Sustaining The Forests Of The Pacific Coast

In this thoughtful collection of essays edited by Debra J. Salazar and Donald K. Alper, forest policy in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and British Columbia is examined in a binational context. While US and Canadian forest policy and forest management approaches differ, the two countries face similar challenges and conflicts. Contributors discuss the evolution of forest exploitation, the response of timber companies to U.S. federal environmental regulations, sovereignty for First Nations communities, and the reshaping of the political economy of forests by global forces on both sides of the border. Groups usually ignored in the forest policy debate -- such as First Nations peoples, workers in the emerging non-forest economy, and citizen activists -- are also given voice in this fascinating compilation.

The need for additional sources of energy and raw material in the forest products industry enhances the opportunity to improve timber utilization by reducing logging residue. This is particularly true on the Pacific Coast where some 14 million tons of logging residue accumulate each year and where some 3 million tons of unused bark create a disposal problem at mills. The need to replace natural gas and oil to generate process steam or for drying with hot gases has given impetus to improved wood and bark combustion to provide needed energy without violating air quality standards. Cylindrical furnaces burning finely ground (minus 1/8 inch) bark or wood are being installed for lumber and veneer drying. New emission control systems and predriers are being adapted to fire large furnaces with wood or bark. The projected annual growth rate of 5 percent in U.S. and world pulp production has focused attention on forest residues as a source of fiber. Recent increases in chip prices help offset the high cost of logging residue, particularly if former disposal costs are credited to residue removal. Changes in timber sale procedures to facilitate more complete timber utilization are considered essential. Such proposed changes as negotiated lump sum sales, service contracts, and compound contracts are described briefly to indicate types of sale modifications that have been proposed. In summary, more complete timber utilization on the Pacific Coast may: (1) Add substantially to the available raw material supply8.4 million tons additional raw, (2) Add another energy source to that currently available as mill residue4.0 million bone-dry tons for fuel annually. (3) Protect thin soils by restricting or eliminating the amount of slash burning required. (4) Decrease air pollution by reducing the required amount of slash burning. (5) Reduce the debris that could interfere with streamflow and affect water quality. (6) Improve scenic values by reducing visible debris. (7) Improve recreational opportunities by providing easier access and a more acceptable environment. (8) Reduce public criticism of land management policies and much of the basis for public pressure to restrict clearcutting.

Sustainability continues to be a major issue in forest management policy, and the papers presented in this volume summarize how various management practices affect forest health in the diverse Northwest forest regions, providing guidelines for the present and future.

This book integrates class, environmental, and political analysis to uncover the history of clearcutting in the Douglas fir forests of B.C., Washington, and Oregon between 1880 and 1965. Part I focuses on the mode of production, analyzing the technological and managerial structures of worker and resource exploitation from the perspective of current trends in labour process research. Rajala argues that operators sought to neutralize the variable forest environment by emulating the factory model of work organization. The introduction of steam-powered overhead logging methods provided industry with a rudimentary factory regime by 1930, accompanied by productivity gains and diminished workplace autonomy for loggers. After a Depression-inspired turn to selective logging with caterpillar tractors timber capital continued its refinement of clearcutting technologies in the post-war period, achieving complete mechanization of yarding with the automatic grapple. Driviing this process of innovation was a concept of industrial efficiency that responded to changing environmental conditions, product and labour markets, but sought to advance operators' class interests by routinizing production. The managerial component of the factory regime took shape in accordance with the principles of the early 20th century scientific management movement. Requiring expertise in the organization of an expanded, technologically sophisticated exploitation process, operators presided over the establishment of logging engineering programs in the region's universities. Graduates introduced rational planning procedures to coastal logging, contributing to a rate of deforestation that generated a corporate call for technical forestry expertise after 1930. Industrial foresters then emerged from the universities to provide firms with data needed for long-range investment decisions in land acquisition and management. Part II constitutes an environmental and political history of clearcutting. This reconstructs the process of scientific research concenring the factory regime's impact on the ecology of the Douglas fir forest, assessing how knowledge was utitized in the regulation of cutting practices. Analysis of business-government relations in British Columbia, Washington and Oregon suggests that the reliance of those client states on revenues generated by timber capital enouraged a pattern of regulation that served corporate rather than social and ecological ends.

In recent years, the forests of British Columbia have become a battleground for sustainable resource development. The conflicts are ever present, usually pitting environmentalists against the forest industry and forestry workers and communities. In an effort to broker peace in the woods, British Columbia's NDP government launched a number of promising new forest policy initiatives in the 1990s. In Search of Sustainability brings together a group of political scientists to examine this extraordinary burst of policy activism. Focusing on how much change has occurred and why, the authors examine seven components of BC forest policy: land use, forest practices, tenure, Aboriginal issues, timber supply, pricing, and jobs.

Results are reported of a preliminary investigation of feasibility of using wood residue to meet energy and raw material needs in the Pacific Coast States. Magnitude of needs was examined and volume of logging-residue and unused mill residue was estimated. Costs of obtaining and preprocessing logging residue for energy and pulp and particle board raw material were estimated and compared with selling values of mill residue fuel, pulp chips, and particle board. Marginally feasible energy use seemed best suited for inplant steam and power production by the wood industry, Although raw material selling values make wood residue use for products more attractive than for electric power generation, even these returns are seldom sufficient to meet the high costs of delivering logging residue for such use alone. Production of higher valued products or public absorption of extra costs of utilization can make these residue management alternatives more feasible.