British Columbia: Outrageous corruption cuts the fee for forest destruction in half

Pervasive indifference towards not just species extinction but the
total exhaustion of the timber supply itself appears to continue to
be the official policy of British Columbia. So whenever you hear the
British Columbia government and enviro-groups like Forest Ethics and
Forest Stewardship Council announce forest protection victories
remember it’s a fool’s ruse!

In the past decade these so-called
environmentalists have run a flimsy thin green cover for an
unprecedented and systematic industry-led dismantling of nearly every
regulatory process that ever was able to protect ancient forests in
BC. And now that the industry is almost entirely free to cut and run
logs overseas without any consequence to the tens of thousands of lost
local wood products jobs it’s time for the cherry on top: a price cut
in stumpage so extreme that US softwood lumber agreement will likely
be turned into an outright embargo on Canadian wood product sales in
the USA –Editor, Forest Policy Research

Premier Gordon Campbell dropped stumpage rates on the B.C. coast by 50
per cent to $5 a cubic metre Wednesday as part of plan to kick-start
the moribund forest industry. Representatives of the American lumber
lobby, who were in the audience at the annual Truck Loggers
Association convention where Campbell announced the changes, had the
strongest reaction, calling the premier’s move an “egregious”
violation of the 2006 Softwood Lumber Agreement. “We are dismayed and
upset,” Steve Swanson, president of the U.S. lumber lobby group
Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports, said in an interview after the
premier spoke. “It is a clear violation, possibly the most egregious
violation to date.” Swanson said the lumber lobby intends to raise the
cost-cutting move with the incoming Barack Obama administration. The
U.S. government can call for negotiations with Canada over the
stumpage reduction, take the issue to binding arbitration or, as a
last resort, pull out of the softwood agreement. Swanson called
pulling out a last resort. The cut in stumpage –prompted by lower
timber harvests in B.C. than since the early 1980s — received a
lukewarm response from the truck loggers, who are contract loggers
hired by the major licensees. Two-thirds of them are not working. “In
some areas this will be effective,” said Dave Lewis, executive
director of the TLA, “but whether it delivers what the licensees have
promised remains to be seen.” Coastal forest licensees expect the
lower rate will increase the volume of logs harvested, making the
change revenue-neutral. Campbell said the change is effective today.
In the last quarter of 2008, stumpage, the levy the province sets on
timber held by the province’s major forest licensees, was $10. In
January, before the economic crisis sucked out what little life was
left in the industry, stumpage was $18.56 a cubic metre, making the $5
rate a 70-per-cent drop since then. Forests Minister Pat Bell defended
the reduction, saying it was based on the market price for timber and
reflected the current economic reality on the coast. “These are all
market-based changes. “There’s nothing that should raise any flags
with the U.S. softwood lumber coalition or with the softwood lumber
agreement,” Bell said.
“There is a surplus of logs on the market and the market pricing
system reflects the average price. That’s what’s translated into this
significant rate reduction.” Besides the reduction, Campbell said that
at this week’s first ministers meeting in Ottawa, he intends to push
to extend federal employment insurance and work-sharing programs for
another year as a way of limiting the impact of job losses on workers
and families. He also wants tax exemptions for the two trust funds
already aiding B.C. forest workers, and a wood-first policy that
requires the maximum use of wood in public buildings.
http://www.topix.com/ca/gordon-campbell/2009/01/americans-vow-to-axe-campbells-cut-to-timber-harvesting-costs

— Posted to http://forestpolicyresearch.com via gmail to posterous and
also to forestpolicyresearch@yahoogroups.com

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