1 aur WTR EO 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