Ta

¢ Here, on MB’s private land within TFL #44, is a sample of
logged with a hoe-chucker, one of the least labour intensive methods of harvesting.

ED

pS

LS

= s

25% variable retention,

which circumvents the label of “clearcut.” This area was ultimately

MacBlo escalates private wood cuts while
Switching to ‘non-clearcut’ harvesting

doing on Vancouver Island the

right way to go? Is the com-

pany’s move to pacify Green-
peace and the Forest Action Net-
work by getting out of “clearcut”
logging going to pay off over the
long haul?

“My understanding from the train-
ing and from the presentations is
that this (variable retention log-
ging) is market driven, that we want
to be able to tell our customers that
we are able to harvest in a sustain-

I s what MacMillan Bloedel is

able manner which is in a ‘non
clearcut’ fashion...” said MacMillan
Bloedel’s operations engineer Ray
Bartram, at the company’s Sproat
Lake logging division.

At the same time MB’s top dogs
are instructing their logging divi-
sions to adopt to “variable retention
harvesting systems,” their forest
economists are telling them to log
second growth earlier. To MacBlo,
making changes in the way logging
is done, means access to markets
that their competitors, who defend

clearcuts, would have less access to.

And, after all, logging second
growth with “variable retention”
methods on private lands is cheaper
than is cutting old growth on more
costly Crown lands. Meanwhile the
company is catering to green groups
who are leading boycotts of ae
growth B.C. forest products.

At the Truck Loggers Annual con-
vention in January, MB’s CEO and
company president Tom Stephens
said the company is still “clearcut-
ting the Be-Jesus” out of other log-

e At Sproat Lake’s offices, operations manager Ray Bartrum (1.) discusses logging plans with union members and
engineering technicians Howard Groeneveld and Jurgen Huneke.

8/LUMBERWORKER/MARCH, 1999

ging claims it has in North Amer-
ica. But in B.C., clearcuts as they
are known are being phased out b:
the company over a five year period,
to pacify green boycotters.

“MacBlo’s change in direction has
everything to do with customer per-
ception and access to markets,” says
Monty Mearns, First Vice President
of I.W.A. CANADA Local 1-85. “In
our opinion it has more to do with
markets than with forest health
and biodiversity. All you have to do
is look at what they are doing on
private lands to see that.”

MacBlo is harvesting coastal sec-
ond growth at the age of 50-60 years
years. In looking at simple econom-
ics, it would rather have money in
hand for logging second growth now,
rather that waiting for an 80 year
rotation, where the economic bene-
fits of waiting that long are less cer-
tain.

“It’s bottom-line economics for the
company right now,” says Brother
Mearns. “They are upping their cuts
on private lands to get away from
logging on Crown lands where wood
costs are high.”

In 1998 the company targeted
about 75,000 cubic meters of second
growth out of a total divisional cut
of 350,000 cubic meters. This year,
that private wood cut will escalate
to 136,000 cubic meters out of the
same total amount.

According to Sproat Lake’s gen-
eral foreman Monte Hallberg, inter-
viewed by the Lumberworker in
November of last year: “We're try-
ing to survive and get away from
Crown timber because of stumpage
rates,” said Hallberg. “Our cut on
private lands would normally be
about 80,000 cubic meters.”

The escalation of private wood

Continued on page nine