We can solve our
land use conflicts

by Dan Miller

HE issue of good forest management is a
crucial one for IWA-CANADA members, in-
deed for anyone who derives their income
from harvesting and processing timber in
our province.

Although much has been written on this
subject, a fundamental debate continues over how
to formulate a planned approach. This has been
made much more difficult because the Social
Credit government has overcommitted our forest
resources. Although this varies region to region,
in some cases our processing capacity is 30 per-
cent higher than the sustainable cut.

Successive Socred governments have taken the
attitude that industry could police itself. We all
know what the result has been. It took IWA
members protesting on the streets in Vancouver,
and native Indian people on the Queen Charlotte
Islands to reveal the large amounts of waste wood
left on the forest floor. More recently even the
government-appointed Auditor General reported
that revenue collection methods for stumpage
payments were so lax that forest companies were
not paying millions of dollars.

And in the last 10 years there have been over
22,000 jobs lost in the forest industry.

And when we compare B.C.’s economic and job
creation record with other forestry jurisdiction,
we come off very poorly (see table below).

Our competitors not only derive far more value
and jobs from their timber resources, they are also
handling land use conflicts in a better way.

In New Zealand, for example, wilderness areas

extracted from managed forests.

Scandinavians with their strong forest ethic,
insist on proper management, no waste, and as
many as three commercial thinnings taken over
the rotation period of their managed forests.

In British Columbia, more intensive silvicul-
ture, a commitment to research and development.

Dan Miller is the Forestry Critic for the New
Democratic Party of British Columbia. He is a
member of the provincial legislature (North Coast)
and is a millwright who is on leave of absence from
Skeena Cellulose’s pulp mill in Prince Rupert. This
is the second in a series of articles Mr. Miller has
agreed to write for the Lumberworker.

have been set aside, while timber for processing is |*

and workable strategy
to shift our production
emphasis from commod-
ity products to value
added wood products,
would allow us to in-
crease employment and
give us the breathing
room necessary to deal
with the conflicts.

It was not that long
ago that a prominent
Socred politician des-
~ cribed forestry as a “sun-
set industry”. If we continue to follow their lead,
that’s exactly what it will be.

In the 1970s, a New Democratic Party govern-
ment tried a different method of dealing with land
use conflicts. The Tsitika/Schoen watershed on
Vancouver Island, north of Campbell River, was
an area in conflict between a logging company and
those who had a deep concern for the environ-
ment. Through a truly integrated resource use
approach, the New Democrats established a local
resource management committee with members
of the IWA and other unions as full partners along

Our competitors derive more
value and jobs from their

timber and handle land use
conflicts in a better way

with representatives from the local communities
and fish and wildlife interests.

Although there are current differences because
of the proximity of Robson Bight, harvesting
operations have not been controversial. An ongo- |
ing committee monitors all activity. This approach |
is also consistent with the long held trade union
position that working people should have more |
control over decisions affecting their working |
lives. |

Just-as we desire that our children will be able
to obtain meaningful employment in the forest

industry if that’s their choice, so we also desire
that some of the best parts of our beautiful
province are preserved so that they may enjoy
them.

We have some magnificent parks in British
Columbia thanks to the foresight of our ancestors.
Some of those early pioneers were IWA members,
and when you read the early journals you can see
that fifty years ago and more, your union was
raising the issue of proper forest management.

I have just finished re-reading the report of
Harold J. Pritchett, President of the Interna-
tional Woodworkers of America in 1939, to the
third international convention.

Consider these following quotes from his report:

“if cutting practices still generally followed are
continued, old growth fir will be gone long before
new growth is ready...”

“the... objective should be to obtain complete
timber utilization of the forest crops on a sus-
tained yield basis.”

“Organized labour must arouse public opinion
to a greater degree and weld it to political and
community leadership through legislative action
to obtain correlation and integration in the use of
forest resources, wood products, pure water, ...
wildlife, recreation.”

You can see that your union has a long history
of supporting sustainable forestry, and for land
use policies and systems dedicated not only to
sustainable forestry, but to the conservation of
valued life forms and the protection of the other
values contained in our forest lands.

A system, such as the one used by a New
Democratic Party government would allow us to
resolve the many issues facing us today.

