id log it....they will just rot from the inside out if they havent already

Well if they are rotten, they aren't worth logging now are they!!?? I think you wrote that to get a "rise" out of people. You can't honestly believe logging rotten wood is even worth the $$$ it would cost to haul it. I say preserve these ancient forests. Why do we need to destroy everything?

Interesting timing once again on this one. Suddenly, a government agency starts the ball rolling on a hot public topic like ancient forests and a B.C. Liberal rushes to their rescue just before election time. Reminds me of the deals struck up over the mill deals three years ago, as well as the upset over the electoral boundary issues. Nothing like an issue where you are made out to be a knight in shining armour just before people vote. One way to spot a tactic is to look for patterns and here we can strongly see a pattern in our elected officials and Mr. Bell seems to be very good at this.

See the size of them trees, won't they make great stumps.

Another case of a puppet politician yapping on a subject they know absolutely NOTHING about!

Andy........... ah I think Pat Bell would know more about foresty than you would. He use to be a logger by trade!

Wow...that would do now wouldn't it?
And by the way....so did I and a hell of a lot of other people.

dumb treehuggers dont understand that you cant "preserve" a forest, or any living thing for that matter short of pickling it. Those trees are overmature and will die/disease/fall/burn soon. Logging would be the best thing to ever happen there. But the hippies would rather "save" their ziplock forest under glass. Their folley will be exposed in time. I think we should burn treehuggers for electricity - they're carbon neutral.

gamblor: You should stay out of this subject because you, and others, have no clue what you're talking about when it comes to forest biology. For instance you still don't get that a dead tree is every bit as important to forest biology as a living one. Get a proper education!

With such ignorance it is of no surprise to this human that the entire human species is in dire shape on this planet. Gamblor and the others like you posting here are simply showing how badly you need to go back to school.

It is also amazing to me that you can spend your entire life in the forests of this area and still know nothing about them. And you call treehuggers dumb?

gamblor: You should stay out of this subject because you, and others, have no clue what you're talking about when it comes to forest biology. For instance you still don't get that a dead tree is every bit as important to forest biology as a living one. Get a proper education!

With such ignorance it is of no surprise to this human that the entire human species is in dire shape on this planet. Gamblor and the others like you posting here are simply showing how badly you need to go back to school.

It is also amazing to me that you can spend your entire life in the forests of this area and still know nothing about them. And you call treehuggers dumb?

A logger = to a forester ....

Now I have heard everything.

Pat Bell is dead wrong on this one.

I think we also have to get something straight when it comes to terminology. These areas of the world are not "preserves" as in preserving peaches in a pickle jar ......

They are "reserves", "protected" areas ... whatever you wish to call them, and they are intended to live and die with as little human interference as possbile. They are repositories of portions of the biodiversity of our planet. If we wish to mimick nature in our tending of the forests we harvest, then we ought to keep some natural models of what a forest actually is.

The opposite view of course is kill everything in sight and replace it with a very large hologram. The person last standing can flick the on button so that the hologram works by itself ..... which, of course, would make that person god in the hologram world ....

;-)

Oh ... why is Pat Bell wrong? ... because he continues to see forestry as the only source of income in this area ....

His and the government's time would be better spent looking at the reality of the forestry picture over the next several decades and find alternative sources of income.

Time to diversify. This sort of thinking just shifts the focus from where it should be and keeps it in the past.

Time to move on. Time to move forward. Put your thinking caps on people!

I used to log in forests like this years ago on the coast.
Most of the time,if one of these old giants was felled,they broke up like matchsticks when they hit the ground.
So what was the point.
There is no value in most of the timber so leave it alone.
I am no treehugger,in fact I am probably the opposite,but there are not many forests like this left on the coast,and they are very rare up here in this part of the world.
Leave it alone and it will fall down on it own.
At least people an their kids will be able to go and see it while it still stands.

Owl, Actually the government is well aware of the fact that this region will be severely hit in the forestry. That is why when the pine beetle epidemic hit us 5 years ago, they started pushing the mining industry.

The province does not open the mines, they just provide to the mining companies an opportunity to mine. The companies are on there own to go through the hoops at there expense.

Gamblor, I agree a dead tree is important, lets run it thru a mill.

