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reforestation begun

By MAURICE RUSH
‘ The loss of 60,000 jobs in British Colum-
1a’s forest and related industries if action is
Hot taken immediately by the federal and
Provincial governments to launch a massive
ee promad is the grim prospect
in two for. i
rEoetiy: estry reports made public
Early in February the details of a 42-page
eae Prepared for the federal government
- the Pacific Forest Research Centre in
ictorla warned that B.C. faces large scale
unemployment in nearly every major city
and town if large tracts of forest lands
logged over the past few decades are not
Te-forested.

_ The report estimated that 30,000 jobs will
disappear in the forest products industry
and another 30,000 in related industries.
The report says that unless action is taken at

The Pacific Forest
Research Centre has
estimated that 30,000
jobs will disappear in the
forest industry unless
reforestation is
undertaken.

Once the Ocean Falls experience will be
Tepeated many times over. (Ocean Falls was
turned into a virtual ghost town and 1,800
Jobs were lost when the mill was closed.)

Pointing out that timber shortages
(termed “fall-down”) will strike some areas
within five years and they will become wide
spread in another 20 years, the report
warned that “events at Ocean Falls pale to
significance compared to the potential
effects of the projected ‘down-fall’ on the

C. economy.”

_ Theirony of the situation, said the report,
is that B.C. is faced with a long-term reduc-
4on in the quality and quantity of timber
available for harvest at a time when the
Worldwide demand for forest products is
©XPected to’increase by 86 per cent by the
year 2000 — in the next 16 years. The total
Value of forest products in B.C. in 1980 was
$7.6 billion and is the mainstay of the pro-
vince’s economy.
: € report said that the answer to the
Problem is a concerted effort to reforest
More than 640,000 hectares (1,592,678
acres) of provincial land “not satisfactorily
Testocked.” Such a program of reforesta-
Hon would generate 200,000 man-years of
€mployment and would bring vast eco-
Nomic benefits to B.C., and create addi-
Honal thousands of new permanent jobs.
A second report released Feb. 14 by the
iation of B.C. Professional Foresters
Confirmed the worst fears of the federal
Teport. It pointed out that less than half the
Number of trees needed to meet current
Needs on logged lands, and to reforest some
Of the backlog needed for lands under-
Stocked, were planted in 1982-83 by the
Whole industry.

The B.C. forestry group’s report noted
that idle forest land is found in all areas of

‘C. with the most serious area being the

nce George forest region. It identified
644,522 hectares of good and medium qual-
tty forest lands which are “not satisfactorily
Testocked,” and recommended a program
of reforestation which, it said, would pro-
duce a harvest which would add over 7,000
New permanent jobs.

There was some hope that Ottawa was
beginning to see the need for a federally
Stimulated program for forest renewal when
it announced 18 months ago a program to
Spend $130 million each year for five years.

Under this program the provincial govern-
ments were to match the federal dollars in
each province. The amount allocated as
B.C.’s share was $52 million provided the
Socred government matched it dollar for
dollar. This would have provided an annual
fund of $104 million for each of the next five
years for reforestation in B.C.

However, this week federal Environment
Minister Charles Caccia announced that the
federal government had cut funding to B.C.
to $5 million, claiming that the B.C.
government showed a lack of co-operation.

At the same time, to justify the sharp
reduction in federal funding in the new
budget, he downplayed the crisis facing
B.C.’s forest industry. Denying the facts in
the report prepared for his department by
the Pacific Forest Research Centre, Caccia
said the report “must be taken with a grain
of salt.”

Wherever the fault may lie in the break-
down of negotiations between Ottawa and
Victoria, there can be no doubt that the
present attitude of the Socred government
was in great measure responsible for the
failure to get a reforestation program under
way. Statements made in the B.C. legisla-
ture Feb. 16 indicate the Socred govern-
ment was only prepared to spend $30
million over a ten year period — $3 million
a year — and that the talks with Ottawa
broke down over that issue.

The Socred government has given no
indication that it is seriously concerned with
the problems of reforestation. In fact, the
crisis facing the forest industry is a low
priority with Victoria. This is further illus-
trated by the steps the Socreds have taken to
decimate B.C.’s Forestry Service as part of
its “privatization” program.

Twenty-five per cent of the government’s
forestry staff is being fired on the pretext
that the private sector can police itself.
Government forestry programs have been
scrapped and forestry schools shut down.
The latest to come under the Socred axe was
the forestry training school in Surrey which
specialized in training personnel for refores-
tation and silviculture methods. The school

. was shut down even though it showed a

$50,000 profit last year and had been in
existence since 1936.

