° Long-butting practices and overcutting are concerning union members.

Eco-certification
and wood waste
in the forest

In early December a Canadian Press clipping
read that TimberWest, which has some 334,000
hectares of private land, has received certifica-
tion for its forestry operations under the “Sus-
tainable Foresty Initiative” PigeTara:

A company spokesman said the program is
recognized in the American eaakerniaess

ter all, that’s where TimberWest wants to

ort, ne in large part.

cording to the Canadian Press, Timber-
West said the system of environmental and con-
servation practices consider wildlife protection,
biodiverstiy conservation, harvesting practices
and a wide range of management eat

But a visit to TimberWest private logging
operations and its dryland sort on Shoal Island
reveal unique practices.

It’s called long-butting.

In short, the company directs its workers to
lop off prime pieces of prime wood to make them
more appealing for the log export market.

“The reason they long-butt these things (logs)
is so they can fit nice and tight in the (export)
boat,” said Rocco.

“It’s got nothing to do with quality. It’s so
they are nice, uniform logs that fit nice and

snug,” he added, saying that any flair causes air
space.

Brother Rocco said it is not unusual to see an
export log long-butted out in the woods and then
again at the dryland sort.

“It’s creaming. They chip or burn (the long-
butts),” he said in an interview with the Lumber-
worker. Sometimes they are left on the logging
settings.

“The guys are saying ‘How can we talk about
joining certification for sustainable forestry?” he
added.

Even the company has admitted, said Rocco,
that over the last five years it has been cutting
unsustainably.

“In some cases we have 30 year rotations, not 70
or 100,” he said. The second growth is “not even
getting a chance to grow.”

According to Rocco the company’s story is that

there is no economic benefit in waiting decades
more to cut the wood.

“It seems like today when a tree sticks out of
the ground there’s somebody there to pull it out,”
he added.

“The guys that are running TimberWest are the
Crown Z (Crown Zellerbach guys). And you know
what happened to Crown Z. They mowed ‘er down
and away they left,” he said. :

Brother Rocco says one standing joke at Timber-
West’s Nanaimo Lakes goes along the line of: “Look
our (annual allowable) cut is 300,000 (cubic metres)
but we're cutting 600,000 and leaving 300,000 on the
ground.”

Despite that humourous exaggeration, the con-
cerns about long-butting and harvesting are growing.

A huge advantage

When log exporters like TimberWest and
Weyerhaeuser sell their private wood to U.S. or
Japanese purchasers they receive a level of rey-
enue that public timber holders don’t get. And
they have advantages that even private timber
holders in the U.S. don’t have. :

In the U.S., legislation is in place which says
that if a company exports logs off of private
lands, it can’t bid against competitors in the
same town, community or region for timber
from public land. eae

“TimberWest and Weyerhaeuser, bidding for
public timber, are able to pay a premium ae
that others can’t pay,” says Bill Routley. “They
can out-compete rivals (in B.C.) because they
are getting so much for their timber log rts
that they are able to pay an off-set price. When
you put public wood in their overall wood bas-
ket, their fibre is still lower (in price).”

At the same time the Americans can buy
Canadian logs for 50 cents on the dollar because
of the strong U.S. buck and produce lumber for
their own or overseas market that B.C, mills
without private wood or with quota are trying
to compete in.

The local union is concerned that the compa-
nies will be able to trade its crown wood for
other private wood and then export it to the
ESRC elsewhere if the 1906 restrictions are

ed.

Rick Whiteford speculated that in 1998, when
the Youbou mill went down for 8 days due to
lack of timber supply, that TimberWest had its
public timber committed to other companies so
those companies wouldn’t block their private
wood exports.

“Now you tell me why the largest landowner
in this province that only has 2 sawmills and

has 2 TFL’s — why we would be out of fibre?”
he said.

Enough Timber

continued from page nine

said Routley, in an interview with the Lumberworker.

“One of the sole purposes of the TFL’s is to
provide community stability and to provide for-
est employment. Now it seems reasonable to me
to expect that any government would come to
both the community and the forest workers and
alert them to the fact they are changing things.”

“We’ve been told alll allows by MLA Jan
Pullinger that we had equal to Clause 7 or bet-

ter,” said Routley.

He said that under Section 71 of the Forest
Act the government has the power to take away
the volume of timber that’s flowed through
Youbou. That is about 1/3 - 1/2 of the wood
volume processed at the operation.

If the government does that, then the
Honeymoon Bay crew would get separated, as it
logs both private and public,

“We don’t want to see the crew split up, but
at the same time we don’t want to see the com-
pany maintain the rights to the fibre,” said
Routley.

The local needs to find out where the govern-
ment is on the apenas) of the timber.

“No matter who buys those logs off the TFL,
all chips must go to either Crofton or Elk Falls,”
said Rick Whiteford, pointing out that even if

Doman Forest Industries buys wood from the
TEL, it would have to ship an equivalent amount
of chips to the pulp mills.

150 logging trucks leaving the Cowichan Valley.

By mid-day in November, Brother Dan Verbitsky and Mike Berekoff (1. to r.) had a tally of nearly

10/LUMBERWORKER/DECEMBER, 2000