Draft Report Warns of Job Loss and Reduced Timber Supply
Wednesday, April 18, 2012 @ 1:02 PM
Prince George, B.C. – A confidential draft report to the Ministry of Forests, indicates there will be significant job losses throughout the region, if there is no move to offset the impact of the Mountain Pine Beetle on the mid term timber supply.
The report, prepared for the Minister and Deputy Minister of Forests by Provincial Government says there is an “economic supply” of dead pine in the Prince George Timber Supply Area to last about 5 years, at the other end of the scale is Quesnel, where that supply is said to be only enough to last 1.5 years.
The report looked at four timber supply areas, Prince George, Lakes, Quesnel and Williams Lake.
It concludes that without mitigation, the timber supply in the Prince George TSA will decline by 32%, by 51% in the Quesnel TSA, 32% in the Williams Lake TSA and a whopping 67% in the Lakes TSA.
“Regionally, ( all TSAs combined) these reductions would lead to a timber supply that could support about 53% less employment in the area pre-beetle” reads the report.
While the report suggests mitigation efforts could include harvesting in areas that have been spared because of wildlife habitat, scenic values or biodiversity, those mitigation efforts would do little to improve the timber supply issue for the Lakes and Quesnel TSAs because their timber supply is largely pine. However, the report says the options may prove to be valuable in areas such as Prince George and Williams Lake because the TSAs are more diverse.
The report notes that while the Ministry has not formally engaged in conversation with communities, First Nations and stakeholders on the matter, it says discussions have already started, largely as a result of the January tragedy in Burns Lake. The Lakes TSA has initiated a public review of some scenic areas to assess community acceptance of increased harvesting and the Association of BC Forest Professionals has made some recommendations to the Chief Forester.
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Independent MLA Bob Simpson has posted the full draft report on his website, and it can be accessed by clicking here.
Comments
DUH!!!!
Now, why is this a surprise to anyone???
I count this in the same category as people of my generation knowing that when the baby boomers hit retirement age there would be a number of oprobekms associated with tht since we did not bear enough children or adopt enough children from other countries or allowed enough immigrants into the country.
Some people, including those at City Hall who kept on giving people exemption when they wanted to develop in the rural areas rather than infill in the bowl and kept on borrowing for maintenance items, etc. etc. obviously believe in miracles.
It really does boggle the mind.
Oh … hey, let’s start a forestry school ….. LOL.
oprobekms????? … I think that’s cantonese for problems …;-)
According to the article in the Globe and Mail:
“Mr. Simpson said the numbers in the document are shocking, and that the report shows the government doesnât have a plan to deal with the crisis, which could see major layoffs begin within 17 months.
âAround 12,000 jobs will be lost and even if they implement all the mitigation they are considering, it is still going to mean 9,000 jobs are lost,â said Mr. Simpson.”
Time to start planning to modify the district energy system to burn gas. Another option is to use all the pipe laying expertise they have gathered and run a line from the Foothills landfill and burn methane:-)
More intense forestry management such as juvenile thinning will help refill the fiber basket but there will still be a gap before these areas are ready to harvest.
Where is the AAC for the Burns Lake rebuild coming from? How will that decision affect Nechako , Plateau, Ft St James,Houston or Isle Pierre?
What? I thought that PG and the north was right on the cusp of a boom? What a shocking turn of events!!!!
What does Simpson propose the government do? It’s not as though they can plant the affected areas with 80 year old Lodgepole Pine. There are going to be a lot of lean years ahead in the forest sector. This is hardly new news.
“The report notes that while the Ministry has not formally engaged in conversation with communities, First Nations and stakeholders on the matter, it says discussions have already started, largely as a result of the January tragedy in Burns Lake”
Ummm, I sure as heck hope that the Ministry realizes that “discussions” and “conversations” are worlds apart from “viable options” and “potential solutions”.
Honestly folks, I think it is too late to rely on the “leadership” in the government to be working with you on this one. If you are employed in the forestry sector in Northern BC or you are employed in a position that you think could be impacted by a significant fallout in the forestry sector in Northern BC, I think now is the time to start planning for change. Please don’t wait until the 23rd hour, the writing is on the wall. Heck, the writing is in this report in black and white.
I suspect you’ll hear all sorts of excuses and rebuttal over the next little while about how they are working to offset the losses, how there are strategies in place, how other economic developments will help offset the losses, etc. Don’t believe them. Unless you have an actual job lined up in those areas, you need to take everything they say with a grain of salt. Even if they did have those things in place, there is no guarantee they will work. I think this is one situation where there is more than enough evidence which suggests that things ARE GOING TO CHANGE IN A MAJOR FASHION and I think the people that accept that reality now and start to plan for it will be better off.
People have to have their eyes open as to what is going on up there and they can’t just pretend it’s going to be good because a politician or business group says otherwise. Look out for yourself folks.
