Communities north of Nanaimo lost out on roughly one billion dollars last year because of reduced logging activity.
Bob Brash with the Truck Loggers Association spoke to the Strathcona Regional District last week, updating the new Natural Resources Committee on the current state of BC forestry.
And it’s not good, he says.
The industry harvested 20 million fewer cubic metres of wood last year, worth about 7 billion dollars to the BC economy.
“It’s estimated that there’s a value of $350 per cubic metre that comes to the province at the end of the day from each cubic metre harvested,” he said. For loggers, a lot of them, because there’s not a lot of manufacturing facilities on the North Island, for instance, that’s a billion dollars of lost work from contractors to the communities that they live in. So it’s significant.
Brash says recent government policy changes have made it more expensive and difficult to access timber near protected old-growth stands. He says the well-funded environmental lobby has also contributed to the decline.
To see his whole presentation, you can watch it below, it begins at around the 9 minute mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cqzb93sXrA
