U.S.-Canada: B.C. Softwood Lumber Industry Must Change to
Survive
Copyright 2001 Environment and Energy Publishing, LLC
Greenwire
December 21, 2001
By
J. Laws, Greenwire staff writer
British Columbia's timber industry must endure regulatory changes and close its old, inefficient lumber mills if it hopes to survive, according to a provincial government report released earlier this week.
Peter Pearse, a Pacific Northwest natural resources expert and professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia, wrote the report for the B.C. government, which owns almost all of the province's forest land and leases logging rights to private timber companies. Pearse argues B.C.'s timber industry, Canada's largest, suffers from excess capacity, archaic regulations and production costs that are 40 percent higher than the Canadian national average.
Even though the closure of about a dozen major sawmills over the past decade has left the industry reeling, Pearse recommends allowing some of the region's 47 remaining mills, which have long depended on increasingly rare old-growth trees, to close so more efficient mills can be built to process younger, second-growth trees.
Pearse also backs up the B.C. government's proposal to eliminate regulations that mandate trees from a given area go to a specific lumber mill, saying the rules force companies to keep unprofitable mills open. B.C. is recommending the change as part of a proposed settlement to the U.S.-Canadian softwood lumber trade dispute (see the 12/20 Greenwire for background on the dispute).
British Columbia Forestry Minister Mike de Jong, who appointed Pearse an advisor to the industry, told reporters
Wednesday that the unwillingness to change timber policies has hurt the industry. According to Reuters News Service, he said that while changes will be "painful", doing nothing will cause the industry to "wither and die."