Last fall the Socred government brought
down new guidelines under which forest

The aim of the forest
companies is not to
perpetuate the forests
but to take off the best
timber and then move
on in order to realize
maximum profits.

companies are allowed to cut the best qual-
ity timber and leave large quantities of
lower quality wood to rot on the forest
floor. When Forests Minister Tom Water-
land introduced the new guidelines he
claimed they were necessary measures to
help the forest companies “to log low-cost
good quality wood and minimize operating
costs” so that they could show greater
profits.

Welcoming the new regulations, Grant
Ainscough, vice-president of MacMillan
Bloedel, said the industry “can’t afford a
good, basic forest management program”
because it needs money to regain its compet-
itive position on world markets. “I’m not
sure if the coastal industry coud ever afford
to return to some of these (forest manage-
ment) practices,” he said.

PHOTO — B.C. FOREST SERVICE

crisis of Socred forest policy.

That, in a nutshell, is the attitude of the
forest monopolies to a program of reforest-
ation. Their aim is not-to perpetuate the
forests but to take the best timber and then
move on in order to realize maximum prof-
its. The Socred government supports these
monopolies and consequently its attitude is
hardly conducive to reaching an agreement
with Ottawa for a large scale reforestation
program.

The new Socred regulations have ushered
in a period of wholesale waste of the forest
resource. Public controls on private forest
companies have now been largely abolished
and those companies are expected to police
themselves. They are now permitted, under
these regulations, to provide the informa-
tion on which the government will collect
stumpage fees. This is like allowing each
householder to set his own property
assessment on which taxes will be levied.
This is called “privatization” by the Socred
government insofar as the forest industry is
concerned.

The crisis in the forest industry is being
further aggravated by the drive to export
more raw logs, including some of the most
important species. The pressure to step up
log exports is being spearheaded by Mac-
Millan Bloedel, the largest holder of public
forest lands under the Tree Farm Licence
legislation. At a recent session of the Van-
couver section of the Canadian Institute of
Forestry, Jim MacFarlane, manager of log
allocation for M-B, defended log exports as
a “sound strategy.” About three per cent of
the total timber harvest is now exported in
the form of raw logs. However, the most
disturbing aspect of log exports in recent
times has been the change in the mix of
species involved. In 1982 the volume of
Douglas fir logs exported accounted for
14.5 per cent of the total coast fir harvest.
Douglas fir is one of the most valuable and
rapidly disappearing species in B.C.

Added to the lack of reforestation, the
new wasteful regulations of the Socred
government, and the growing export of raw
logs, is the failure of the government and
industry to develop manufacturing and
processing of wood products which is the

B.C. FOREST SERVICE NURSERY... .privatization of Forest Service has aggravated growing

only way to maximize the returns to the
people from the forest resource. Taking all
these factors into consideration, it is impos-
sible to avoid the conclusion that B.C. faces
the most rapid decimation of its forests in
history.

There is no more important issue in B.C.
today than to call a halt to the wholesale
destruction of our forests by the Socred
government’s policies and by the drive to

An immediate program
of action is essential. It
should include the
demand for the
launching of a major
federal-provincial
reforestation program.

maximize profits by the giant forest

monopolies for whom the government acts.

Basic changes are needed in the forest
industry but these will take some time to
achieve. The present Tree Farm Licence
legislation should be scrapped and the
Forestry Act should be completely rewrit-
ten to end domination of the resource by a
few giant monopolies who are more con-
cerned with making big profits than perpe-
tuating the forests. These companies, like
MacMillan-Bloedel, are exporting their cap-
ital abroad and when the resource is used up

in B.C. they can move elsewhere in their —

search for profits, leaving a wasteland of
denuded forests behind them.

An immediate program of. action is
essential. This should include the demand
for the launching of a major reforestation
program to be undertaken jointly by the
federal and provincial government. The
forest companies who are mainly responsi-
ble for having devastated our forests,
should be compelled to cover some of the
cost of a reforestation program through the
imposition of a reforestation tax.

Other measures required are an imme-
diate halt to all log exports, the cancellation
of the regulations introduced last fall and
their replacement by regulations compelling
companies harvesting forest lands to
observe strict measures to protect the
resource and to ensure proper management
of B.C.’s forests in the interest of people.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 22, 1984 e 3