Well, I sure hope it doesn't get reduced. Keeping it the same or increasing it would be in the best interest for everyone, especially for the forest industry employees. Everyone has a family member who works in the forestry industry in one way or another and we need to keep them employed. We have enough unemployed forestry workers and we need to get the mills reopened & running to capacity again to get everyone back to work and the economy growing again.

Well I'd like to buy a good almost hardwood oak type kitchen table... a good sturdy locally built one like they used to make in the old days... I wonder if anyone in the interior makes something like that... not the cabinet slap together type, but a real table that you don't like to move once its in place. Maybe we should be planting trees for that hypothetical woodworking entrepreneur, and then maybe I could get my kitchen table.....

We need to expand bioenergy in the shortest amount of time possible IMO to fill the gap and keep money in our communities. We won't be selling a lot of lumber for maybe 5-years at minimum IMO. We will be lucky to have maintained what we have unless the Americans have another Andrew or something.

The allowable annual cut has nothing to do with the fact that at this time there is no demand for lumber. I thought that the allowable annual cut was tied into how fast the forest can regenerate itself.
As far as I know it still takes as long to grow a tree as it did 20 years ago.

"Well I'd like to buy a good almost hardwood oak type kitchen table... a good sturdy locally built one like they used to make in the old days... I wonder if anyone in the interior makes something like that"

Oh c'mon Eagleone, everyone knows that we don't have folks in this area that could do that type of work. All we're good for is chopping down trees and shipping them off. That type of work takes vision and skill . . .

Of course I am kidding. Of course we could do that IF we had the mindset that we could. The problem is that we don't.

Oh and I'd be in for a nice locally made table as well. Maybe even a computer desk.

We need a new Chief Forester badly.

You are right downnotout, the allowable cut has to do with regeneration time for one. At the moment, though, it also has to do with the amount of dead timber that is out there. In addition it has to do with the amount of land that is regenerated to growing trees at a known pace.

Also, remember that not all timber has to do with lumber as an end use, especially those "dead" stands. This bioenergy stuff is going to be one of the uses that will be around for a short while at least.

Laura Beckett, of course, asked the right question to which there was no "definitive" answer. It is the one many people have been wanting the government to respond to for some time.

The whole supply issue, total range of end products issue, allocation to firms ready to use the timber for those products, assurance for the builders of new plants that their plantsw will survive at least one good production cycle of say 20 to 30 years, assurance to communities that they will be relatively well protected once those plants shut down and the next generation of workers are once more laid off, and so on.

This type of integrated palnning is no easy task.

With all that, is anyone out there wondering how come so little planting is going on? 4 million this year, 1.5 million next year? Are we getting back to natural regeneration, or what is happening? I am assuming that is for the Prince George TSA. That number will barely keep one small silviculture company busy in the TSA. We have several large ones in town. They may end up planting in China from the looks of it.

Nothing like a nice clear pine butcher block type table for the dining area that the family can carve their initials into with their finger nails and gathers value as an heirloom over the years.

When are we going to start to restock some of the dead pine stocks with some fast growing deciduous trees that will be ready for cutting in 20 to 30 years for use in pulp mills and the bioenergy facilities set up to take advantage of the dead pine timber?

We need a new chief forester. Or maybe a new postion of chief forest products manufacturer.

We need to move on to something else. People have rapped the forests for almost 100 years now. Lots got wealthy and the rest fed and clothed their families with employement that it provided. It got to big and mills got to efficient and now the market is flooded. It is over for a while and it is best to accept it.

So what do we rape next?

The numbers of seedlings planted attributed to Mr. Burrows" was taken out of context. The planted seedling numbers cited for 2009 (4 million)and planned for in 2010 (1.7 million) were for the Forests for Tomorrow Program only. This represents only a small percentage of the trees that will be going in the ground in the Prince George Timber Supply Area.

I think we should be clearing all of these dead stands and replanting them. They are doing us no good as standing dead timber...

...what are we trying to do, make a tourist attraction out of it ?

The petrified forest ?

