Is BC Cutting too Much Green Timber
Victoria- A report on the forest industry's harvesting of beetle-killed timber confirms that industry has been meeting government's expectations for concentrating harvesting on dead pine trees, but says the harvest of other kinds of trees is increasing more than
expected in some areas of the province.
"The switch from harvesting dead pine trees to live non-pine trees means the mid-term timber supply is starting to be cut now and not five to 10 years in the future," said board chair Tim Ryan. "The issue, simply put, is that the more live trees that are harvested
now, the lower the sustainable harvest level will be after the salvage program is finished. We believe the chief forester needs to respond to the rapidly changing situation with timely updates to the allowable annual cuts."
The report looks at government's records of what was harvested throughout the area affected by the mountain pine beetle epidemic. "The majority of the pine trees harvested last year were dead, but over the last four years, the total amount of pine in the harvest has
been steadily decreasing and was under 60% of the harvest last year," said Ryan.
The situation in beetle-affected forests is changing quickly. The board is encouraging government to re-evaluate decisions about what should be harvested in those areas, taking into account the current dynamics of salvage harvesting.
Comments
We need to look after our forests. This province is getting raped.
I think another interpretation is that the dead pine is no longer useful for making lumber.
I’m completely confused.
Who is Tim Ryan and what board is he chair of? Who wrote the report? What was this report for and who was it directed to? Is it for the government or some other group?
Furthermore, are the timber companies cutting what has been allowed by the Ministry or are they exceeding their allowances? What is the position of the government?
Too many raw logs go out. We need to cut those back to help sustain our BC mills.
The raw logs are under Federal jurisdiction. They are coming from native land. The unions shut the mills on the north coast. There are no nearby mills for these logs to go to. When I hear about raw logs, I never seem to hear about what to do about it. We’d all like to hear about a good solution.
Interesting icicle I didn’t realize the feds had a big say on raw logs, but that makes sense.
Tim Ryan is a professional Forester for the past 30 years and Chair of the Forest Practices Board appointed last year the Minister of forests, very well respected and speaking the truth on this one. The over cutting of green timber or high grading will cost us all in the near future. As for Icicle post, screw you when the libs changed the forest regulations 2002 exporting logs better than making lumber most of these companies on the Coast its money , money not workers or community get your head out of your ass.
This clearly shows the incompetence of the BC Liberals. This makes Jenny Kwan’s problem look so small and insignificant.
Icicle is 100% 0n.The unions shut down everything out west not careing about the timber rotting because of being over mature.
The only viable option was to export the timber. Union workers lost this one.Keep up the good work Liberals.lol.
Onemansthoughts con you elaborate?
There has never been such a thing as “sustainable harvest” in the forest industry. For years now -regardless of the political party in power- the Ministry has permitted stakeholders to cut more than is growing back; there has always been the belief that the socioeconomic values of the day outweighed the impact on the future.
Posted by: monkeyboots on March 25 2014 2:07 PM
Too many raw logs go out. We need to cut those back to help sustain our BC mills.
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But the problem with this overly simplistic solution is this, the market for milled in BC wood is very, very small. No one overseas will buy milled in BC 2 by 4’s.
Over harvesting is not a new problem; it’s been around for decades. The big question is this, is anyone willing to do anything about it? It’s going to mean a lot of jobs get lost if they scale it back.
Raw logs do not come under Federal Jurisdiction. These logs for the most part are from Provincial TFL’s and they pay stumpage to the Provincial Government.
The actual exporting of logs would come under the Federal Government because they are responsible for imports/exports, and of course the Ports.
Don’t know about the unions shutting everything down out west, seems to me the companies shut down.
Posted by: Palopu on March 25 2014 4:43 PM
Raw logs do not come under Federal Jurisdiction. These logs for the most part are from Provincial TFL’s and they pay stumpage to the Provincial Government.
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Surprisingly, there’s about a 45/55 % split between federal and provincial “jurisdiction” wrt log exports.
Hey axman, Did you read Peter Ewart’s article yesterday on “Overharvesting”. West Fraser and Canfor overcut in the Morice nearly a million meters,and no penalty.
Does anyone know who our chief forester is? I have done some searches and cannot find out succeeded Jim Snetsinger
Posted by: poor gold miner on March 25 2014 6:18 PM
Hey axman, Did you read Peter Ewart’s article yesterday on “Overharvesting”. West Fraser and Canfor overcut in the Morice nearly a million meters,and no penalty.
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I did but I don’t see it’s relevance to anything I’ve stated. In fact, I believe I was stating that over harvesting is nothing new.
Yes. Please elaborate just how the unions shut these mills down. I’d really like to hear your take on the situation as I was under the impression that it was the economic crash of 2008 that mainly contributed to these mills shutting down.
The unions are very strong on the west coast. They would not allow increases in efficiencies if it meant fewer jobs. This meant the mills would not or could not get more efficient and were not able to survive.
