During a Union of B.C. Muncipalities conference Friday afternoon, Premier Christy Clark announced an investment of $10 million toward preventing wildfires in the province. The announcement came side-by-side with several other funding boosts, including $5 million toward crime prevention and investments into rural communities. The $10 million will be a top-up to the $78 million…
The City of Timmins and industry partners are investigating the feasibility of establishing a forestry innovation and training centre in Timmins. Mayor Steve Black said the idea was broached by the last term of council, and he’s taken it forward to the province to start preliminary discussions. “We know the forestry industry’s in a rebound…
To University of B.C. forestry professor Stephen Sheppard, the freak windstorm that hit Metro Vancouver in August, downing thousands of trees and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people, is a stark reminder of the increasing challenges facing managers of urban green spaces. With that in mind, UBC’s faculty of forestry is launching…
Re: “Walbran plans balance green, economic values,” Sept. 23. Instead of showcasing his involvement with land-use planning more than 30 years ago, the Coast Forest Products Association’s Rick Jeffery would have been more obliging if he had told readers what has changed since the 1990s. Today, most land-use plans in the province are so grossly…
The amount of timber harvested in the Kamloops region will not significantly decline for at least a decade under a scenario presented to the province’s chief forester. An analysis presented by the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations shows a “base case” mid-range harvesting volume at 2.5 million cubic metres a year for…
Structural Timber Innovation Company Ltd. (STIC) and Prestressed Timber Ltd. (PTL), which will allow FPInnovations to acquire North American rights to their post tensioning technology for timber building systems. Under the agreement, FPInnovations will obtain rights to US and Canada Patents related to development of post tensioning technology and will have complete access to all…
The Truck Loggers Association hosted 32 civic leaders from BC’s coastal communities on Tuesday evening to discuss UBCM Resolution B36 Re-Examine Log Export Policy and how the BC coastal forest industry supports their communities. “We were able to address some of the major ‘myth-conceptions’ around log exports,” said David Elstone, TLA Executive Director. Access to…
The Commission of Resources and Environment (CORE) Vancouver Island land use planning process that took place in the early 1990s was a comprehensive, multi stakeholder planning process. It resulted in the government enacting the 2000 Vancouver Island Higher Level Plan Order that achieved a hard won balance between environment, economic and social outcomes for land…
More than ever, Canadians are torn between real hopes and false choices for the environment and the economy. Some argue Canada would be none the worse off by letting go of resource exports, particularly petroleum and coal. A few leading backers of this view want to end global trade deals and abandon the basic market-driven…
The forest industry upheld its end of the bargain in Vancouver Island’s Walbran forest – and now must be wondering if the environmental movement can do the same There is a fascinating irony to British Columbia’s often polarized discussions in the so-called “economy versus the environment” debate. It is how seemingly natural adversaries have worked…