TUMPAGE should be greatly reduced or eyen eliminated by establish- ing a special economic zone in the northwest, a city-organized forestry confer- ence concluded last week. And towns should do their part _in creating that zone by moving within 60 days to offer a property tax holiday to new manufacturers . that set up shop. Those are two of the key - and controversial — action items that sprang from the City of Terrace- organized Communities in Crisis conference last week. A special Skeena zone builds on.the long-running call for Vic- toria to create a separate forestry zone that treats this area differ- ently from the coast and interior tegions. “This area is going to have to be treated on a separate basis if the government ever wants to reap anything from us,” said city free- man and former sawmill manager Bill McRae. City councillors plan to press government officials at this week's Union of B.C, Municipali- ties convention in Vancouver. And council will itself explore the idea of a tax holiday for new + producers in the weeks ahead, Action must happen immedia- tely, says mayor Jack Talstra, “We are in crisis,” he told the conference. “How do we as a community get through the winter?” Although the strike at West Fraser’s pulp mill has ended, clearing the way to reopen the Terrace sawmill, that mil? is now under threat of a strike. And New Skeena Forest Pro- ducts workers are now entering their third year of waiting for the company to secure financing and start up, “Their El has run out a long lime ago and they’re beside themselves,” Talstra said. That sawmill won't restart until spring, he said, and it’s up to gov- ernment to take extraordinary steps to help out in the meantime. “There are people in our com- munity right now madly stocking our food bank,” he said. “It’s never been this bad.” “We need something and we need it now,” added logger Den- nis Booth. “In the next couple of weeks. Or we're not going to get through the winter.” “Many recommendations from the Conference mirror MLA Roger Harris’ repeated calls for Victoria to open up the fibre basket and put more wood in the hands of dif- ferent operators - particularly under a new variable rate pricing system that allows reduced mini- mum stumpage rates. Ministry officials say reforms underway will help. But council and Harris want Victoria to do more, faster. “We have to open up the fibre basket a lot more quickly to these people,” Harris said, “Let them do their magic with it,” The conference also reinforced other work already underway - such as plans to establish a con- tainer port in Prince Rupert. But it also heard some blunt assessments of how the industry here must reform. Forester Fred Philpott argued there is not sufficient timber in the region that can be profitably cut to feed both local sawmills. The best and cheapest to i \ ria ae FACILITATOR Jim Craven flips a page at the Communities in Crisis conference last week. The forum was organized by the City of Terrace to find solutions to the forest industry's collapse here. FIX Our forests. Property tax holidays. Low stumpage. No stumpage. It’s all on the table as Terrace demands the province do something to rebuild the forest industry A special report by Jeff Nagel > months, investment. were raised, area timber. poplar. . THE STRATEGY _ : M@ Open up access to timber. Make 500,000 cubic metres of timber available at reduced stumpage rates within 3-12 @ Establish a distinct Skeena ecanomic zone. Flexible forest practices and relaxed stumpage would cut logging costs. Zero property taxes for new manufacturers would encourage new @ Find alternatives to a pulp mill to consume the region’s large volume of pulp-quality wood. Cogeneration, strandboard or chipboard planis and a ocean terminal to bulk export chips | M@ New studies should help find new uses and markets for W@ increase access to specialty hardwoods like birch, alder and l@ Change policies to encourage increased wood salvaging. M Intensify lobbying to end the softwood lumber dispute. extract timber is gone, he says, forcing companies to log higher up the mountains, and in more ecologically sensitive areas — all the while racking up higher costs. Philpott said what's: needed is a redefining of what is “economically operable” timber in the region, “We have to ensure when we log something it’s economically viable,” he said. “I think we're throwing good money after bad by chasing a lot of the timber we're chasing.” The allowable annual cut for the region should then be reduced to correspond to the amount of timber that can be cut profitably, he said, adding that would force a rationalization of the two mills. Philpott said second growth timber won't be harvestable arrive in large quantities for 10 to 20 years, and the mills here aren't really designed to cut it. “I think we can run one mill efficiently on a sustainable basis with the old growth timber we have left,” he said, adding a new one could then be planned to pre- pare for the second