Who really owns the forest?
The adoption of sustained yield policies in 1947 led to the creation of a new tenure system—the various forms of leases and licenses through which timber and forest land is obtained from the government. In most countries with established forest industries the majority of the forests are privately owned—usually in small parcels by individuals or families. In B.C., where 95 percent of the forests are owned by the government, the tenure system is critically important to the economic and social life of the province.
For several decades before 1947, loggers bought standing timber from the government at public auctions. Apart from that, the industry operated on renewable, transferable timber leases granted by the government around the turn of the century, and on Vancouver Island. By the 1940s some of the more forward- looking forest companies were beginning to manage this private land for future timber supplies.
In 1947 the government rejected proposals to increase private land ownership for the purpose of forest management and instead created a system of leased Tree Farm Licences (TFL) that would be managed by industry, and Timber Supply Areas (TSA), that should be managed by the Forest Service, which would sell timber to the private logging companies.
Proponents of the new policies claimed that hundreds of TFLs would be awarded to established, locally-owned logging and milling firms. Existing market loggers would be able to operate in the TSAs under Forest Service management, selling their logs to the many independent sawmills, which in turn supplied well- established secondary manufactures.
In fact, only about 40 very large TFLs were awarded to a handful of big corporations, many of which had never before done business in the province. Bribes were paid to politicians to obtain TFLs, and in one case—concerning some of the forest land now in dispute in Clayoquot Sound—the forest minister was sent to jail for accepting a bribe.
From their base in the TFLs, the big corporations went on to acquire most of the tenure rights in the TSAs. The free market economy of the forest industry was replaced with monopolistic control of the timber supply. Both the Pearse Royal Commission, in 1976, and the 1991 Forest Resources Commission identified this concentration of control over the timber supply as a major problem affecting the forest sector. No government, including the Harcourt government, has had the courage to act on these commissions' recommendations for tenure reform.
Neither the big companies on the TFLs, nor the government on the TSAs have succeeded in achieving an acceptable level of forest management, compared to other forest countries. There are several reasons for this. On the 35 TSAs, where the Forest Service is responsible for management, successive governments have not provided the necessary funds, preferring to spend revenues earned off the forest industry on other programs considered more likely to get them re-elected to office. Until recently, following the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds, the TSAs contained millions of acres of logged areas which failed to regenerate new forests—significantly lowering the AACs in these units.
The companies holding the 32 remaining TFLs—because they do not own the land, because they do not trust governments to maintain the terms of their agreements for as long as it takes a forest to grow, and because they are more concerned with short term profits than long term benefits—have undertaken only those forest management measures required of them if they want to keep their licenses. They do not consider themselves to be in the business of managing forests and look upon TFLs, primarily, as a way of obtaining timber, either to log or for speculative purposes.
There are other deficiencies common to both TFLs and TSAs. They are all very large management units, centrally administered by corporate and government bureaucrats working out of distant offices. And, although hundreds of millions of public dollars have been spent on various forest management programs, these expenditures have failed to develop a stable silvicultural workforce with the skills needed to efficiently manage the province's forests. Instead of developing a population of forest workers who are acquiring and passing on their skills and knowledge of specific forest lands, the system relies on a small army of transient, temporary tree planters. There is no one available to look after these forests as they grow, and no system in place to make it possible for people to work in the new forests, increasing their yields, enhancing the value of their timber and ensuring that other forest values are cared for as well.
In 1978 the government created a new form of tenure in the TSAs, the Woodlot Licence. Its purpose was to make a small area of leased land available on which individuals, families or small companies could practice forest management. But in most parts of the province the Forest Service has obstructed extensive implementation of this program and it currently accounts for well under one percent of the timber harvested each year. In spite of a large and growing demand for this kind of tenure, the Harcourt government said last year it would not expand the Woodlot Licence program.
The AAC reductions now underway are clear evidence that the old policies, including those concerned with tenure, have failed. The yield, along with the jobs and the economies of B.C,'s forest-dependent communities, has not been sustained. Why, then, is the Harcourt government so committed to maintaining a system that does not work, a system that will cost thousands of forest and mill workers their jobs, and communities their economic stability? And, especially, with so much work to be done in the new forests? Does the government hope that if it maintains the status quo, and does not threaten the vested interests of a few large corporations, it will be allowed to remain in office for a second term?
There are alternatives, in forests policies as well as political parties.
