Posted: Dec. 21, 2022 7:25AMBritish Columbia’s forest sector has “never been under greater stress,” Premier David Eby says.
Quesnel, B.C., a longtime forestry community, between 2014 and 2022, said the province’s forest sector is “stuck in a time warp,” carrying on with clear-cutting and exporting raw logs and lumber at a pace ecosystems and the timber supply cannot maintain. Eby asserts the need for change is driven by those losses along with “inadequate land-use planning and replanting efforts by previous governments, unfair softwood lumber tariffs in the United States, and the unchecked export of raw logs.”
B.C. has also committed to increasing the tenure or harvesting rights held by First Nations and local communities, while Eby’s letter asks Ralston to prioritize the shift from a “high-volume to high-value” forests sector, aiming to export fewer raw logs in favour of locally manufactured wood products.
Lumber prices have since fallen from pandemic highs, and estimates in B.C.’s last budget forecast further declines, along with lower harvests from Crown land over the next several years. Sawmills expanded to process the beetle-stricken wood, masking the “corporate consolidation” happening in the industry as some companies swallowed others, ultimately reducing the number of jobs per cubic metre of wood, said Simpson.
B.C.’s latest budget earmarked $185 million over three years to support the industry, its workers and First Nations affected by shifts in the sector. “So we’ve said, ‘Why don’t you have a program where you work with industry to provide the various incentives they need, so we get an MDF remanufacturing facility here in Quesnel?’ Not one more sawlog is needed for that.”
Dumb humans action should have taken place years ago no wonder we are in such a freaking mess now with climate change!!
The Premier has no clue. Our forests are recovering nicely after Mtn Pine Beetle and aggressive replanting. He isn't working off of any real data, just stoking the general belief that our forests are raped.
We need to stop exporting all our raw materials. Time to refine here at home.