growth. Terrace Precut mil] owner Mo Takha said the region must also wean itself off the export of raw logs that has been used to prop up logging here in recent years. “Export is just a bandaid for the area and.the contractors,” he said. “The long-term solution is to do something with the logs we have in this area.” An entire breakout group of the conference was dedicated to com- ing up with unusual ideas. One was to go after the movie industry and try to sell cheap hemlock lumber as a cost-effec- tive wood for set-building. “There -is- a- signficant: uselofi: forest products when they create their sets,” said Jan Smith, who led the Thinking Outside the Box group. “We're thinking maybe there’s an opportunity to exploit this market.” ; Another idea from that group was to in effect rent standing tim- ber to environmental groups that oppose logging, “In essence pay loggers not to log,” Smith said, explaining the adopt-a-tree concept. He said the idea would be a way of putting forests to work even when they’re not being Iog- ged, and working proactively with environmental groups. “See if there isn’t a way to work with them to provide a return to our local economy.” City council will set up an im- plementation committee that will monitor progress toward the for- estry goals in the same way a pre- vious group did with a series of health-related goals. Forest reform is coming and it’s happening here first FIXES that will dramatically change the forest industry are coming, senior forests ministry officials promise. Assistant deputy forests minister Bob Friesen was the focus of much attention at last week's Communities in Crisis confer- ence, A key figure in crafting indust Friesen said he largely agrees with said. The takeback of timber from New Skeena Forest Products could be complete late this year or early next year. ry reforms, claims that this region deserves separate sta- tus. “This area does seem to be cut from a different cloth,” he said. “It’s not the coast and not the interior.” Friesen said he has got the message of locals loud and clear and will bring it back to Victor- ia, where he said officials are al- “Presumably they would be one of the licensees in province to work their way all the way through the process,” he said, adding that also mean they'll “This area does seem to be cut from a dilitferent cloth. It’s not the coast and not the interior.” first the ready aware of the difficulties here. “It doesn't hurt to sharpen their focus with some first-hand reports,” he said. what [°It do.” Victoria has agreed to procee changes here first, making the northwest a kind of testing ground. Officials in this region are working on the takeback of 20 per cent of. timber companies. “We are working as quickly as we can to be first up to get a share of a $200 million compen- sation fund. “And that’s ~~ About half the timber subject . to takeback is to be sold to the d with key highest bidder by the new B.C. from major do that complicated takeback,” Friesen said. And they're also expecting to turn over around half of that timber to aboriginal groups and others in the region. “The northwest is kind of a crucible for de- veloping those relationships as well,” Friesen Timber Sales organization The plan is that the auctioned timber will generate market-based pfices that will then be used to set stumpage rates for all other timber ~ rates that are then defensible in softwood. The extra timber that will be sold on the open market should, officials reason, put more wood into the hands of thase who need it, Spurring new industry. The rest of the takeback timber is to be will = Bob Friesen handed ou! to aboriginal groups, community forests, woodlots and other small licences. Friesen said the changes should all free up a lot of fibre on the open market. “All that is going to put timber into different hands,” he said. Other reforms to make timber li- cences freely transferable and subdividable should also allow companies to sell off unwanted timber to others who can use it. Changes have been slow in com- ing because there’s tremendous | detailed work still underway. ‘| For example, Victoria needed to create a system to decide if the transfer of a licence to another company creates an uncompeti- tive situation. Friesen noted that the ministry this summer began putting out timber sales in this region with much lower minimum bid prices. “That scemed to have a good reception,” he said. “It probably would be a good time to evaluate how much more we can do along the lines of what we did in August.” The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - A5 CORRESPONDENCE FOR THE TERRACE STANDARD The Mail Bag Million dollar question Dear Sir: Mr Hasset wrote a very interesting letter (The Terrace Standard, Sept. 10, 2003) to the editor about just about everything, but when he claims that his life is worth a million Kermede bears it blows my mind to think that anyone except Hitler could feel himself to be that self important. He must have