Features Harvesting Logging Profiles
Log exports: The story behind the story

So then why am I celebrating that in 2016 log exports as a percentage of the total coastal harvest was 35 per cent? My reasons are simple.

Exporting logs sustains local jobs, keeping workers employed in the woods and in B.C. sawmills and pulp mills. This is contrary to common belief. However, when you look at the facts, it’s clear it’s the truth.

What gets overlooked by the anti-log export faction, is the economic reality that B.C. coastal sawmills, pulp mills and value-add producers need log exports to ensure they get the type of logs their mills need to operate. These manufacturing facilities need a specific type of log or species of timber to operate. Log exports allows us to harvest the entire timber profile.

So how do we explain all the mill closures we have seen in the province over the last 30 years? We need to look at the size of the working forest.

The B.C. allowable annual cut (AAC) for coastal Crown land has fallen from a high of 24.5 million cubic metres in 1985 to 16.5 million cubic metres today, a reduction of eight million cubic metres or 33 per cent. This is primarily a result of increased environmental protection that reduced the size of the coastal working forest. Given the log capacity of the current mills operating on the coast, eight million cubic metres equates to 16 sawmills closed. These sawmills and pulpmills closed, in part, as a result of significant AAC reductions caused by environmental pressure.

Is there anybody investing in new mills? Yes, there is a brand-new sawmill currently being built in Surrey that will purchase some logs. However, log exports occur because what we harvest is surplus to domestic demand.

To dig deeper into the question of investment, let’s look to the U.S. Pacific Northwest. There privately owned timberlands are the main source of harvesting in the region and log exports have been a principal product for decades. And yet, new sawmills are being built and many others have seen major upgrades. Despite this investment, sawmill employment has dropped in the Pacific Northwest. Investment drove consolidation in sawmills which resulted in the construction of larger, more cost-effective mills which employed less people than the older, inefficient smaller mills. Something to think about.

While B.C.’s log export policies have been around for over 100 years, markets have changed dramatically. Compared to 2005, the U.S. demand has shrunk dramatically and it is now fourth on the list of export destinations. As with so much of our B.C. forest products, China has become the top market for log exports. Again, contrary to common belief, very little returns to North America in finished product. If it weren’t for China, there would be significant unemployment in our forest industry across B.C.

If the next government in B.C. wants to create more jobs in the forest industry, they should focus on policy that allows for the harvest of the four million cubic metres of allowable cut that goes unharvested every year. In doing so, they would create upwards of 8,000 jobs across the province. After all, there are two jobs in the forest supply chain (i.e., logging) for every direct manufacturing job.

We celebrate that 35 per cent of the coastal harvest was exported because we wouldn’t likely be here if it wasn’t. Perhaps environmentalists would be happy if that percentage was zero, but I am guessing loggers, mill workers and the rural communities where these people live and work would beg to differ.

David Elstone is the executive director of the Truck Loggers Association.