An example of how many generations of politicians and bureaucrats it takes to act on a problem ?

We are wasting precious time as IT TAKES TIME TO REGENERATE. We are wasting many years of possible regeneration by occupying the land with standing dead timber that is doing nothing but creating an extreme fire hazard and rotting.

Log the junk, do whatever you want with it, prep the site and get those bush hippies out there planting their shorts off.

In times like these, we should be focused on planting our faces off.

Please remember that we need to leave a certain amount of course woody debris on the forest floor. Cleaning up all the CWD is not good for biodiversity. Yes, there is presently an excess. We need to use up more of the excess.

The AAC will half to drop big time once the dead pine are all gone. If we were to continue at our present cut rate after the pine it would only take a few years before we would not have a live tree left.

As time goes by Prince George becomes further and further away from its wood supply. Eventually we will be to far away to make it profitable to make lumber, or pulp and paper in this area.

It takes about 80 to 100 years to regrow a tree to any decent size.

Eventually Vanderhoof, Houston, Burns Lake, Terrace, Quesnel, Williams lake, etc; will have most of the forest industry. Mackenzie will probably come back. Prince George is dying on the vine.

In fact if you think about it, Prince George is already down to three main mills.
(1) Prince George Sawmills
(2) Lakeland Mills
(3) Carrier Lumber

No Mills East of Prince George.

North we have Polar at Bear Lake, The Winton Mill is closed down.

South we have Dunkley Lumber which is actually closer to Quesnel.

West we have Clear Lake, and Isle Pierre, and the next stop is Vanderhoof.

Rustads in Prince George is slated for an indefinate closure, and Winton Global has been closed for almost a year with no indication that it will open.

So in essence the forest industrie as far as Prince George goes is dying out, and has been for sometime. The big Canfor mills at Upper Fraser, and the Netherlands Overseas Mill in Prince George shut down a number of years ago. North Central Plywoods, burned down, and will not be replaced.

The Citys population has actually declined in the past 10 years, and indications are that it will continue to decline. Quesnels population has not changed in 15 years. Nor has any other town from Williams Lake to Houston, Terrace, Kitimat.

There is no area in the Northern Interior that shows any sign of industrial growth, with the possible exception of Dawson Creek, and Fort St John.

Despite these facts, people are still running around expecting that things are going to get better. If they are then we better come up with something besides the forest industry. The only growth industry in this area in the past 10 years, are Government employees, however even these jobs are in jepordy as the forest industry declines.

Politicians will always tell you that there is light at the end of the tunnel, however what else can they say????

If this recession doesnt turn around soon, there will be one hell of a lot of business's in Prince George that will be closing their doors.

"Nothing like a nice clear pine butcher block type table for the dining area that the family can carve their initials into with their finger nails and gathers value as an heirloom over the years"

That's a good point. Maybe we should just ship the wood off to China or the US and let them develop a process to make it more durable (which they surely could). Afterall, we are lazy when it comes to stuff like that. We simply don't have the ability (or maybe the intelligence) to derive any value from raw resources. We'd rather someone else figure that out for us and sell it back to us.

For the record, I wouldn't even care if they chipped it, mixed in some composites and resins and molded a table that had similar properties to hardwood. Do something with it to make a product that people would be willing to buy. We are pathetic when it comes to product development. We'd rather just whine and complain that the US is being mean to us instead of finding a way to do something useful with the resources we have.

NMG .... what a terrible thing to do to a wonderful wood. I love pine furniture. it really does have "character" which many other furniture pieces do not have.

My mother still lives in her house with tons of teak furniture. Notice that Danish furniture stores have gone the way of pine stands in BC. Perhaps, like the pine, they will come back sometime, but not quite yet. Teak, I am afraid, lasts longer than the style it was produced in most frequently. Something for the Antiques Road Shows of 2095.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8523027@N06/514147533

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnrobinson/3480739497

http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnrobinson/3480739497

"What do we rape next?" Ha ha ha. The next generation of taxpayers, you silly goose! Doncha know?