Almost 10 truckloads of logs per hectare were selectively logged from this 50- year-old forest in the Campbell River municipal watershed in 1980. Instead of providing more opportunities for people to work tending the forest like this, the Harcourt government is reducing the cut and laying off thousands of workers. Photo credit: J. Benner
NDP could create thousands of jobs to offset lowering cuts
The New Democratic Party government of British Colombia has initiated a series of reductions in the provincial timber harvest that are eliminating thousands of jobs, destabilizing local economies and setting the members of resource-based communities at each other's throats. The twin tragedies of the situation is that the measures being imposed will not provide good forest management in B.C., and most of the pain and suffering being inflicted on loggers and mill workers can be avoided.
The most significant program to reduce logging levels is the Timber Supply Review Project, initiated in May 1992. It is a three-year, province-wide study and recalculation of the Allowable Annual Cut (AAC) levels in each of the province's 35 Timber Supply Areas (TSA). The project was initiated last year in the Vancouver Forest Region, which covers all the south and central coastal forests, and by the beginning of this year about one million cubic meters of timber had been lopped from the annual harvests of three coastal TSAs.
Given that each 1,000 cubic meters of timber logged provides one full-time job in the woods or mill, this project has so far eliminated 1,000 direct jobs. There are six more TSAs in the Vancouver region and it its anticipated that by the time they have been adjusted, an additional one to one and half million cubic meters of wood will be removed from the AAC, costing another 1,000 to 1,500 jobs. As well, twice the number of indirect jobs among those who provide goods and services to the logging and milling sector—chain saw stores, truck dealers, computer services—have been lost. And beyond that, an unknown number of induced jobs are lost in those businesses that provide goods and services -bookstores, restaurants, schools and colleges—to those directly and indirectly employed in the forest industry.
By the time this project is applied to the entire province, and if it or another like it is extended to include the AAC in Tree Farm Licences, between 15 and 20 million cubic meters of wood could be taken from the annual harvest. This translates into 15,000 to 20,000 direct jobs, another 30 to 40 thousand indirect jobs and a large number of induced jobs. Although most of the job losses so far have occurred in resource communities such as Bella Coola, Sechelt, Gibsons and Squamish, by the time the review project is completed the impact will be province wide, including the urban centres of Vancouver and Victoria. Additionally, reduced government revenues from stumpage and tax payments will lead to reductions in public services such as education and health care.
Coast Timber supply data Copy right: Truck Logger Magazine
According to the Forest Service, the purpose of the Timber Supply Review Project is to reduce the annual cut to sustainable levels. In theory, the province's forests have been logged on a regulated basis for the past 45 years. In reality—and this is not even disputed by industry—the annual cuts had increased and forests were being over-cut to the point where, in some TSAs, mills were being closed and the future of local economies were being threatened. The current harvest reductions are, it is argued, an alternative to even larger, more devastating ones down the road.
In addition to the review project, the Harcourt government is implementing a number of other programs that will further reduce the AAC of many regions, particularly on the coast. Last June, 188,000 cubic metres of wood were temporarily taken from the Strathcona TSA's cut as part of the government's Protected Areas Strategy. Additional reductions to protect the habitat of various species, such as the northern spotted owl, are in the works.
Predictably, when these site- or area-specific programs are announced, coming on the heels of the timber supply reductions, forest workers focus their anger and frustration on the agencies, interest groups and individuals concerned with non-timber forest values. Either by design or out of ineptitude, the government is leading B.C. down the same road followed in Washington and Oregon. There, in recent years, timber harvests were reduced for similar reasons. When the employment base of the timber dependent communities had been devastated, further reductions in harvest were proposed in order to protect non-timber values, such as the spotted owl. Desperate forest workers reacted in anger and within a short period of time the entire region was bitterly divided. Friends, neighbours and families took up opposing sides and the levels of anger, despair and violence increased. This is the same course the Harcourt government has set for British Columbia.
It does not have to be this way. There are alternatives to simply reducing the AAC, casting loggers and mill workers onto the street and letting or encouraging them to vent their anger on others. The government has chosen to reject those alternatives.
