doing public lectures. I recently did a TED Talk on aspen trees and a lecture at UNBC. I feel it’s a tough battle to raise public awareness. A young organizer did a few actions in Victoria by putting some Round Up bottles at the Ministry of Forestry office in Victoria. We are trying to organize a protest in Vancouver this summer. We did some rallies in Prince George as well. In September we have a new documentary coming out that’s called Into the Weeds — it premiered at Hot Docs film festival in Toronto. It will be broadcast on September 16th, and it should have a big distribution. The director is coming to Prince George in September, we are doing a question and answer panel with some scientists. We have changed people’s minds in Prince George — a large amount of people aren’t in favour of spraying the forests anymore. I think it does work raising awareness, it’s just a slow slog, but it’s worth it.

Maia Wikler: How do you communicate the connection between climate change and health via this issue? How are the impacts of these forestry practices exacerbated by climate change?

James Steidle: The connection to health and climate change is one of our key arguments for Stop the Spray. If forestry cared about climate change they wouldn’t be logging old growth or spraying deciduous trees with toxic chemicals. We have to educate people about the value of biodiverse forests, particularly from a climate change perspective. Last year we had a forest fire after the big heat wave near the pine plantation. The only thing between our farm and the forest fire are these highly flammable, sprayed plantations. This directly impacts our safety and livelihood.

Maia Wikler: Why do they think so many people are unaware of this massive issue?

James Steidle: For lack of a better word, we are misinformed from a young age. We are taught that forests are monocrop tree farms, rather than biodiverse ecosystems with aspen, birch and deciduous trees. No one told us that aspen can sequester more carbon, that they are natural fire resistant tools. Aspen can sequester five times the amount of carbon as spruce. People are increasingly detached from the natural world, we don’t grow up in the woods as much, and we aren’t paying attention to the forests. A big way people get out into the bush is tree planting, and they are only planting conifers rather than aspen and birch. That’s their first exposure to understanding deciduous trees. It’s a complete detachment from reality driven by capitalist considerations.

Maia Wikler: What approaches have worked and what haven’t when it comes to policy advocacy or reaching the government with your message?

James Steidle: Nothing has worked [laughs]. The government is alienated from science, rationality, and the public. I’ve been doing this for 11 years now. I reached out to government representatives and I would try to reason with them. I’ve been blacklisted now, where they won’t respond to me. The goal for Stop the Spray is to get the broader culture to change.

Maia Wikler: What approaches have worked when it comes to raising wider awareness among citizens?

James Steidle: Social media has been a huge tool for us, as well as media in articles and newspapers. But relying only on the old school way with journalists didn’t take the issue off the ground. People engage much more directly on social media. We knew we were having an impact when Canfor (the largest producer of lumber in Canada) bosses were getting confronted here in town by neighbors — that had a huge impact. And their own employees were angry about what the company was doing. We also try to appeal to [university students and professors] as well to get people to think about the importance of biodiversity, forestry policy and climate change. That’s been a powerful way to get people talking about it.

Maia Wikler: What are the challenges Stop the Spray has faced in activist work around this issue?

James Steidle: We can’t get discouraged and think we can change the world with a few quick actions. We have to work super hard and long to change this. We need to prepare for the long haul, because at the end of the day it is culture change that needs to happen. 

Maia Wikler: What support does Stop the Spray need from other organizations who care about the connection between climate and health?

James Steidle: It is a huge help for other environmental or conservation organizations to speak out and raise support amongst their members. For example, Ducks Unlimited Canada has never mentioned the important role of deciduous trees in wetlands — if you don’t have deciduous trees, you don’t have beaver dams, and they never talk about that. They could start educating their membership. The B.C. Wildlife Federation could amplify this issue. Greenpeace has campaigned in Ontario, which is awesome. The David Suzuki Foundation doesn’t talk about it. A lot of major environmental organizations are not amplifying this. Deciduous trees are key to solving a bunch of problems with climate change and public health being impacted by the mass sprays. 

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