SAVE BC'S PUBLIC LANDS

Backgrounder on

Privatisation - Implications for Community Stability

• Increased corporate control over BC’s forests
• Decreased opportunities for community forestry and the woodlot program.
• Decreased opportunities for community decision-making or public input into forest management.
• Decreased opportunities for the value-added sector
• Increased mill closures due to mergers and centralization of operations
• In some instances, increased raw log exports

Corporate Control

ALREADY:

• 20 large timber corporations hold 86% of cutting rights to BC’s public forest resource.
• The woodlot program comprises less than 1% of cutting rights.
• Wood supply for small business mills is less than 5% of the provincial allowable annual cut, due to corporate influences such as surrogate bidding
• Community forestry remains marginalized despite the new community forest pilot project, which must compete with the small business program and the woodlot program for marginal timber supply.
• Demand for community forestry in BC is increasing. 88 BC communities submitted letters of interest for the pilot project. (Only 27 developed full proposals mainly because of financial constraints).

Privatisation and increased tenure rights for corporations will result in even greater corporate control and reduced opportunities for local forestry alternatives.

Mill Closures

ALREADY:

• In response to a declining timber supply, BC’s timber corporations are centralizing and amalgamating operations. This means funnelling fibre to large mills in larger centres and shutting down mills in rural and remote regions. Recent examples of this are the Skeena, Gold River and Canfor mills

Raw Log Exports

ALREADY:

• In 1998, 1.1 million cubic metres of raw logs were exported from BC, representing 12% of the total coastal harvest.
• Despite temporary jobs, in the long term, raw log exports cost long-term revenue and employment, because products are manufactured outside of the province. In certain cases, private land rights give companies freedom from public raw log export restrictions.
• This is the case for some of the lands within the Timber West and MacMillan Bloedel compensation packages — land within the E&N railway belt granted to companies prior to 1906.

Mechanization and Job Loss

ALREADY:

• Corporate operations are increasingly capital intensive, rather than labour-intensive, replacing workers with machines.
• In 1961, the forest sector produced 2 jobs per 1000 cubic metres of wood. By 1991, the number of jobs per 1000 m3 has declined to 0.88 jobs, even though the rate of cut in BC increased by 57%.

Exporting Value-Added Jobs

• Value-added products represented only 8.5% of all solid wood exports for BC in 1997, compared to 30.6% for other Canadian provinces.
• BC gets about 12.3% of its forestry jobs from the value-added sector, while Oregon gets 40%.
• The value-added sector generates on average 4 times the number of jobs than primary manufacturing in BC

For More Information

The Campaign to Save BC’s Public Lands is a loose network of social justice, environmental and labour groups that support a set of core principles about resisting privatisation and promoting community control of forests, in a manner that is fair to all British Columbians and respects the rights and title of First Nations.

To find out more about the Campaign or for further information about the material in this backgrounder, please contact:

Cheri Burda, Senior Researcher, Eco-Research Chair of Environmental Law and Policy , University of Victoria PO Box 2400 Victoria, BC V8W 3H7 direct: 250.721.8193 email: cburda@uvic.ca

Backgrounders MacMillan Bloedel Settlement Agreement TimberWest Goal 2 Exchange Privatisation - Environment Issues Privatisation - Implications for First Nations Privatisation - Implications for Community Stability Compensation Campaign Principles [ Forestry ]