Community stability and forest policy in British Columbia

Abstract

Many jurisdictions including British Columbia have adopted sustained-yield forest management as the cornerstone of their forest policies. It has been argued that one consequence is 'community stability.' This paper examines the origins of the argument and its validity in the current context. It is concluded that the permanence or survival of forest industry centres is neither assured by nor solely dependent upon the perpetual maintenance of nearby forests at or near sustained-yield levels. Rather the size and distribution of wood-processing centres seems to be determined by technological economies of scale and location with respect to means of transportation. Secondly, even-flow regulations perse cannot achieve short-term stability of employment or incomes when the forest industry of a region produces primarily for volatile export markets.Evidence is presented to show that the logging, processing, and associated occupations are unstable, relative to other occupational groups, in each of the forest industry centres examined. The instability of total employment seems much greater in a single-industry town than in a diversified city. Much of the short-term employment instability is correlated with changes in the price of lumber destined for export markets. Some means of reducing the instability are discussed.