Leave the old trees to nature to sort out...Are we so hardup for a handful of trees to keep our mills running?

There are very few still remaining, rotten or not.
Lets worry about cleaning up the beetle wood and cleaning up the mess that curent logging leaves behind.

There is no need to harvest these oldtimers. Turn it and that whole area into a protected area also include,Hutton,Penny and LongWorth.

yeah, lets plow our money into reforestation. Up our stumpage rate to pay for it. Thats what the Yankees want us to do anyway. Stop giving away our lumber, don't concentrate on how much lumber you can run thru a mill. Concentrate on getting valued jobs out of the trees we cut down. Turn down the production, create a shortage and control the supply. OPEC does it, why can't we.

"The province does not open the mines, they just provide to the mining companies an opportunity to mine."

Yes.... you hit the nail on the head!! There's the problem!!!

That is where this province and some other parts of this country differ from some other countries in the world. They think they are providing an opportunity, but our competitors are going far beyond that and are thus outperforming us. We have this fear of interfering in the so called "free market place". There is no such thing. As long as that is a fear, we will continue to have others outperform us.

Remember, we are only doing as well as we are since our economy has a major new driver - petroleum through the oil sands. That is what is driving the rise in the dollar and that in turn is killing the advantage we had over the last decade in our manufacturing sector, including the forest products sector.

Many governments in Canada are just beginning to understand that their municpality, their regional district or county, their province and their country are a business (for lack of a better word) whose purpose is to look after its shareholders, the citizens.

They are all competing against those parts of the country and those parts of the world who have already understood that and are beating them at the game.

It is a very serious game, and if we do not run it as any business would which includes looking after the well being of its shareholders, the well being of the feedstock of the business, and the well being of the workers in the business, then we will end up the poor kid on the block while we see other "businesses" around us thrive.

We are not investing enough dollars in infrastructure compared to other countries, not enough in research, and not enough in start-up funds and we are not encouraging a the diversification of the economy. As an example, several other countries have made "green-technology" a key component of their economic development protfolio and they are moving ahead at a rapid pace. We have done diddly squat.

I am far from a tree-hugger. I am an individual who cares about the people in the community and their whole well being.

Owl, not only is diddly squat not being done, it is far worse than that... the province, mostly the northern two thirds, is firmly stuck in the early 19th century. Being creative here simply means cutting the tree down from a different angle.

Pat Bell went from mine tailings to manure - so what does he know about "an ancient forest"??

Owl, The more I read your comments, the more I like you. Your hitting the nail right on the head.

This country has resources that is the envy of the world. We have oil oozing out of the ground, feilds of wheat, cattle by the millions, Water to waste, and trees we have to keep cutting down.

Prince George can become bigger and better than Edmonton. We need strong people with good vision to take us there. We have rail and air to move products around the world.

We need to have secondary Industry to sell to the world. We need more than just sawmills and pulp mills.

The world wants our copper, so what do we do, we dig it up and send it out of province for processing. Build a copper smelter in Houston. Use our resources to our benefit. Good paying jobs.

With our technology, I'm sure we can build a safe smelter.

I'm not the one who needs to go back to school. Anyone who thinks this forest will stand forever is a fool, yourself included.

the common denominator here is control -we don't have any - because our leaders borrowed foreign money to get re-elected we can barely pay the enormus interest let alone the debt.elect a leader who will get us back in control - start paying the debt down is a requirement of all future governments - only then will you see the strings that pull gordy and harper disappear.once the debt is paid off make it law that if a leader borrows money-its the death penalty for that person, needs a deterrant to get thier attention.simple eh?

Like the wise man said, "The world would gladly pay its debts, if only somebody would GIVE it the money."

Pretty hard to pay off a National Debt, or even a Provincial one, when virtually ALL money has to be BORROWED. And is just another debt.

Only thing that happens when we try is that the debt is shifted from the backs of "the people" collectively, to the backs of you and I, individually.

Doesn't have to be that way, but right now, "That's the way it is."

BTW, interesting comments on what to do with the trees. Can't really say I disagree with anybody on that one.

Reserving examples of 'nature in the raw' is not a bad idea. Likely in this case the trees would be just a rotten shell anyways, and not worth logging. And it doesn't seem to me like there's exactly a shortage of wood right now.

