Forestry for today and tomorrow
Forestry has always been a mainstay of BC’s economy. It will continue to be as wood gains in prominence as a building material, and as the new Asia markets open their doors to a wood culture. Our industry has been battered by the mountain pine beetle, the collapse of the US housing market, falling lumber prices, new global competition and of course, by the softwood lumber dispute.
But our forest industry has a bright future as we enter the new low carbon economy, develop new biofuels to meet the world’s growing demand, create new building products to meet growing needs and become recognized as the world’s best forest stewards, with the world’s most productive and creative forest workers.
Canada is recognized as the world’s largest softwood lumber exporter, and British Columbia has by far the largest share of those exports. We are a global leader in dimensional lumber, panels, pulp and paper, and value-added forestry products. The Softwood Lumber Agreement has provided new stability of access to our largest market, the United States.
That Agreement has also returned $2.4 billion in US duties to our forest companies, which is helping them weather this downturn and minimize worker impacts. Now is not the time to take risks with our largest trading partner as the NDP has suggested. It could potentially cost thousands of jobs.
We will develop new uses for wood, new markets and new value in growing trees, as recommended by the Working Roundtable on Forestry. That will create unprecedented potential for sustainable growth, thousands of new jobs for forest workers and new stability for forest-dependent communities. For more on our vision for forestry, check out www.gov.bc.ca/for/
