The Working Roundtable on Forestry's vision is for “a vibrant, sustainable, globally competitive forest industry that provides enormous benefits for current and future generations and for strong communities.” Its report sets six priorities to help achieve this:

1. A commitment to using wood first in construction.
2. Growing trees, sequestering carbon, and ensuring that land is available from which to derive a range of forest products.
3. Creating a globally competitive, market-based operating climate.
4. Embracing innovation and diversification.
5. Supporting prosperous rural forest economies.
6. First Nations becoming full partners in forestry.

It also identifies 29 recommendations for actions that are consistent with these priorities.

Forests and range minister Pat Bell said the 19 members of the roundtable brought a diversity of perspectives and experience to arrive at consensus on the vision, priorities and recommendations. “With backgrounds ranging from labour to local government to First Nations leadership, from land use planning to large scale manufacturing, the diversity of opinions and perspectives created a strong report that all members support.”

Bell admits this report looks more to the future vision of the industry, rather than how to help the current situation. The collapse of the U.S. housing market and the worldwide recession has crippled B.C.'s forest industry, leaving thousands of mill workers unemployed and some communities struggling to survive.

He said the recommendation on log exports — always controversial in B.C. — has two components: Companies should be able to export them if they are surplus to local needs but the test for determining local needs should be tightened up.

The 52-page report lays out a broad-brush approach to revitalizing an industry that, despite its declining role in the economy, still accounts for 39 cents of every dollar in goods exported from B.C. It directly employs 55,000 people, but has lost 20,000 workers over the last two years in a continent-wide forestry slump.

The report offers little immediate hope for unemployed workers. Labour costs in B.C., it says, are higher than in competing regions. For future growth, however, it calls on labour and management to develop more flexible relations to reduce production costs without lowering wages or compromising working conditions.

“We need to find ways to improve productivity without degrading wage rates,” Bell said.

If implemented, the recommendations could change the way the government allocates timber, give First Nations more control over the land and over resource revenues, and open the door to developing bio-refineries based around the province’s fibre resource.

Clustered under six priorities, the recommendations are broad and lack timetables or means of implementing them. Bell said implementation is the government’s job.

He said the government has already adopted some of the priorities, specifically the round table’s first priority: a wood-first policy to promote wood’s benefits over other construction materials and to use wood whenever possible in construction of public buildings.

Ken Wu, of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee described most of the report’s recommendations as weak and mushy. But he said one recommendation conservationists can’t support is the creation of area-based tenures for forest companies. They are currently allocated volumes, rather than specific land bases to get their timber.

The report says such a change will provide the industry with greater certainly over the land base. Wu said that’s giving forest companies private-land-like rights over the public forest, limiting public oversight over wildlife, biodiversity and water.

Sources: The Canadian Press, Vancouver Sun, BC Government media release