FORESTRY CRISIS NO MYSTERY

 

Forestry by Theory

B.C.’s forestry crisis is not mysterious.

You cannot run mills without logs. You cannot support forestry towns without reliable fibre. And you cannot choke supply, then act shocked when the industry bleeds. 

That is what this government has done.

Victoria has shifted away from timber-first forestry and made biodiversity, ecosystem protection, old-growth policy, and broader land-use priorities central to the system. The province itself says it removed the old prioritization of timber supply over other forest objectives. That was not housekeeping. It was ideology in action. 

And now comes the predictable result: less certainty, tighter fibre, more closures, more communities hanging on by a thread. COFI says access to economic fibre fell from 60 million cubic metres in 2018 to 35 million in 2023. At the same time, government talks about targets and recovery as projected harvest drops far below what industry says is needed. 

So when the minister talks about innovation, value-added, retraining, and new markets, the obvious question is simple:

Where is the wood?

You cannot value-add logs you cannot get. You cannot build mills on speeches. You cannot retrain your way to a forestry recovery.

This is not a serious recovery plan. It is decline management with better branding.

And that is the real indictment of this government: not just ideology, but incompetence. If you choose a greener, slower, more restrictive model, you had better be highly competent in execution. This government is not. It is long on theory, short on delivery, and still unwilling to admit the obvious:

If fibre does not come first, forestry dies.