Ending the overcut.

The number one threat to forest jobs in BC is overcutting. British Columbia Ministry of Forests' data shows that our forests are being cut 25% faster than they can grow back. If present trends continue, this overcutting will quickly lead to exhaustion of our commercial forests.

Stewarding our forests.

In 1992 Chief Forester John Cuthbert stated that an average of 10% of the area harvested in the years 1976-86 had been permanently removed from the productive forest in order to build roads and landings. We need to reduce this loss of growing sites through better forestry.

At the end of 1995, 13% of BC's commercial crown land forests-or 3 million hectares- were not restocked with commercial trees. Tending these existing non-replanted lands would create forest jobs and more than make up for the old growth forests protected in parks.

Investing in value-added enterprises.

According to the BC Forest Service, nearly 20% of BC's wood exports are re-manufactured outside our country. Repatriating the processing of this lumber could increase BC's lumber re-manufacturing industry to create 2,600 new jobs.

Commercial thinning involves selectively harvesting a second growth forest to space out the stand. This can result in an increase in the quality and size of the trees that are left to grow to maturity. As well, the thinned immature trees can become available for processing. Commercial thinning provides the means to create forestry jobs within the existing forestry land base.

Despite such a sensible solution, BC Forest Service figures show that in 1994 only 0.1% of the provincial annual cut-just 150 hectares-was harvested by commercial thinning. Yet it is calculated that there are over 6,000,000 hectares of second growth forests over 40 years old in BC that could be thinned. Conservative estimates of job creation on a provincial basis as a result of commercial thinning of these stands are in the range of 15,000 new forestry jobs. Proof that commercial thinning is economically viable is demonstrated by the Texada Logging Company which has successfully practised thinning and selective logging on Saltspring Island for over ten years.

Today only 12.3% of BC forest jobs come from the value-added industry. By comparison, in Oregon, 40% of forestry jobs are in the value-added sector(7). We must do better; and we can.

For example, Jackpine Forest Products in Williams Lake makes door frames and mouldings. To maintain one job at this mill requires 48 truckloads of wood(8).

By contrast, to maintain one worker making 2 x 4's at the nearby sawmill requires 121 truckloads of wood. If the BC forest industry is to expand it will have to extract more value out of a fixed or shrinking forest land base. This can occur at every step of the production process, from restocking denuded forest land to adding value to the final forest product.

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