Anthony Britneff: Scrap the old forest industry, build a new one

In two decades, employment in British Columbia’s forest industry has fallen by more than 40,000 direct jobs, and the industry today contributes only two per cent to B.C.’s gross domestic product while employing only two per cent of the province’s workers.

A flagrant example of government subsidies that has accelerated the crisis in our forests is a Ponzi scheme known as “crediting,” which awards some of the biggest forest companies in the province with more trees to cut down when they deliver “lower quality” logs to the province’s wood pellet and wood pulp industries.

Even government politicians and senior government officials, who should know better, parrot the rhetoric of “sustainability” and sing the praises of certification, sending a false signal to the public that all is well. Anyone doubting this need only ask why B.C. forest companies have invested so heavily over the last few years in mills and forest operations in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, the Carolinas, Georgia and Louisiana.

Meanwhile, the export of raw logs and egregiously low-value products like wood pellets must be immediately halted. By curtailing these exports, we can reduce the supply of timber to move toward a sustainable rate of logging that provides for the economic needs of British Columbians to build houses and to make furniture and other value-added products.

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Comment: Scrap the old forest industry, build a new oneB.C.’s industry as presently constituted needs to fail completely, as must the weak legislative framework that allows it to clear-cut most of the province’s primary and old-growth forests to the detriment of biodiversity, soil, air and water. Exactly Do police first. Now do health care
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