Local Leader Spotlight

This local leader is a forest ecologist with decades of experience

Meet Erik Piikkila, a forest ecologist with decades of experience in B.C., Finland, the US Pacific Northwest, and California. He has performed nearly every job you could have in a forest, including working for the BC Ministry of Forests, during which time he counted trees, managed masses of harvesting and reforestation data, and advised forest companies and BC Timber Sales. We talked about his way of doing forestry, being taught about managing ecosystems by famous forest ecologist Jerry Franklin. He is now working on ecological restoration and pushing for long-term forestry solutions to protect and restore old-growth forests in B.C.

Erik partnered with Sierra Club BC on our seven-stop film tour of the documentary ‘Silvicola’ across Vancouver Island last October. He led forest ecology walks at each tour stop and helped the film audience to reflect on what is truly needed for a healthy forestry sector and forest wellbeing in B.C.

Read on to learn more about Erik Piikkila and his inspiring work. This interview has been edited for length and clarity

Erik Piikkila works on ecological restoration and is pushing for long-term forestry solutions to protect and restore old-growth forests in B.C. (Photo by Mya Van Woudenberg).

Erik, tell us a bit about your relationship with forests.

In 1982 when I graduated high school, my dad could’ve taken me up to the north end of Vancouver Island, brought me into the logging camp, and trained me to become a tree faller like him and my grandfather — which is what I really wanted to do. But instead, he said, “No, a lot of guys get killed in the woods every year. Go use your brains instead.”

I still did almost all the jobs you can do in the woods in the 80s and 90s. I learned these jobs from the ground up, then I went to forestry school where I learned from the greats like Jerry Franklin and Andy MacKinnon. I went on to work for the B.C. Ministry of Forests and I got to know their system inside and out, along with implementing legislation, policies, and procedures. I’m standing on the shoulders of many: my dad and grandfather from a forestry perspective, and some legendary figures with expert ecological understanding. I am trying my best to move their expertise and work forward, while adapting and modifying this knowledge going into the future.

Could you tell us about Ecosystem Based Management and your approach to forestry work?

Ecosystem Based Management recognizes just how interconnected ecosystems are and what parts make up a stronger whole. It started in the 1960s when teams went to the five major biomes in the U.S., including the Old Growth Douglas-fir in the US Pacific Northwest, where the group was led by Jerry Franklin who was at Oregon State University and the US Forest Service. They started to put together the picture of what makes these ecosystems unique, and they produced one of the first reports about the ecological characteristics of an Old Growth Douglas-Fir forest that Jerry Franklin and his co-authors published in 1981.

Within days after the volcanic blast at Mount Saint Helens on May 18, 1980, ecologists were on the ground starting to see what was happening with the ecosystem recovery of this moonscape. Because of the biological legacies that were created because of the volcanic blasts — lots of downed logs and standing trees and little pockets of green that got left, they discovered that there are these elements that exist after a disturbance event. These parts of the ecosystem that remain help the whole ecosystem to recover.

This turned into what has become Ecosystem Based Management, where we know that we need to retain, maintain, recruit, or create these biological legacies in our forests going forward so that a younger forest can start acting like an older forest sooner.

We’ve got millions of millions of hectares of second growth that need to be thinned out and we could find the volume (of wood*), and not that that’s the end goal, but we need to go in there with an ecological mindset and think of the ecosystem first, and as a byproduct, the wood, right? Not find the wood first and ignore the ecosystem.

And if we’re operating on shorter cutting cycles like cutting every 40 or 60 years, we will never be able to “grow” the older forest characteristics which could then be retained as biological legacies and forwarded to the future, and they’re never get to a point of actually being healthy carbon sequestering forests. It’s insane on so many levels.

(* Concerningly, Premier Eby’s 2025 mandate letter to Ravi Parmar, BC Minister of Forests, set a timber harvest goal of 45 million cubic meters, up from the previous goal of 33 million cubic meters.)

Tell us what you’re working on now and what you’re most excited about

future; providing complete historical sources of data from logging, forestry, and fires so we can understand the landscapes and ecosystems we see in front of us today. How did they get to be that way? What does that mean for us as we look to the future with climate change, habitat loss and species extinction? I look at how we can work with the land to bring it back to health so it can better function as an ecosystem, which also means storing more carbon, holding more water, and shading and cooling the planet.

I’ve been working on Salt Spring Island with Transition Salt Spring’s Climate Adaptation Research Lab lead by Ruth Waldick to work on thinning, ecological restoration, and to see if we can reduce the fire hazard and slow down water on the landscape at Mount Maxwell. This area is a municipal watershed providing drinking water to half of the Island. I was also working closely with the Kwiakah First Nation in Phillips Arm where they are working on regenerative forestry using thinning and other restoration techniques to get their land and forest ecosystems healthy again.

