LETTER – We need a different approach to forest practices in B.C.
Editor’s note: We welcome letters to the editor from provincial election candidates up until the official election period.
What do two unfolding B.C. forestry stories, 1,400 kilometres apart, have in common? What about these stories should be getting our attention?
As the Vancouver Sun and Merritt Herald reported this past September, in Merritt, B.C., Tolko Industries is shutting down the Nicola Valley Sawmill in December. Two hundred jobs will be lost in a matter of weeks. The reason for the closure? It isn’t being driven by market conditions or the price of lumber. The problem is the lack of available timber within Tolko’s forest licenses. There will be no changes to Tolko’s logging operations in the Merritt and Kamloops area.
The company will continue to log and ship the logs to different facilities as opposed to Merritt.
CBC News reported earlier this month that in Fort Nelson, BC, with oil and gas jobs gone, the Northern Rockies Regional Municipality wants to kick-start its failed forest industry. The council claims that forestry company Canfor is in its way. Canfor used to operate two mills in the community from timber harvested under their licenses, but shut them down in 2008. Yet, Canfor retains the rights to harvest most of the timber supply in the area. “Now, city council says Canfor should either start using that licence to create jobs or move out of the way so someone else can,” CBC wrote. The council claims that BC’s tenure system has supported the speculative “hoarding” of wood by companies, and the export of unprocessed logs, and jobs, away from B.C. communities.
These two stories in Merritt and Fort Nelson raise common ongoing questions facing the B.C. forestry sector: questions that have been asked in B.C. for decades.
- What responsibility do profitable forest companies have to the communities within which they harvest timber and operate?
- Who owns the resources of B.C.’s forests?
- Who benefits from the current tenure system: local communities or big forest companies?
- What provincial, regional and local plans are guiding these decisions?
- How do we begin to reform the boom-and-bust economy of BC forestry?
- Who is managing B.C.’s forests and how can they be managed in an ecological and sustainable way?
In their press release issued Nov. 15, 2016, the Fort Nelson council express what the BC Greens are hearing from Merritt and from all other regions of the province.
We are listening to these voices from B.C. communities.
We need a new approach to forestry in B.C.
That new approach includes a reform of the tenure system. Wood hoarding by companies needs to stop. We need greater local community and First Nations involvement, flexibility and adaptability to changing realities. We need rewards for innovation. We need to repair the broken links between resources and communities reliant on the forests and sustainable development.
DAN HINES
BC Green Party Candidate, Kamloops North Thompson
BC Green Party Forestry Spokesperson
ArmchairMayor.ca 
Nothing new in your letter, Dan.
What are your concrete proposals to “right the wrongs?”
Because if you want my vote I want to know.
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I’ll respond to the questions poised by the Green Party Spokesman;
– 1) What responsibility do profitable forest companies have to the communities within which they harvest timber and operate?
Neither Profitable or Non-profitable Forest Companies have any responsibility to the communities since the Appurtenance (Social Licence that connected local timber supplies to milling facilities ) was removed in 2003 under the Forest (Revitalization) Amendment Act 2003.
-2) Who owns the resources of B.C.’s forests?
In the context of Timber Volume – the Crown/Public of BC owns the Standing Timber Resource UNTIL said volume of Timber that is delivered to a Scale Site and Scale and Graded by Competent Official/Licenced Scalers and the stumpage is billed then is paid by Licencee/Harvester . Forest Resources that stay in the Forest remain the property of the Crown/Public
-3)Who benefits from the current tenure system: local communities or big forest companies?
In the Context of Tolko- Nicola and Canfor-Fort Nelson it should be obvious that “big” forest Companies benefit from the current tenure system, In the Context of other regions across the Province it depends on who controls the majority of the Timber Volume in Timber Supply Area’s(TSA’s) and Tree Farm Licences (TFL’s) plus who is the Highest Bidder for BC Timber Sales(BCTS) Volumes in each region. Community Forest and First Nation Woodland Licences do benefit local economies but the amount of Timber Volume allocated to these types of tenures still remains very low as compared to Major Licencee’s amount they are allowed to log.
-4)What provincial, regional and local plans are guiding these decisions?
That is a very complex question that demands further research by all opposing political parties, Simplified response: Provincial Plans: Forest (Revitalization) Amendment Act 2003 and Softwood Lumber Agreement, Regional: in the context of the Interior; Mountain Pine Beetle Epidemic, Local Plans; The Denial of the Small Scale Salvage opportunities for Communities and Small Buisness operators and the Ratio of Green Timber to Dead and Dry Timber for Harvesting Opportunities
-5) How do we begin to reform the boom-and-bust economy of BC forestry?
Allocate all BCTS “unappraised” Timber Volume to to Public administered/Privately Operated Log Sort Yards per TSA based on the Lumby Sort Yard Model so that there is a open competition for Sorted Forest Products and use those selling prices as a “benchmark” for Administered Stumpage Rate’s for Non-Competitive Tenures to finally bring an end to the complaints of Subsidization of BC Timber by the American Lumber Coalition and US Federal Government.
Restart the Small Scale Salvage Program and allow Low-impact Harvesting equipment in and behind Riparian Zones and remove so-called “Environmental” Visual Constraints
Expand and substantially increase Timber Volume available for Community Forest and Woodlot Licences
Use Commercial Thinning and Single Tree Selection to reduce the amount of “forest fuel” around Communities and direct that volume to Public/Private Sort Yards
and that’s just the beginning!
-6) Who is managing B.C.’s forests and how can they be managed in an ecological and sustainable way?
This is also a very complex question- The Province of BC and Tenure Holders are the ones managing BC’s Forests, the second part of the question really depends on the Vision of the Individual, Special Interest Groups and the Holders of Forest Tenure; The simplest way to log in a sustainable way is to adhere to principle of Mean Annual Increment (MAI) in other words for a defined area , you only log the amount of timber volume that is “grown by the Forest in a given year in a given defined area eg 50 000 ha of unlogged area “grows” 125 000 m3 per year- you log 125 000 m3- the issues that complicate this are Forest Fires, Roads and landings, beetle attacks, environmental constraints just to name a few
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