read that fable in our Bible that says, “God gave man the animals to.do with as he pleases.” I know that my life is not worth a million bears and if you were to ask one of those million Kermodes he would probably agree. Allan Kennedy, Terrace, B.C. It’s black and white Dear Sir: There’s been a lot of attention to the Kermode bear's genes story in The Terrace Standard's letters ta the .editor. One reader noted sightings of white mothers with white and black cubs. These sightings were used to argue against the fact that white parents would have only white offspring. As was actually pointed out in one of the original articles in the Standard, the Kermode gene is a recessive gene. This means that in animals that carry a black and a white gene, the coat colour will be dominated by the black gene. To clarify. the matter some more: most genes in bears and humans alike are present in two copies — one from the mather, the other from the father. If a couple produces offspring, both parents pass on only one of. their copies to the next generation. So a male bear will contribute a sperm with only one gene for coat colour and so does the mother in her ovum. ‘The fusion of the two cells at conception will restore the condition that the cub will carry two copies for coat colour. Taken together, this means a Kermode bear is white only because both gene copies are white. A black bear -- we can’t tell by just looking at him/her - could carry two black copies or one black and one white copy. So when a white mother was to mate with a white father there can only be white cubs. This is quite rare because there are not that many white individuals around. So it is much more likely that a white bear will mate with a black individual. If that black individual is of the black/black gene type, all offspring will be black. If the black individual is of the black/white gene type then it becomes a matter of chance, There is a 50/50 chance that the sperm or egg produced carry the black or the white gene. So it is very normal to see a white mother with different coloured cubs. Of course, most of us only see the mother and cubs and have no clue what the father looked like because the male bear does not hang around and worry about his offspring once the mating season is over. By the same reasoning, it is also not unusual to see a black mother with, Kermode; ang black Gpbs.... use ae wl ’ For readers with a bit more scientific background: The biochemical reason for the white colour originates in a single nucleotide mutation in the gene for the melanocortin-1 receptor. The accidental replacement of a G with A creates a dysfunctional protein preventing the production of the black coat pigment. This condition appears only in the phenotype of tae homozygous individuals because having only one intact receptor gene produces sufficient melanocortin-1 receptors to allow black pigment production in the heterozygotes. A survey of DNA samples of black bears in the region has been done. Through that work the frequency of the Kermode gene in black individuals is known. It is quite variable especially when the mainland is compared to several islands off the North Coast. This is a common scenario in population genetics because these gene pools are separated by the open water and not too many bears take a ferry in an attempt to mix up those populations. Dr. John Krisinger Northwest Community College, Terrace, B.C. Pay your share Dear Sir: Our system is like a monopoly. The poor are squeezed more and more, The rich get more tax breaks, our government keeps this going. Our whole tax system should be changed. We have too many loopholes which open up the doors to the rich. People like me who live on the poverty line pay the price, Big corporations don’t pay very much. It’s a shame what percentage they pay. How many people like me don’t stand up against this, Our government always finds a new tax grab to pick money our of our pockets. Everybody should pay their share. Mark Bain, Terrace, B.C. Road work not needed Dear Sir: Regarding the roadwork in the Nass Valley. All is well and done, but hey, this is a total waste of monies that can be spent on more better things like for the homeless and jobless in the inumediate area, We are in a depression and all this waste of funds at this time is not very smart. Waiting a few more years, when the economy picks up again, if it does, should have been considered. In closing, the new section of goat trai! from Greenville to Kincolith is a good example of poor road construction. Driving during this coming winter months will prove this right. Frederick Stephens, Queen Charlotte City, B.C. About the Mail Bag | The Terrace Standard welcomes letters. Our address is 3210 Clinton St, Terrace, B.C. V8G 5R2. You can fax us at 250-698-8432 or e-mail us at newsroom @terracestandard.com. No attachments, plaase. We need your name, address and phone number for verilication. Our deadline is noon Friday or noon Thursday If it’s a long weekend.