Yet just how much of these kinds of forests do we need to study what nature does naturally? And isn't a young, vibrant, growing forest better at getting rid of the CO2 in the atmosphere everyone who worries about that kind of stuff gets all globally warmed up about than a dying, decadent old one?

Oh well, whatever's done, can't say it's really going to trouble me either way.

Ancient forest? The cedar trees in this "ancient forest" are garbage because they are so old, many or most are hollow and over-age, as in DECADENT and commercially worthless. Perhaps the university student can get a land reserve for an acre or two so he can go and camp in his little eco sanctuary and spend half of each day hugging one of his ancient trees. The forestry sector is on the ropes and you get one of these guys and their high fullutin ways -- makes you want to puke. I wonder if he is getting a government grant or subsidy ……. oh ya, it would be if he/she attends unbc or cnc which gets our tax money toward Big Education. Don't get me wrong I think a modern economy needs trained technicians and should use public investment for worthwhile research and development.

I am also mystified how the language around this so-called issue comes about. Preserving old growth trees? Are you kidding me? Mow the friggin things down. They're worthless unless you want to camp inside one like a teepee. They’re probably not even good for that ..... a termite might bite you in the arse when you are trying to get a nights sleep inside your mummy sleeping bag. The old cedar are hollow like a log. I remember checking a stand of timber in this area down the bowron forest road south of the Hwy 97 and most of the trees had that "bong" of a hollow tree when you hit one with an axe. Preserve them? You better use the green preservative Copper Napthamate or whatever you call it.
It is a pity that The Forest Practices Board must linger over public policy like a bad hangover from the NDP days, although the Libs are not much different. They all seem to be preoccupied with pacifying the tree huggers while the economy of this province goes down the drain. Worse yet, the government are paralyzed to do any other major thrust to industrial development like hydropower, mining or drilling. We are living off the momentum of past industrial development and the economy is winding down.

If all the tree huggers cannot stand this talk move to Oregon or California and work to preserve their Redwoods. You've done enough damage here for decades to come.

Whenever a major pest threatens our forest as in the pine beetle, the government spends 90% of its time and money had wringing instead of serious action i.e. selectively logging. What about burning or pesticides that can stay ahead of these problems? oooooohhhhh, might offend the greenies. Can't do that.

Owl says "..I think we also have to get something straight when it comes to terminology.."

I came across an interesting discussion on familiar terminologgies used to stampede the stupid public, words like "biodiversity" and the "precautionary principle". Ooooh!

Biodiversity (it used to be "species diversity") is an intuitively appealing concept that has no practical real-world measurement. There is no consensus of what it means. Is it the number of species in a defined area? The relative number of individuals in each species? Some measurement of a taxon other than species (e.g. family, order)? In other words, just what is being measured?

And why is it being measured? There is no consensus of what it represents. Higher numbers may be better, but how much better is undefined. These numbers are all counts of biological structure (plants and animals usually) that do not tell us anything about the underlying function of the system.

Wait until you see the "precautionary principle" discussion. Ooooh, scary like Halloween!

These trees are hemlock and cedar. Not used for pulping. We have cedar on the Coast which I believe is not being used.

In my opinion we can likely work our way through the next 10 to 20 years by cutting primarily spruce in the areas where we normally have been cutting spruce.

I think the major problem we will face is in the period of 10 years to 50 years out.

We need a fast growing tree which can be used for pulping and boards. We can plant aspen and poplar to bridge that gap.

Northwood built a pant in Minnesota about 2 decades ago based on that fibre. Oregon also has been creating aspen plantation sites.

http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/businessmanagement/components/7539_c_5.html

I would keep some of the forests in reserves and, rather than replanting all existing stands as they are harvested, I would encourage fast growing, well tended stands in tree plantations to bridge the mid term gap we will be facing.

