Alternative - better - ways of managing the forest
The yarding and log forwarding attachments mounted on this farm tractor are good examples of the appropriate technology that allows small-scale forest workers to selectively harvest second-growth temperate rainforests. Photo credit: B. Woods
Even though most of the land in British Columbia is owned by the government and managed under a narrow interpretation of sustained yield policy, there are a few examples on the Coast of alternatives to clearcut management of the temperate rainforest. Most of these are conducted on private land, although the Forest Service has undertaken a few selection cutting operations in the past 20 years. Taken together, these operations provide an indication of how the forest industry could operate in a way that would protect jobs in the woods, maintain the timber supply to the mills, and protect other forest values.
Merv Wilkinson has been selectively logging his 55-hectare, old- growth forest on Vancouver
Island since he bought it for that purpose in 1939. In addition to substantially increasing
the commercial value of the standing timber, he has maintained and in some cases improved
other forest values, provided himself with one-third of his family's income for 45 years,
and generated jobs for contract loggers and mill workers.
He has proved that, at least on
some sites, selection logging of old-growth coastal rainforests is economically and
silviculturally feasible. He has also demonstrated that small, private landowners have
a greater long-term commitment to the well-being of their forests than either the provincial
government or the big forest corporations.
Following behind the feller-processor, this low-ground-pressure forwarder can carry selectively-cut logs to roadside without damaging the forest floor. Photo: Photo credit: Truck Logger Magazine
Texada Logging, a German-owned company with 6,000 hectares of private forest land on Saltspring and Vancouver Islands, has been selectively logging and thinning its properties for the past 10 years. Operating in ecologically and politically sensitive areas, the company has never raised any objections from neighbours or environmentalists. The company, whose owners are the largest family-owned forest farmers in Europe, has spent most of the past decade restoring the health of its forests in B.C. It has also developed short-log thinning techniques for B.C.'s coastal rainforests through an associated company, Short Log Thinning, which has introduced sophisticated European-style selective logging equipment to the Coastal B.C. forests. Texada is one of the few Coastal logging companies with a Forest Licence on Crown land that has chosen to log some of its annual cut selectively. It will likely be the first forest company in B.C. to be certified as a supplier of sustainably produced lumber.
This feller-processor is an expensive but effective machine used on Vancouver Island to thin second-growth forests. Photo credit: Truck Logger Magazine
Tom Wright is a former Dean of Forestry at the University of British Columbia, Chief Forester at Canadian Forest Products, and President of the Association of B.C. Professional Foresters. Since the late 1940s he has owned and operated the 190 hectare Witherbee Tree Farm near Gibsons, and since 1984, a 388 hectare Woodlot Licence adjacent to the tree farm. He and his son, Bill, who has taken over the operation, use a combined system of selection logging and small clearcuts. The Wrights' thinning operations have all been profitable, yielding on average about 160 cubic metres of timber per hectare. They have demonstrated that if a high standard of silviculture is applied to the province's second- growth forests not only are the operations themselves profitable, but if widely practiced, would maintain or even increase the timber supply to the mills as the supply of old-growth timber is depleted or preserved for other uses.