How is this work going to help communities be more resilient to climate impacts and forests to be healthier?

In order to have resilient communities — which means that they’re not getting flooded out, they’re not getting burned out, and that we’re not spending millions or billions of dollars reacting to climate change — we need to understand that it’s still cheaper to invest in the restoration of these ecosystems and work with them, not against them.

Landscapes have been changed over 180 years of industrial logging, going from landscapes of plentiful old growth to landscapes now mostly covered in trees less than 60 years old. These younger trees offload water so quickly, within a couple of hours. Once it hits the mountain tops, it’s not long until it rushes down into valleys and out to sea. In old growth ecosystems, water enters and it takes days, weeks, months, sometimes years before it works its way down, a drop at a time, from the forest canopy through many layers of vegetation, and the moss-covered forest floor, before it goes into the soil, aquifers, and rivers.

Water on the land means healthier trees that are less likely to suffer drought stress, insect attacks and increased fire risks. Retaining moisture on the land is key. To have community resilience, we need to understand how these ecosystems have changed and restore them so they are firing on all cylinders, providing all those ecological goods and services that communities need. Without that understanding and the historical context of industrial logging, we’re going to keep repeating the same past mistakes, not build on successes, and not learning from any past lessons.

Erik partnered with Sierra Club BC on our seven-stop film tour of the documentary ‘Silvicola’ across Vancouver Island last October. He led forest ecology walks at each tour stop and helped the film audience to reflect on what is truly needed for a healthy forestry sector and forest wellbeing in B.C. (Photo by Mya Van Woudenberg).

What is standing in the way of this getting rolled out at scale?

A lot of social cumulative effects. There’s apathy, there’s misinformation, there’s the craziness of social media. Then there’s the fact that industries start by influencing governments, and then eventually they control governments. Governments don’t want to rock the boat and by doing next to nothing, and promising next to nothing, industry can keep on with the status quo. Governments are happy with the status quo, which doesn’t require big actions or outside of the box thinking.

We have to face the fact that the forestry we need to regenerate the land and bring it back to good health is going to be harder and more expensive than the cheaper but more destructive clearcutting that is harming us year after year.

And if we don’t change, we’re in big trouble. We need all the smarts of loggers, foresters, and forest technicians who do lots of on-the-ground work, as well as managers, scientists, citizens, politicians, everybody. We need everybody to actually start working together instead of just yelling at each other from the tops of our own mountains and in our silos. We need to start having proper conversations and not vilifying what was done in the past. What were the results on many B.C. landscapes from past policies? We don’t know. And we will stick with trying to change only the hard stuff, forest legislation, instead of implementing some easier policies/acts that already exist like the Water Sustainability Act.

If everybody believes they are only one person and can’t make a difference, then we’re sunk. But the reality is when we work together, we can make a huge difference.

Did I mention Fist Nations yet? No, I haven’t so I will now, last but not least. Restoring B.C.’s ecosystems and forests, as well as forestry doesn’t go anywhere without the full participation of First Nations and Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Why wouldn’t we want to benefit from 14,000 years of ecosystem knowledge?

How can people in B.C. support healthy ecosystems and the work you’re doing?

I would suggest that they become more knowledgeable about the ecosystems. That they become the best citizen scientist they can be. We need an informed electorate. Citizens that understand the services like clear water, clean air and cooler temperatures that these ecosystems provide. You can’t put a price on that.

It’s about getting out in nature, into the ecosystems. Not only for the health benefits, but just to, you know, literally see the forest for the trees. To touch the trees, smell the forest, become a mushroom expert. We will see the same things. We will describe them the same way so that we’re talking the same kind of language. More eyes on, viewing and understanding the changes.

Ask for a proactive and enlightened way to provide feedback to governments on policy changes. There must be a better way to influence government policies other than waiting for an election every four years or gluing yourself to a road or protesting on a logging road.

Ask for the creation of a collaborative process with dedicated government staff, where eco literate citizens can provide constructive and thoughtful feedback and possible ecosystem and forest solutions to decision makers and politicians, in real time.

How has Sierra Club BC helped with the work you’re doing?

The Silvicola film tour funded by SCBC that we did together in the fall across seven towns on Vancouver Island was a great success. We had many important conversations with community members in each town. The forest walks the morning after each screening allowed us all to be in nature together and share a common language and view of nature.

It’s going to take many conversations, many of them one-on-one conversations. Not just on social media. We need to connect with each other, and in-person with government ministers to find that common ground and a better future for forests, which means more resilient communities and a better future for all of us.

Sierra Club BC is spearheading tough discussions and getting out into the public space and calling out industries and governments for misdirection or misinformation. There’s a better way to do it, so let’s have those cross disciplinary discussions and meetings and get out in the woods to create and drive the solutions we need.

Maybe the BC Sierra Club could arrange and host a 21st Century Forests and Forestry Roundtable in 2025!