The IWA knows they have to do some tough
bargaining with the forest industry to obtain
benefits for their membership. If this government
and previous Social Credit governments had taken
the same position with the forest giants we'd all be
better off.

I believe it’s not too late, that we can still put
our house in order. Other countries which rely on
forestry have shown that it can be done.

New Democrats would like to change the way
we've done things, and we want trade unions like
IWA-CANADA to be part of making those
decisions.

’ Total Value of Value’ per Worth of Jobs per
Volume Total cubic value added 1000
Countries/ Logged Shipments metre mfg./cu.m. cubic
Province Million c.m. $ Billions Dollars Dollars metre
BC. 74.6 10.4 139.36 56.21 1.05
New Zealand 5.3 3.1 577.22 170.88 5.0
US. 410.03 176.7 430.85 173.88 3.55
Sweden 56.0 13.6 242.80 79.49 2.52
Canada 86.3 22.4 259.75 110.57 2.2
(Less BC.)

From: The Impact of Forestry Activity on the Economy of Canada (1984 Statistics) 1988 — C.F.S.

o oint brief calls for better forest inventory

By Phillip Legg,
Assistant Research Director,
IWA-CANADA

In its first major lobby initiative,
representatives from the Western
Wood Products Forum (WWPF) met
with British Columbia's Minister of
Forests to discuss forest resource
planning issues. The WWPF, which
was established in April, 1988, is a
lobby-research organization operated
jointly by the IWA-CANADA and for-
est industry employers. Its main con-
cerns are problems which affect
employment and long-term viability

ithin the industry.

In a jointly prepared brief pre-

sented by the Forum’s co-chairmien, °

IWA-CANADA President Jack Munro
and Ray Smith (President and CEO
of MacMillan Bloedel Ltd.), the two
men called for a comprehensive revi-
sion of the provincial government’s
forest resource inventory. The brief
pointed out that current inventory
information has not collected enough
detailed information on the forest
resource to allow industry or govern-
ment to plan effectively for the future.

To many outside the industry, the
motion of a forest inventory seems
like a relatively straightforward exer-
cise; you simply count trees. How-
ever, there are some problems with
that approach. The most obvious is
the physical and financial challenge.
The number of people and the dollar
costs that would be involved in that
kind of counting exercise would be
enormous. And even if those chal-
lenges could be met, there is another
problem.

Trees are constantly changing.
Depending on their type and age,
trees grow at different rates, some
quite quickly, others quite slowly. As
well, trees are subject to disease,
insects and fires, all of which affect an
inventory calculation.

To deal with these problems, forest-
ers have had to innovate. Rather than
count every tree, for example, forest-
ers sample various areas around the
province from which they gather
enough information to estimate a
province-wide total. Similarly, forest-
ers estimate other factors such as
growth rates of standing timber and
re-planted sites as well as the losses
due to insects, disease and fires.

Unfortunately, many of the factors
used to develop these estimates are
incomplete.

e IWA-CANADA President Jack Munro.

For example, growth rates of trees
on newly re-planted areas vary enor-
mously depending on things like soil
conditions, seedling quality, re-plant-
ing methods and the amount of inten-
sive management applied to the area.
The current level of forestry informa-
tion cannot predict, with great preci-

sion, how each of these factors affect
each other and, ultimately, the growth
rate of the tree. Add to this, the fact
that parts of the current forest land
base in B.C. may not remain as pro-
ductive forest land because of on-
going land use conflicts and it’s easy
to see how the reliability of inventory
information can be undermined.

The WWPF's concern about current
forest inventory data is tied to the
concern about a sustainable future.
Employment and production activity
in the forest industry is largely deter-
mined by the annual allowable har-
vest. Forest inventory data plays an
essential role in determining what the
annual harvest level will be. If the
inventory data in any way distorts or
misrepresents the true condition of
the forest resource, it would eventu-
ally affect harvest totals, employment
and overall industry activity.

As we enter the 1990s the jobs and
communities that this industry sup-
ports as well as the products it is able
to produce and sell will ultimately
depend on how effective we have been
in planning and managing our for-
ests. Without reliable ak detailed
information, that planning effort will
not succeed.

———— ss EEE

LUMBERWORKER/MAY, 1990/3