This week:

-Aclose look —
at Herby’s bid

ilton- Jovial, the ficti-
M tious New York investor
we invented a while

back, was supposed to hear from
his mill design people this week
but their initial proposal basn’t
arrived yet; perhaps it’s in the
mail. Milton has received copies of
two bid proposals from our ficti-
tious Terrace forester, though, and
this is enough to whet his appetite
for the week.

RPF Herby Squish, as you might
recall, had recommended that
Milton apply for two separate
Forest Licences. One is located

near Terrace, the other near Hazel-
ton. For each of these locations,
Herby has: now filled out an
"Application and Tender for Forest
Licence" and is ready to forward
them to the Ministry of Forests
chief forester in Victoria.

The applications each begin with
a site-specific proposal, a few
maps and a half-dozen or so
appendices, and end with copies of
the actual applications themselves.

Herby begins each proposal by
applying on behalf of Milton Jovial
for a Forest Licence with an AAC
of 300,000 cubic meters.

The licence, he says, will satisfy

the needs of Jovial, the surround-
ing communities and the province
in providing jobs and economic
stability by converting crown-
owned timber into lumber and pulp
chips.

Herby then offers a company
history and profile (provided by

Milton), and goes on to physically

describe the area and how it will
be logged. This involves numerous
references to maps while explain-
ing what will happen, where it will
happen, and when it’s actually
expected to happen if a Forest
Licence is granted.

Covered here are things like road
and bridge construction, the use of
logging contractors, the type of

sawmill Jovial will be building,

manpower availability and needs,

existing markets for his product,

and a proposed forest management
plan in the application area. Also
covered are economic and social
benefits to the area, expected log
export status, and in some cases
access through Indian Reserves.

For the Terrace site, Herby
enclosed a copy of the Forest
Licence application, at which point
he began by listing the first year’s
annual rent which must be paid to
the province in advance. At $.25
per cubic meter, and with an AAC
of 300,000 cubic meters, this came
to $75,000.

Next, he listed the mandatory
security deposit of $.15 per cubic
meter, which he calculated to be
$45,000. And on the final line on
the form, he entered the bonus bid
of $1 per cubic meter; a total to

"$300,000. A bonus bid is - the
amount per cubic meter the appli-
cant is willing to pay over and
above the assessed stumpage.

The numbers for the Hazelton
site, which also has an AAC of
300,000 cubic meters, were simi-
lar. The first year’s rent totalled
$75,000 and the security deposit
came to $45,000. But on this par-
ticular site, he entered NIL for the

bonus bid.’

Herby then explained to Milton
that he would have to submit cash,
a certified cheque or approved
securities with each application.
Herby suggested securities,
because the province doesn’t pay
interest on any sum submitted in
the form of cash or certified
cheque.

by Tod Strachan, in consultation with Rod Amold and Doug Davies

The total for the Terrace site
came to $420,000 and for Hazelton
it was $120,000. For releasing
approved securities worth
$540,000, then, Milton was well

on his way to becoming a North-
west lumber baron.

But he isn’t a shoo-in for that
title quite yet. The two sites Herby
has applied for will be advertised,
and anyone who is interested in the
tender and comes up with a better
bonus bid could steal the title away
before it was ever awarded.

Milton isn’t concerned at this
point, however. He will be meeting
with his marketing and mill design
people to finalize plans on that
front next week; as far as he’s
concerned Herby can worry about
the trees.

| Down by the River

@ watching the issues flow by
— Commentary and analysis by Terrace Review staff and guest writers

Reprinted with permission of B.C.
Agriculture magazine.

by Judy Walters .

A lot of the ruckus about the
proliferation of garbage that’s
threatening to destroy the en-
vironment is exactly that —
garbage, says world renowned food
packaging expert Dr. Aaron Brady.

For years, mankind struggled
to feed himself. In temperate
climes the biggest challenge was
to find a way to preserve the
summer’s bounteous harvest for
consumption during the winter.
Only in the mid-1900s did hu-
manity achieve its goal.

The technological advance
that made it possible, says
Brody, was food packaging.

Packaging provided the quin-
tessential barrier between man’s
provisions and environmental
elements — insects, rodents,
mould, weather — which con-
spired to destroy his food sup-
ply. It also enabled man to move
away from where food was
grown and freed him to pursue
‘other endeavours.

Now, ironically, concern for
the environment, regarded as the
enemy 40 short years ago, is
threatening to upend the whole
industry.

Ironically, the very people
who delivered humanity from
starvation, malnutrition, and
disease now stand accused of
destroying the planet, says
Brody, vice-president of Schot-
land Business Research, Inc., a
food packaging consulting firm

headquartered in Princeton,
New Jersey.

