By Adam Berls

fibre supply

New report highlights fibre supply issues in BC

Apr 25, 2024 | 3:30 PM

PRINCE GEORGE — A new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is showing that increased wood pellet exports to countries like Japan is contributing to the growing loss of B.C. primary forests.

The report says:

“As Japan steadily increased production of thermal electricity, its purchases of wood pellets from BC shot up. In 2014, Japan imported a modest 61,700 tonnes of wood pellets from BC. Ten years later, those imports had reached nearly 1.7 million tonnes. The likelihood that such volumes can be sustained is, however, in doubt given the crises in BC’s forests. Rising demand and shrinking supply is a volatile mix and all signs point to a collapse in available wood supply from BC for all manner of forest products, including wood pellets.”

Table of Wood Pellet Exports from Canada to Japan, the United Kingdom and South Korea. Image Credit: CCPA

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The report has a number of recommendations that could help put BC on a better footing, including applying the carbon tax to all emissions associated with logs or wood waste and putting prohibitions on pellet mills.

Here is a full list of the recommendations:

• Increase dramatically protection of remaining primary and old growth forests.
• Zone the province’s primary forests and existing plantations into three broad categories: fully conserved primary and old-growth forests; forests and plantations managed specifically to enhance key “non-timber” resources such as water and wildlife; and lastly a portion of previously logged lands to be managed for timber production and forest products, but with ecological guidelines that must be met.
• Require by law that all timber-processing facilities, including wood pellet mills, must submit annual reports detailing all the wood used at their facilities, with a clear, verifiable breakdown of what form that wood takes.
• Strictly prohibit pellet mills from converting trees logged in primary or old-growth forests directly into wood pellets and require pellet producers to only use the residual waste from sawmills, verifiable wood waste from logging sites, or thinnings from tree plantations as sources of raw material for pellet production.
• Apply the carbon tax to all emissions associated with logs or wood waste that is currently burned as “slash” at logging operations. This will act as an incentive to either leave such wood unburned at logging sites or to bring it into mill towns where it could be used to make a range of forest products, including but not limited to wood pellets.
• Enact a solid-wood-first strategy and penalize all companies that convert logs or portions of logs to wood pellets that could instead be used to make other forest products. Solid wood products like doors or lumber used to frame a house hold the carbon originally sequestered by the tree, while wood pellets instantaneously release stored carbon upon combustion.

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X: @AdamBerls

Email: Adam.Berls@pattisonmedia.com