More timber for first nations, more land for fast-growing species among recommendations

The provincial government released its long-awaited round-table report on new directions for the forest industry Monday, promising sweeping changes that Forests Minister Pat Bell said could take years to fully implement.

The report lays out the steps round-table members see as necessary to create a high-value, globally competitive and sustainable forest industry.

Among the 29 recommendations to restore the industry to health are:

- More timber available for resource communities.

- Increasing first nations' share of the timber resource. Bell said it is to go from 10 per cent to 20 per cent.

- Continued log exports from the coast as long as there is no local manufacturing capability.

- More control over existing tenures for major forest companies.

- More land dedicated to fast-growing species such as poplar. Bell identified the province's network of BC Hydro rights-of-way as prime candidates.

"It's a good piece of work," Bell said in a telephone conference call with regional news media Monday.

Bell said the recommendation on log exports -- always controversial in B.C. -- has two components: Companies should be able to export them if they are surplus to local needs but the test for determining local needs should be tightened up.

The 52-page report lays out a broad-brush approach to revitalizing an industry that, despite its declining role in the economy, still accounts for 39 cents of every dollar in goods exported from B.C. It directly employs 55,000 people, but has lost 20,000 workers over the last two years in a continent-wide forestry slump.

The report offers little immediate hope for unemployed workers. Labour costs in B.C., it says, are higher than in competing regions. For future growth, however, it calls on labour and management to develop more flexible relations to reduce production costs without lowering wages or compromising working conditions.

"We need to find ways to improve productivity without degrading wage rates," Bell said.

If implemented, the recommendations could change the way the government allocates timber, give first nations more control over the land and over resource revenues, and open the door to developing bio-refineries based around the province's fibre resource.

The report is the result of a year's work by a 19-member panel taken mostly from government, industry, first nations and universities. The round table's job was to look at the long-term potential for the industry.

The report was due at the beginning of the year but was delayed when members could not reach a consensus.

Dave Lewis, executive director of the Truck Loggers Association, speculated that some of the key recommendations had to be watered down. That's the risk of undertaking such an inclusive report, he said.

Lewis supported the report's overall findings.

"This will be a big step forward if they carry forward with it," he said. "It's encouraging that they are talking about how important forestry is. They are indicating they are going to be strong advocates of forestry. For too long we have seen them let forestry be at the whim of a generally unsympathetic public."

Clustered under six priorities, the recommendations are broad and lack timetables or means of implementing them.

Bell said implementation is the government's job.

He said the government has already adopted some of the priorities, specifically the round table's first priority: a wood-first policy to promote wood's benefits over other construction materials and to use wood whenever possible in construction of public buildings.

"As I saw the recommendations for the report coming forward, where I was convinced the round table had landed on . . . something that I could implement, I took it and put it to work," he said.

The other five priorities are:

- Growing trees, sequestering carbon, and ensuring that land is available from which to derive a range of forest products.

Creating a globally competitive, market-based operating climate.

- Embracing innovation and diversification.

- Supporting prosperous rural forest economies.

- First nations becoming full partners in forestry.

"When you at first look at the points, it looks like weak, mushy recommendations that don't say much," said Ken Wu, of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. "But when you look closely at a few of them, those are the very significant ones."

Wu said one recommendation conservationists can't support would create area-based tenures for forest companies. They are currently allocated volumes, rather than specific land bases to get their timber. The report says such a change will provide the industry with greater certainly over the land base. Wu said that's giving forest companies private-land-like rights over the public forest, limiting public oversight over wildlife, biodiversity and water.

Steve Hunt, western regional director for the United Steelworkers Union, dismissed the round table's findings, saying it is yet another government report on forestry that will accomplish little.

He said the recommendation permitting the export of raw logs as long as there is insufficient milling capacity is an open ticket for companies to ship logs offshore or to the U.S. "Of course there's a surplus of logs," he said, pointing out that 57 mills have closed since 2001.

Most of those closures came after the government severed a requirement called appurtenancy, which tied access to timber to operating a mill, he said.

"So far, this government has dropped the ball on the forestry file very badly."

ghamilton@vancouversun.com