Stumpage, the “rent” for public forests, will fund BC’s enhanced silviculture sham.
by Jim Cooperman
Forest Renewal BC (FRBC) evolved out of the last softwood lumber battle and now it has been scrapped in the midst of the current softwood dispute. To end the cycle of tariffs, the NDP government had raised stumpage significantly, thus adding a billion dollars or more each year to the provincial coffers. FRBC was hatched to “invest” these funds into “renewing the forests,” thus making the additional costs more palatable to industry and unions.
Now, with the global economy faltering and after making massive tax cuts, the Liberal government must cut services and grab available revenue – so there goes FRBC. Also, since FRBC is likely viewed by the Americans as yet another subsidy to industry, it was politically prudent for the government to get rid of it during the softwood lumber trade negotiations.
During its lifetime FRBC spent the majority of approximately $2.5 billion of public resource rent money on watershed restoration, resource inventory, labour force training, sawmill and pulp mill bail outs (Skeena and Golden) and enhanced silviculture. Over the years, some of the funds also went to research, recreation, land use planning, as well as to hundreds of consultants.
FRBC began as a supposed partnership among all forest-user groups, including the environmental community, and then degenerated into a slush fund for industry. The vast majority of FRBC funding went directly to forest companies through multi-year agreements.
Enhanced Silviculture But No Evaluation
Millions of dollars were also directed to “enhanced” silviculture, without any adequate evaluation or monitoring. Despite the sharp criticism levelled against this programme by the Auditor General (and others), there has never been a cost-benefit analysis completed which can justify continuation of enhanced silviculture.
“We examined the Annual Allowable Cut rationale statements for a number of Timber Supply Areas to identify how the Chief Forester addressed the impact of spacing, pruning, and fertilization activities. All of them suggested that much of the spacing and pruning work funded by Forest Renewal BC is having no effect on improving the total volume available.”
The many million of dollars that have been directed to fund the Innovative Forestry Practices Agreements, which paid for “enhanced silvaculture,” are particularly problematic and thus wasteful. The real irony is that, considering the expanding problems with trade in lumber, and the growing competition from fast-growing second-growth forests in warmer countries, the companies may not be able to market higher volumes of timber products in the future. Instead of spending vast sums in an effort to shorten rotation times and increase future production, trees might be better off left growing, to produce higher quality products that will likely be more in demand in the future.
While the majority of FRBC’s funds have been and continue to be improperly spent by forest companies, there are a number of very valuable programs which did benefit all British Columbians. The watershed and ecosystem restoration programmes, (although both could be considered subsidies to help repair the damage from forest management mistakes in the past), have been critically important and in most cases, successful. The research and inventory programs have produced some excellent data, useful for the management of all forest values. However many inventory programs have benefited industry with likely bogus growth-and-yield data, claiming second-growth forests are growing faster than had been anticipated.
The recreation program was also very successful and helped to diversify local economies. The biodiversity program spent approximately $5 million to help purchase some key private lands for conservation.
Other programs cannot be viewed as helpful. Funds that have gone to work force programs can also be seen as subsidies to an industry that has steadily been replacing human labour with machines, an industry that lays off employees after the forests have been over cut. The community programs have resulted in millions of dollars going to consultants to write reports that then gather dust on the shelves. Other monies have paid for projects that could also be viewed as subsidies to industry, such as the bridge replacement funds, industry infrastructure, market development, business development and funds that went to the Skeena-Cellulose and Evans Forest Products bail outs.
The new Liberal government seems to be taking direction from the Council of Forest Industries. The replacement for FRBC, called the Forest Investment Account, will ship the money directly to industry, with far less government oversight. Watershed restoration will be the only program retained which benefits the environment. And the new investment system will fund projects and research that supports increased allowable annual cuts.
It is possible that the entire new forest investment scheme may be scrapped before it is implemented. The Americans may claim, and rightly, that throwing money at the forest industry to increase the cut and profitability sounds too much like more subsidies. Already the Liberal government has egg on its face, after its new, profit-based stumpage system proved the laughing stock of both the American softwood lobby group and Canadian forest industry analysts.
These are very strained times for both the forest industry and environmental activists. With the economy in the dumps and American protectionism on the rise, the new industry-friendly government in BC may be unable to get the industry rolling again. Plans for a results-based code and new forestry investment handouts could backfire at the softwood lumber treaty table.
And as the first world concentrates on fighting terrorism and rebuilding the economy, environmental concerns will likely be ignored. The only saving grace is that with mills closing, the forests may get a respite as logging shuts down.
* Jim Cooperman was the BC Environmental Network Forest Caucus coordinator for the previous decade, and served on the FRBC Environment Committee. He is the President of the Shuswap Environmental Action Society and can be contacted at jcoop@direct.ca