Since Pat bell is the minister of agriculture, he should also be exploring agroforestry as a diversification for farmeers and ranchers which would be able to provide better productivity of wood fibre through better stand tending, thus speeding up the growth with maturity of 20 years reachable at lower elevations.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/117/286847822_fc2ffab546_o.jpg

http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfd/pubs/Docs/En/En47.pdf

http://www.agr.gov.sk.ca/afif/Projects/19970127.pdf

Finally many are saying we should be taking a more serious look at the birch we are leaving in the forests.

http://flickr.com/photos/blueplanetphoto/1045123320

The 'speed-up' of tree maturities isn't without its drawbacks, Owl. Much fast grown wood lacks the structural properties found in slower grown ones. In any case, our "global competitors", mostly in the Southern Hemishpere, have already got a surplus of fast grown fibre that's proving increasingly difficult to market internationally both as lumber produced for export, and as raw log exports.

Weyerhaeuser Company did a study several years ago which revealed that the per capita consumption of sawn lumber peaked around 1900, and has been in steady decline ever since. The growth in lumber production and sales has been due to a growth in population since then, coupled with the greater accessability in the last half of the 20th century to easier mortgage credit.

Though it may seem hard to believe, home ownership rates in the USA, and Canada, too, are at historic world highs. Nearly 70% of the US population is housed in their "own" home, and this, combined with the continued loss of waged incomes through outsourcing of manufacturing jobs without any adequate alternate means of replacing them, means that the tradtional way of injecting sufficient new credit into the NA economy to "keep everything going", through the new home mortgage, is coming to an end.

Most people don't "own" their own homes really.
The house and the bank owns them,given the amount they have to pay to get one and the size of their mortgages!
And the next time the economy farts and the interest rates start to climb,and they WILL climb,there will be a BIG problem!

Yes socredible, I realize that.

The way I look at it, the less lumber we cut, the less byproducts we have that feed some of the other secondary manufacturing we do.

Thus, I am assuming if we will have less waste from sawmilling and even less waste from harvesting, there will be less chipping, thus less feedstock for pulp.

Pulp still seems to be going strong for the moment, although, as you say, there are southern areas plus many other parts of the world that are developing new, fast growing feedstock for paper making.

Now we also have an added user of that - wood based bioenergy production

The first wood fibre ethanol plant has just been built in Canada. If we can't grow food in this area, then we should be able to grow trees for ethanol production, a saner thing to do than converting food production to ethanol and then jacking up food prices like crazy.

"Most people don't "own" their own homes really."

I do not thnk ownership is important in the game. Housing units are whether they are owned, mortgaged, rented, or subsidized by the government.

They are also not necessarily single familiy detached housing. They range all the way from that to 80 storey high buildings that have commercial on the lower floors and residential on the upper floors.

The interesting thing is that no matter where the housing unit is built, whether on the ground or 40 storeys up, or who owns it, the number to be built is dependent on the number of people that occupy each unit, the increase in world population (which is still substantial), the increase in the age of people, the increase of wealth of people.

The raw number to be built in the world is still increasing on an annual basis and will likely continue to do so for several decades.

Then there is the rebuild market. Give the unit 100 years on average, the housing stock will be renewed at 1% per year of the existing numbers. In PG that would eventually be about 350 housing units per year as old units get torn down and new ones built. We do not see much of that yet but is happening in the inner residential areas. It happens quite frequently in more mature urban areas.

In addition we have the renewal market - tear out the old kitchen, put in a new one. In places like PG, there are many houses that are 30 years old on average which had the typical kitchen, L-shaped dining room, and they have opened that up and made a "farm" kitchen out of it. I will include the house addition to smaller units on the gorund into that grouping as well.

That market you can look at as a 3% or so per year of existing housing stock - every 30 years, the average unit will be given a "fresh look".

While "stick building" might be steady or even go down over time as we become yet more urbanized, the need for kitchen cabinets, flooring, doors, etc. as well as furniture will continue to rise at a steady pace and will have a much higher steady state level once the world population itself levels off, all other things being equal.

We are already seeing the Chinese influence here. The use of bamboo for some of the panelling used for flooring and cabinets. On the high end, the Germans also produce quality cabinets sold the world over.

Tie that in with Birch, which we see as wood scrap in the forests around here, better access to the reduced materials handling world-wide transportation system, cheap land, cheap cost of living, etc. etc. and someone might want to open a value added cabinet/furniture business here to an increasing world demand.

Oregon has done it, why can't we?

