!The Fall ‘This week: By Tod Strachan You may hot have heard of Down Effect", but living in the heart of a forestry based economy you. should have. If your income relies — either directly or indirectly on the forest industry -- and in Terrace almost everyone’s does -- the Fall Down .. Effect could cost you your job. . - In basic terms, the Fall Down Bifect simply means we’re runn- ing out of trees and if something ‘isn’t done soon fallers and skidder. Operators could be about as . Visible in the Northwest in a few years as the brontosaurus. -There are a lot of reasons for the Fall Down Effect but most of them are details for historians to - deal with. What's really impor- tant, though, is for the average person to understand what the Fall Down Effect is and what, if anything, can be done about it. Using ignorance as an excuse, anyone can stand almost anywhere in the Terrace area, survey the horizon, and conclude that the experts are wrong. As far as the eye can see in any direction, there are thousands, probably millions, of trees... it’s quite apparent the experts are wrong. It's quite obvious that we haven’t even begun to tap this resource and: by the time we reach the end of one tract of land, the young trees we see today at the beginning of another will be mature. If this is what you believe, take a closer look. Forget about the | The Fall Down Effect ‘obvious . beauty and. apparent. wealth of the valley and focus on. a single tree.. What you see may come’ as a_ shock. Focus on. another tree and examine its potential wealth. Try another. Examine 10 trees, and«on an. average you'll find that eight of them are too old to be-of any real. value using our current marketing and manufacturing strategies. And |: the other two are too young. Your first casual survey of our timber resource was wrong. In reality, the forests you were viewing were of very little value at all. The resource you thought you saw, the never-ending abun- dance of wealth, hasn’t existed for years. And if you hadn’t taken a closer look, you may never have known. Never have known, that is, until it was too late. Even with this information, though, many people still aren’t convinced. How about another test? Forget about surveying the _ horizon, take a look at the high- ways. On weekdays, you can Stand anywhere along a main highway and count a fully loaded logging truck almost every minute of the day. This is little proof there’s any ‘kind of problem in the industry... let alone an called the Fall Down Effect. Here again, though perhaps a Closer. look might be in order. Many of the logs on these trucks are overmature and destined for the pulp market. A few’ of the logs might have somé valué to the sawmill, but the fact is that only about 38 to 51 percent of the ‘log will actually end up as lumber; the rest will be turned into pulp or hog fuel. - | _ ° This, then, is the Fall Down Effect: a gap in the genera- tions of trees that, using today’s methods, has left us with very few harvestable trees, Trees under 80 years of age are immature. They’re not ready to cut. Those over 200 years are overmature, and as they continue to age they lose their volume of useable wood to rot, insects and disease. The average tree in the Terrace area tanges in age from 250 to 400 years, The valuable trees, the ones between 80 and 200 years, are virtually absent, . ~The events that brought us to ‘this particular dilema are quite ig different than mariy people im- agine. Some might surmise: "The loggers went out and cut them all." But this isn’t necessarily true. Mother nature herself carries some of the blame: Many forest fires occur naturally and are a part of the ‘ natural Scheme ‘of - things. When an area of timber is burn- The view from Victoria — by John Pifer VICTORIA — In the final analysis, the Social Credit defectors from caucus were left with no real option other than | to return, somewhat sheepishly, to.the fold. a MLA’s Graham Bruce, Doug Mowat and Dave Mercier tried - to put on a brave face last week, saying that enough had ': changed or improved in the leadership style of Premier Bil! Vander Zaim to prompt that . return. But the truth is that their - constituents and party officials had overwhelmingly urged them to forget their differences . with Vander Zalm and to go back to caucus. The truth is that their bold, brave move in October (along with Columbia River MLA Duane Crandall, who returned last month) has proved to have been pointless, and totally in- effective in achieving their goal of a serious evaluation of Vander Zalm’s leadership. The truth is that the basic reality which struck the Three Amigos after the premier’s | decision not to resign, was that . there-was no political future for them outside of the caucus. At his press conference in Duncan, Bruce said the ques- tion of leadership ‘“‘has been resolved, in that the premier has indicated... | ing and will be fighting through to the next election. that he is stay- ‘*T don’t think that we ever stated that the leader had to resign. My concern was that.we as.a caucus start dealing with | things in a more realistic fashion than what we had been,” he added. Asked whether Vander Zalm was electable, Bruce ducked giving a direct answer, saying . only that Social Credit was the only electable free-enterprise party. . - Yes, this is the same Graham Bruce who just two months ago said that if the premire decided | to stay, ‘‘the risk to free enter- prise will be very,: very great. It _ could well mean the end of the. government. It could well mean the end of this party.” When the four MLA’s left on Oct. 3, the party had suf- fered its fifth straight by- election defeat in 18 months, all with Vander Zalm’s leader- ship as a prime factor. On Dec. 13, it lost another one, again in a former Socred stronghold, and with a strong candidate. On Dec. I4 ata . $100-a-plate fund-raising dinner in Duncan, the four MLA’s said the party ‘‘needs a leader who not only listens, but ac- tually hears.’’ Two months later, all of that was forgotten, or conveniently ignored, replaced by political reality, and expediency. The revolution is over. As I stated last month when it was introduced, there is much to praise, even to savor, in British Columbia’s proposal to resolve the Meech Lake Ac- cord impasse. And it is encouraging to see that after some initial negative reaction in B.C. and in eastern Canada, it is starting to receive . more credibility. Even high- ranking Ottawa mandarins are ed, the way is paved for. new growth, In most interior - forests - this cycle is repeated ona regular — basis and: you find ‘Telatively young but mature - forests. In coastal regions, however, there is - more moisture and fires occur less frequently. This is ‘why you find older growth forests in areas such aS Ours. The forest industry, though, isn’t entirely without blame. Past _ forest practices have compounded the Fall Down Effect -- but we are not yet left entirely without hope changed from 80:20 to 65:35 there may be a chance to mini- mize the effect. Good manage- ment and silviculture methods could reduce the age at which a tree is harvestable from 120 to 80 years and increase the productivity of our forests by a third. At the extreme end of the scale, there are some schools of thought that believe the. _ best thing we could do is to get rid of everything we have and start over from the beginning. Before any real decisions can be made, though, some important questions have to be answered. Primarily, in addition to nature, what are the contributing factors? Should we blame our policies, attitudes and philoso- If the ratio of over-mature to - -under-mature .trees.. could be: ‘phies? Should the forest ‘tenure » ‘system be. changed? Are there better management tools available that would allow us to do.a better job?. Could we improve on research facilities and professional training programs for forest workers? Are there other local Species that can be utilized in the interim? Can our manufacturing © facilities diversify their products and utilize more than 38 percent of a log? There is no single magi- cal answer. Instead, there are many partial solutions that must work together if we're to have any chance at all. If all the solutions could be found and introduced simultaneously, in fact, there is still a chance that the Fall Down Effect can be eliminated entirely. Next week, we'll look more closely at some of the causes of the Fall Down Effect. Forestry Insights is a regular _ Weekly feature in the Terrace Review, written by staff reporter Tod Strachan in consultation with Regisiered Professional Foresters Rod Arnold and Doug Davies. The Terrace Review invites readers to express their concerns and viewpoints by writing to Forestry Insights, care of the Terrace Review, 4535 Greig Ave., Terrace, B.C. V8G 1M7. saying that it could just fly. This is a perfect example of how gifted civil servants, such as deputy to the premier, Frank Rhodes and intergovernmental advisor Jack MacDonald, show the depth of their talent, intui- tion and knowledge. For it was they, along with lawyers from the attorney- general’s ministry and others, who for several months ham- mered out the five-point ‘‘un- bundling’’ of the accord, in an - attempt to make it palatable to all provinces. That preparation was done with Ottawa’s knowledge, perhaps even blessing, but without the feds’ direct input, I am assured, There have been rumors and speculation that B.C, agreed to ‘make the proposal on behalf of the Tories to keep Meech alive, in exchange for future favors. The thinking went that Mulroney knew Meech was doomed without some revamp, but it was impossible, political- ly, for it to stem from him. Enter Bill Vander Zalm, perhaps the last place Cana- dians would expect a solid na-. tional policy proposal to blossom from. Well, it’s a neat conspiracy theory, but no, it doesn’t stand up. This is B.C.’s _ plan. One other thing the Meech flurry is proving is that in the minds of B.C.’s general public, it’s not a “‘sexy’’ issue, prob- ably not even a Vote-getting one. The media, especially i in On- tario and Quebec, revel in blowing it out of proportion, and we in B.C. meekly follow suit. Don’t get me wrong; it is important; but the country will not crumble on June 23 if agreement has not been thrash- ed out. Parting Thought: One of the most effective and valuable az.- nual fund-raising events for charity in the province arrives this weekend. The Variety Club Telethon on BCTV Saturday. and Sunday (Feb. 24 and 25) raises millions of dollars for hundreds of special children. The province-wide TV hookup . Needs pledges from all of you. Watch and contribute, 0.K.7 . O.K, Sete ce ete ages Meta gd cies “UE eer oe Tp eeeae ene ay ome gp ay SD Wah op tg ee at Tie