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{ FOREST AND ENVIRONMENT

Catching up with them runaway insects

Annual allowable cuts to jump drastically in northern British Columbia

IN SEPTEMBER B.C.’S chief forester
Larry Pederson announced that three

Qiimber Supply Areas in the north —in

the Prince George, Lakes District and
Quesnel areas, will get a jump in their
annual allowable cuts to deal with the
mountain pine beetle epidemic. The
impact will be felt in Local 1-424
(Prince George) which represents
workers who are seeing the lion’s
share of the cut increase in Canfor,
West Fraser and Weldwood mills
through the local. The cut will jump an
astounding 27 per cent to 23.4 million
cubic meters a year — equivalent to
nearly a third of the province’s annual
allowable cut last year.
Although lumber prices reached near
rds last May, they have since
dropped considerably. Atthe same time,
the Canadian dollar has shot up. With
the inevitable increase in lumber pro-

duction, more union members should be
employed. But the overall impact on the
supply/demand chain is unknown.

Some industry experts say that the
increase in timber harvest is too much
for lumber markets to absorb and that
non-lumber avenues (pulp and paper,
composite products and OSB) have to
be found to avoid driving lumber
prices down.

Local 1-424 president Frank Everitt
says the Abitibi mill in MacKenzie
would like to add 40 more workers to
keep up with the increase in cut.
Dunkley Lumber in Hixon has done a
large expansion, hiring on 40 people
this year, and is looking for flexible
shifts. In addition, Houston Forest
Products has put on a extra shift.

“The downside is that in the future
if there are no considerations made,
we'll see a future downturn in the

= The pine beetle is out of control.

membership,” says Everitt.

The mountain pine infestation stretch-
es from north of Fort St. John on south to
the U.S. border. It is heaviest from Prince
George on down to Kamloops. Last year
the infestation grew by a rate that was
some 20 times larger that the total num-
ber of hectares hit by forest fires. The
Ministry of Forests estimates that 80 per
cent of the lodgepole pine stands in the
Interior region are now threatened.

The only natural events that will stop the
beetle spread are forest fires and cold win-

ters, with temperatures ranging from -35
to -40 Celsius for several weeks. The
insects are able to store their own “anti-
freeze” and live five days and more.

Infected stands in much of the
northern Interior must be harvested
in 10-15 years to salvage merchantable
fibre. In the dryer Chilcotin region,
where Local 1-425 (Williams Lake)
mills have been seeing infested wood
for a number of years now, mer-
chantable timber can be salvaged fol-
lowing 15-18 years of infestations.

Local 1-425 president _ Bill
Derbyshire says the local has not
received an answer from the govern-
ment about the long-term impact on
the jump in cut. In addition, a con-
tractor was recently given the right to
export beetle infested wood from an
area which West Fraser high graded
in the Chilcotin Plateau.

PHOTO BY NORM GARCIA

& Forest companies in Ontario are looking for forest policy changes to allow them to close smaller sawmills.

Fighting back against supermills

THE ONTARIO LIBERAL govern-
ment of Dalton McGuinty has been
aalled out on the carpet by the United
Steelworkers - IWA Council. In
November the council increased pres-
sure on the government to rethink Bill
106 (An Act to implement Budgetary
measures and amend the Crown Forest
Sustainability Act, 1994). In June of this
year the multipurpose bill, which also
calls for the special imposition of a
health tax on Ontarians, would change
the way the public's forest lands are
administered.

“The Liberal government is trying to
oak drastic changes to the way forest
tesources are allocated in Ontario and
they are not in the interest of communi-
i Rivard, chairman of

Resources is per-
mitted to issue a
forest resource
license to the per-
son."

"We clearly see
through this leg-
islation which is
designed to allow

corporations,
which are consid-
ered as a ‘person’, to build supermills
and consolidate timber supplies from
smaller operations," says Rivard. "The
end result will be that smaller mills will
sell their quotas to the big companies and
pull the plug on forest-dependent com-
munities in Ontario."

Steelworkers Local 1-2995 president
Guy Bourgouin, based in Kapuskasing,
notes that current laws tie timber to com-
munity-based manufacturing facilities,
underscoring the long-held social con-
tract between public resources, private

Norm Rivard

® Oniario legislation cloaks Liberals’ move to severe timber ties

investors and communities.
"Corporations have received access to
public resources in exchange for creating
investment and maintaining stability in
Ontario communities in a cyclical indus-
try," says Bourgouin. "The Liberal gov-
emmentis taking its directions on forest
policy from the U.S. Coalition for Fair
Lumber Imports, which is calling for so-
called ‘free-market’ solutions to the
Canada-U.S. softwood lumber dispute."

Joe Hanlon, president of Steelworkers
Local 1-2693, based in Thunder Bay, says
that large companies, such as Bowater,
have often by-passed forest-dependent
communities with raw timber resources.
"This bill would only enhance what
major forest companies want to do. They
want to build Supermills to replace
smaller, community-based mills," he
says. "The results would be pain and dis-
location and economic upheaval for
workers, their families, communities
and small businesses."

Local unions reach an impasse
with First Nations contractors
In mid-December two northern
Ontario Steelworker local unions -
Local 1-2693, based in Thunder Bay,
and Local 1-2995, based in
Kapuskasing, and First Nations
logging contractor Mammamattawa
Inc. hit an
impasse in
trying to geta
full collective
agreement.
Local 1-2995
president Guy
Bourgouin and
Local 1-2693
" president Joe
Guy Bourgouin Hanlon say that
the Steelworkers are ready to work
with the crew and the company to
improve working conditions for all
employees. The contractor was
aiming to work on the Kenogami
Forest (former limits of Kimberley-
Clark, now Neenah Paper), the
7] Hearst Forest
“| District, and the
Gordon Cosens
-| Forest District
"| near Hearst. “We
| worked hard for
an agreement,”
says Brother
Bourgouin. “It’s
important to have
an agreement
with the company
as a fully-unionized employer.”
Brother Hanlon says that aboriginal
workers deserve all the rights and
privileges of a collective agreement
that all workers are entitled to.
“Together as the United Steelworkers
we can combine our forces and
resources to get a better deal for all
forest industry workers,” says
Brother Hanlon. “That means
working together for better cutting
tates and access to timber which is
harvested in a sustainable way.”

Joe Hanion

DECEMBER THE ALLIED WORKER | 19