Just to follow up on the notion that governments are in businees and have to support their business to stay competitive in the world.

Here is an article from Oregon form a year ago.

http://www.expansionmanagement.com/cmd/articledetail/articleid/18716/default.asp

"Oregon Investment Advantage Program"

"I couldn’t have even considered rebuilding without the support and encouragement that came from local and state economic development officials. There were simply no hurdles that these folks would not help us tackle.”

"Recognizing the importance of the plant to the small southern Oregon town of Sutherlin, population 7,500, officials from the Oregon Economic and Community Development Department (OECDD), the city of Sutherlin and Douglas County were on site just days after the fire offering assistance and resources to Murphy. Working together, the agencies helped the company obtain necessary permits, receive much-needed economic incentives and coordinate workforce training."

"Because the new plant will be located within an ENTERPRISE ZONE, Murphy will receive a tax exemption in return for providing jobs that will pay 150 percent of the county average wage."

New plant, fewer workers, higher paying jobs, higher productivity and hopefully an investment on the part of both the state and the plant owners that will pay off.

I guees we have to watch these things though, when it comes to NAFTA agreements. We need to put tariffs on the prodcuts should they find their way accross the border to Canada since they are government subsidized.

I say it is time for BC to call the new light industrial park at the airport an ENTERPRISE ZONE, give the city money to develop it so that development cost charges are waived for property purchasers, develop major $ incentives for "clean" plants manufacturing solar, wind, geothermal, and even biofuel energy based equipment.

Along with that, identify another ENTERPRISE ZONE outside the bowl area and hooked into rail access, which would see new medium to heavy industries located there.

What is the issue with protecting a small chunk of forest that is unique in this part of the world. Even a lot of the loggers and bush workers in the area have recognized this area as special and are pushing for it to be protected. The "a good tree is fallen tree" mentality is stupid, plain and simple.
I make my living from the forests, have for many years. I'd still like to be able to take my two little ones for a walk through a giant ancient forest one day, without driving eight hours to do it.

The "enterprise zone" idea HAD some merit in the days when WAC Bennett was in office, and Crown agencies like BC Hydro, BC Rail, etc. would often provide the 'infrastructure' necessary for development.

Our own business benefitted from Hydro's installation of a power line carrying three-phase industrial electricty when we indicated we'd like to electrify what had been a diesel powered plant, if only there were a line we could hook onto.

They put up the line, about a quarter mile of it. The 'cost' of this was worked into our power rate, and recovered over a long period of time. Making electrification affordable to us, and, more importantly, having three-phase power available for any other user who might have succeeded us had our business failed.

That, to me, makes sense. But what came later, under Bill Bennett, was the kind of thing WAC Bennett used warn against.

This was the direct 'financing' through subsidized loans, or even outright grants, of businesses that 'promised' to provide a certain level of 'employment'.

WAC Bennett called these ventures "hot-house industries". And for very good reason. They could only survive when the 'heat' provided by this kind of financing was CONTINUALLY available.

The reason ~ they were being created for entirely the WRONG purpose. Not for the primacy of providing some needed good or service as indicated by a genuine consumer demand for their offerings.

But virtually solely to provide EMPLOYMENT. To "make work". To provide an "excuse" for paying somebody an "income".

To me, this is about the same as a lot of what has been proposed as being a reason to have what many call "value-added" manufacturing.

Not because there's a genuine consumer demand for the product to be made. But simply because it provides a "job". It keeps somebody busy, and under control.

Well, we don't need anything so elaborate to do that. Any old piece of bare earth and a pick and shovel will accomplish the same task admirably. Just have the new "employees" all dig holes. And when they're finished, fill them in again.

And we can do that, ad infinitum, and it makes just as much sense, or maybe more, as turning out products for which there is no consumer demand simply to employ someone.

The worst feature of that, is that in our fervent desire to "make work", even if it means 'subsidizing PRODUCERS, we completely overlook the REAL problem.

And that is ensuring that GENUINE consumer demand for products that could be made, is always an EFFECTIVE DEMAND. We don't need to create employment to do that, only revisit the WHOLE "accounting process" of how PRICES are made and INCOMES distributed.

yawn.....One more mill shut down, a few more trees to hug......