At first glance, what kind of
box cornflakes come in may not

_strike farmers as an issue war-

ranting their concern, but consu-
mers don’t differentiate primary
commodity producers in with
food processors and retailers.
They blame the food industry,
as a whole, for the tons of un-
necessary packaging they allege
is clogging landfill sites.
Exacerbating matters, envi-
ronmentalists are making pack-
aging a symbol, as they are with
clear cut logging. Clear cutting,
explains Richard Dalon, B.C.’s
deputy minister of the environ-
ment, has come to symbolize all
that’s wrong, not just with for-
est harvesting practices of the
past, but with man’s attitude
towards the environment. End-
ing clear cutting is not an end in
itself. It’s a means of sending a
much broader message to indus-
try leaders and politicians.
Pressures to reduce the
amount of packaging used to
hold, transport, and store food
promise to effect farmers, at
least indirectly, sooner or later.

Increased spoilage, costlier stor-

age, compromised sanitation
standards will mean less money
for primary commodities. Hence
the wisdom of aiding other
members further up the food
chain defend packaging.

As ever, knowing the oppo-
nent well helps. According to
Brody, there are three glaring
flaws in environmentalists’
“self-righteous rhetoric.’’ First,

they haven’t done their home-
work or, if they have, refuse to
concede the facts. Second,
they’ ve failed to think the conse-
quences of what they’re advo-
cating all the way through.
Third, they’re not practicing
what they preach.

Packaging comprises a minu-
scule portion of the municipal
wastes. More than 40% of the
garbage clogging garbage dumps
is paper — ‘‘newspapers, maga-
zines, junk mail, government
forms, and telephone books,”’
says Brody, who spoke at Food
Pacific 90. 18% is yard wastes.
Packaging accounts for a mere
10% of the garbage precipitating
the so-called landfill crisis.

to rise and quality and safety to
fall.

There’s an inverse correlation
between food packaging and
food wastes, explains Brody,
who holds a PhD from the Mas-
sachusetts Institute of Technol-
ogy and has worked in the food
packaging business for over 30
years. In developing countries
where food packaging represents
10% of the solid waste stream,
food wastes exceed 75%. By
contrast, in North America

’ food constitutes only 20% of

total wastes — about 24 billion
pounds a year,

More worrisome than the vol-
ume of food wastes is the health

’ risk it poses. People forget how

Environmentalists have failed
to consider what will happen if
packaging is out-lawed or stiff
restrictions imposed. (Those
doubting such a thing could hap-
pen are reminded that the Cana-
dian Council of Ministers of the
Environment endorsed a ‘‘Na-
tional Packaging Protocol’ call-
ing for a 50% reduction in pack-
aging waste by 2000. Here in
B.C., tougher environmental
protection regulations appear
imminent, says Dalon.)

Prohibitions against packag-
ing would cause the cost of food

recently ‘‘biodegradable’’
wastes were a breeding ground
for pests, rodents, and disease.
Environmentalists are blind to
the fact that the alternative to
packaging is ‘‘mountains of
spoiling, malodorous, unsani-
tary garbage,’’ says Brody.
They also refuse to take re-
sponsibility for continuing to
add to the problem. If the fresh-
ly squeezed orange juice and
corn on the cob consumers are
so fond of were processed by a
food processor, the peels and
cobs could be used for cattle

feed, says Brody. Instead, they
add tons to the already offen-
sive, smelly mess and take mon-
ths to decompose.

The agri-food industry must
be careful not to be bullied into
jumping on the wrong band-
wagon, cautions Brody. The risk
with ‘“‘quick fixes’’ is that they
may create larger, more endur-
ing problems. Environmen-
talists’ knee-jerk demands typic-
ally lack a long-term perspec-
tive.

Just because a handful of
militant consumers say they
want different packaging,
doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.
Take the reintroduction of glass
milk bottles. Yes, they’re recycl-

* able. But delivering and retriev-

ing them consumes extra fuel,
which is non-renewable and pol-
lutes the atmosphere, and steril-
izing them necessitates the use of
potent chemicals which get
flushed down the drain.

The customer isn’t always
right. —- Examples of environ-
mentalist misguidedness aren’t
hard to find. The trend towards
bulk foods, is ill-conceived and
will be short-lived, says Dr. Tho-
mas Haggai, chairman, presi-
dent, and CEO of the Chigaco-
based Independent Grocers Alli-
ance (IGA), the largest grocery
retailing chain in the U.S.,
Health concerns will override

perceived cost benefits, he pre- _

dicts.
Environmentalists seem blind
to the facts, especially when it

— Continued on page A8

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