Increase access to fibre supply - so we can ship more raw logs to China and the States. A great leap forward would be if Mr. Bell developed some nads like they have back on the "Rock"

Obviously there's a reason for timber exports, maybe if mills (I'm assuming we're talking coastal BC now, since that's where this debate is focused) were more efficient and competitive then it would be worthwhile to process logs domestically.

I think these are good initiatives. BC forestry needs some overhauling on all sides, and this is as good a place to start as any.

Swingline writes..."Obviously there's a reason for timber exports"

Yup and it's called corporate greed.
Ever hear of it?

Sorry Mr. Bell, but I feel we need a balanced approach to forest management. Big monocultures of pine helped get us into some of the mess we are in. Cut down spruce and plant pine because they have a shorter turn around time.

Lost Faith- it is called Fair market access- on private lands the owner should be able to sell their trees (no owned by the public) to any one they wish- If the local mills are not competive- tough luck

Lost faith= no comment

Dogs- at least one left wing union site has now direct a entire article re my posts on the forest industry = I am hate this union crap= try any thing else - assholes.

Yes, dogs, they should be able to do that on 'private' land. But they should also NOT be able to 'waste' a large part of that tree by pushing it up in burn piles and torching it, and then go onto their 'public' land tenures and cut more timber of higher value to make up their total annual allowable cut.

Go and look at the burn piles where Timberwaste has logged, there's butts and tops galore in them that all could be processed into lumber and chips if they were accessible to smaller mills at reasonable cost.

And please don't go on about how our mills are all inefficient and too high cost because of overpaid workers, etc. If you're going to "export" jobs in sawmilling today to be 'globally competitive', what are you going to do tomorrow, when you find you're still not competitive on raw log exports? "Import" low wage workers to do the jobs in logging, too? Give your head a good shake, man! You won't hurt anything in it, because there isn't anything in it.

A large part of the reason our mills are no longer cost competititve is because of the actions of your good buddy and fellow "Liberal" Gordon Campbell. Who wants to 'carbon tax' us, and to have us pay 'world price' for our own resources like hydro, and negate any natural advantage our abundance of hydro-electric power has given us.

Do Californians pay 'world price' for the sunshine that gives them more than one crop a year of the agricultural products grown there? In a pig's eye they do. And there's no reason whatsoever we should either for what the same source of energy gives us.