As pulp mill and sawmill jobs plummet in number, British Columbia’s Forests Ministry is opening the door to more exports of unprocessed logs, including those produced from trees cut down in old-growth forests.
Under current rules, companies wanting to ship raw logs from B.C. to buyers in China, Japan, Korea and elsewhere pay a “fee in lieu of manufacturing” — a penalty designed to encourage more domestic log manufacturing.
But in February, the provincial government quietly lowered those fees. The reduced fees will make it more profitable to ship logs away, and although the government says it will incentivize more logging, others warn that the change risks undermining already precarious manufacturing jobs in the province’s struggling forest industry ...
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