That’s not so, Icicle. The IWA (Steelworkers) realised a long time ago, back when Jack Munro was head of it, that without increased technological efficiencies there wouldn’t be ANY jobs.
What finished off a lot of mills on the Coast was the constant withdrawal of previous ‘working forest’ lands for parks, nature preserves, and native land claims.
There was already an impending shortfall in available timber for many of the then existing mills before that happened, and when it did, they closed.
There were other factors as well. The Scandinavians took much of the Japanese lumber market BC once supplied with green coastal hemlock. They could put their kiln dried species into that market cheaper than we could supply green hemlock (and a good deal of that has to do with currency exchange rates ~ not that they’re particularly any more efficient than we are).
The market collapse in the States had its impact, but even before that the sheer volume of low stumpage lodgepole pine ‘bug kill’ wood made lumber that was so much cheaper Stateside that coastal mills couldn’t compete in that market.
Also, California, a major market for coastal Douglas fir, now requires kiln dried lumber where they used to take green before.
Also, the two major former private timberland owners on the coast, MacMillan Bloedel and Crown Zellerbach Canada, have been succeeded by firms which are not ‘manufacturers’ of forest products at all. Both Island Timberlands and TimberWest are primarily ‘liquidation’ companies, selling timber to the highest bidder (globally), and logged off timberland for purposes other than re-growing trees.
“Is BC Cutting too Much Green Timber”
take a satellite image and compare it to 5 years ago and you tell me. or take a drive on the back roads. Thing is, we’re used to passing logging trucks, seeing escavators and such, but who is really keeping watch of how much they haul out in certain plots. Without that one person, all we know is, they’re just working a site and we’re mumbling and grumbling how much is being taken down. 20 years and now my favorite lakes are done for.
And yet the heavily unionized mills on the island are the most inefficient in the Province. They complain ‘quietly’ that they can’t eliminate any jobs. I don’t have any issue with fair wages or safe working conditions. Collective bargaining is good too. Preventing efficiency is a big problem though and I don’t see how a strong union helps this any. Do we really need an electrician to change a light bulb? At the Canfor mills, it’s okay to steal something as long as it’s small enough to be carried. What’s with this culture?
LOL. There isn’t any mills left on the island…..well….not as many as there used to be anyway.
Icicle: No union is going to stand in the way of a company trying to make a buck. I guarantee that if a company out there finds a cheaper way to do something with less people then they’re going to go down that road. If it puts people out of work…then so be it. The union won’t have any influence on that.
Not sure how this turned into a union bashing thread but this isn’t a union issue. Private sector unions aren’t stupid; they know that their fortunes are tied to those of their employer.
As for this comment, ” Both Island Timberlands and TimberWest are primarily ‘liquidation’ companies, selling timber to the highest bidder (globally), and logged off timberland for purposes other than re-growing trees.” it should be noted that before anyone can sell their logs off shore (be they from private or crown lands) those logs are made available for purchase in province first. If there are no takers then they can be sold off shore.
That’s what used to be known as the “kiss of death” rule, axman.
Any independent local mill that blocked a log export request used to find itself in a rather difficult position in the future when it came to getting ANY further timber from any of the log exporting major timber tenure holders.
Now I’m not sure if that rule even still applies. I believe it was embodied in a piece of Federal legislation, part of the old ‘War Measures Act’, if I recall correctly.
It was put in place originally back in the early days of World War Two, when some American private timberland owners in BC who’d previously been able to export logs to their mills in Washington State, were restricted to exporting only logs that were ‘surplus’ to the needs of any mills in BC.
Later on, I believe Diefenbaker’s government re-proclaimed that section of the Act. That all logs for export had to pass the ‘surplus’ test.
The Truck Logger’s Association, and the major private timberland holders on the Coast, and their contract loggers, have tried for a long time to have that rule rescinded.
I’m not sure whether they’ve succeeded or not. They may have, since the Jones-Teal Group of mills on the coast were complaining bitterly not so long ago that they couldn’t get the same logs for their BC mills that were being exported.
Price and volumes may have some bearing on the issue, too.
Icicle, I believe you’re referring to the ‘contracting out’ attempts by many of the major coastal mills to have certain jobs which they had to keep someone on full-time staff for eliminated, and instead done instead by outside contractors, who would come in ‘on call’.
The Union did resist that, quite vigorously. And the plants in which it was the most inflexible now no longer exist.
All of the major sawmills on northern Vancouver Island are gone. Many on southern Vancouver Island, too.
The ones that are left are quite efficient plants, compared to any others anywhere in the world.
Many of the big older mills in the lower mainland are gone. Real estate values, and the property taxes thereon, are simply too high in that area for the land they operated on to be continued as sawmill sites.
socredible I apreciate your broad perspective
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