No worries. Pat Bell, Shirley Bond and Tim McEwan have assured us all that those displaced foresters will all get high paying jobs handling cargo and directing 747 traffic at our 35-million-dollar runway.
A forestry trades school in order to train people for jobs that will not exist.
Sounds more like a scheme to fill someone’s pocket with gov’t funds than being promoted for sound reasoning.
Another article says we have shortages. Which article iss telling the truth?
“Another article says we have shortages. Which article iss telling the truth?”
We have short-term shortages right now as the companies rush to pull the dead pine out of the bush before it’s completely useless. In a few years we’ll have a lot of unemployed truck drivers and heavy equipment operators.
Well I wonder if this is why Canfor didn’t rebuild NCP and maybe why they shutdown Upper Fraser, Rustads, Clear Lake and that’s just in the PG area. I wonder who is next?
They better hurry up and start building that hotel.
Is this any surprise? Bell and his cohorts have made it sound like everything is peachy in the forest industry, what with all the business we are doing with asia on the increase. Its all perfect isn’t it?
This freakin govt is a joke!
I’m hoping that the uptick in the mining industry will go a long ways in mitigating the job losses seen in the forest industry. It seems like the Govt is willing to reduce the amount of red tape and hoops mining companies must jump through in order to get a mine off the ground.
Maybe Mackenzie isn’t such a bad place to be after all eh? Forestry, mining, low housing prices…..get in while the gettin’s good folks :)
Dimming prospects for the Green & Krause Performing Arts Center.
Now we know why the B.C.Liberals were all of a sudden so gung-ho on mining!
Go figure.
Actually,this was predicted quite a few years back by many who worked in the industry.
The government however,wasn’t listening…what a shotage of timber??
How could that be?
I think it’s called political denial?
As gus said…”It really does boggle the mind”.
NMG wrote: “Ummm, I sure as heck hope that the Ministry realizes that “discussions” and “conversations” are worlds apart from “viable options” and “potential solutions””
How quickly everyone, including Simpson seem to forget that millions of dollars that have been spent on the OBAC and CCBAC groups for the last 5 plus years to look at his looming crisis and virtually nothing has been done.
In fact, I do not hear any conversation anymore even.
The world is having a governance crisis. Stuff that chuggs ahead on its own keeps on going … but stuff that needs a bit of babysitting, burping, and trying a different baby formula sure isn’t going anywhere.
Si I says to the then Mr. of Agriculture many moons ago .. so what is the government doing about planting a few hectares of fast growing aspen to produce a crop in 20 or 30 years. The stuff I planted in my backyard 30 years ago has been ready to cut since 10 years. Oregon does grat with it. Northwood built a plant in the states and makes paper from it …. so what will this government be doing …..
well, to date … nada.
Like City, like Province, like feds ….
So, it tells me what …. like the PAC, forestry in BC is dead for 40 years because no one is bright enough to do anything about it …
log it till its all gone the Liberals wanted their working forest and this is how they will get it .They will log everything.Save the forest of BC vote out the Liberals!
Well,I guess they could always stop shipping raw logs to Asia?
No,that would never work…what Asia wants,Asia gets, as far as this government is concerned!
Just ask their biggest ally,Pat Bell.
I have to agree with your last paragraph Gus. We need some people who can think beyond the next election.
Better look into growing hemp. You heard it here first.
As the saying goes.
First earth…….then we log the other planets!
The late breaking news in this report is years too late. The problems that the Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic caused to the interior forest industry could have been predicted by our leaders many years ago (as they were by ordinary folk)
As someone else said, we need governance that can look beyond the next election, and is not so self serving.
metalman.
I heard on the radio most of the raw logs are processed into material for concrete forms, what a joke. Way to go fiberals. Hey how come no has blamed the NDP on this latest cheery piece of news?
The beetle action coalitions are a big joke. We have such huge opportunities with our forests… pine beetle or not. The politicians and their appointments have their heads in the sand.
For starters we have the biggest basket of fiber for charcoal production available anywhere in the world, but not a single charcoal plant. In the age of carbon credits and carbon taxes one would think this is priority number one.
What about weaving laminated strips for laminated wood panels. The wood doesn’t have to be suitable for a straight 2×4 to produce a quality product… in fact you could probably peel bad 2×4’s as a feed stock.
And there is no reason why pine beetle wood can’t be used for co-gen power, wood pellets, gasification, or the sugar daddy of them all… pulp and the multitudes of potential pulp products. Jimmy Paterson is one of the biggest producers of paper products for the food industry, so with his connections why can’t we get a cut of the action through his supply chain?
Epic failure and my generation will be the ones paying the price… nothing new, we live in the harvest it all now and let god sort it out later era. The time for letting god sort it out is nearly upon us now and then I think we will begin to have some real political options to deal with this situation.
“or the sugar daddy of them all… pulp and the multitudes of potential pulp products.”
Pine Beetle wood chips are crap for pulp. They have to add to the process to get it to work. The end product isn’t as nice.
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