Exploiting the Forests
Exploiting the Forests
• Some readings:
– Sweeney & Holmes (2008) on treeplanting
Canada’s Forests
• Canada has the third largest forest
coverage in the world
– After Russia and Brazil
• We have more forest cover than the USA
– But we are only exploiting it half as much
• Forestry in 2013 represented $20 billion of
the Canadian economy (1.25% of
Canada’s GDP).
Canada
• The world’s second-largest exporter of
wood pulp
– After China
• The world’s biggest exporter of paper,
wood panels, sawn softwood
• Canada a major resource-provider in the
global forestry sector
– But not doing much high-value manufacturing
Ways of Looking
• Let’s consider how we might look at
forests, forest exploitation in Canada
The Ecological Perspective
• Forests as important ecosystems in
Canada
• Global forest watch
Examples of Forest Types
• Coastal boreal NL
• Boreal fire sites:
– Fire Lake QC
– Catastrophe Lake ON
• Mixed: Seguin Trail ON
• Columbian: Tokum Creek BC
Commercial Forest Products
• Canada’s Forests produce two kinds of
wood
• Hardwood from deciduous trees
– Furniture, flooring, specialty tasks
• Softwood from conifers
– Construction lumber, cellulose, paper
Hardwood forests
• Mainly S Ontario, S Quebec
• Heavily cleared for farming, cities
• Once exploited for hardwood furnishing,
flooring
– Some remaining
– Maple syrup production
Mixed forests
• Mixtures of hardwoods and conifers
– Hardwoods on clay soils, conifers on sands,
gravels
• Mainly Ontario & Quebec
– 20M HA in Ontario, some commercial use
Coniferous Forests
• Forests of the western mountains, coasts
• Boreal
Western Canada
•
•
•
•
Dominated by conifers
Coastal rain forests clip 2: Galiano Island
Mountain forests
Heavy rates of access and exploitation
Boreal Forest
• Dominated by conifers
• Commercial harvesting for pulpwood,
softwood lumber
– Black spruce for pulpwood
– Spruce for dimensional lumber
• 50m HA in Ontario
Coniferous Forests
• Tend to burn
• Need to manage the fire risk
• In 2015 Ontario had fewer forest fires than
usual: 666 fires (39,312 HA).
– 2014: 303 fires (5,386 HA).
– 2013: 579 fires (51,085 HA).
• Burning is natural, reduces fuel build-up
– Too much fire prevention leads to big burns
Forestry Issues
• Cutting the forest damages the ecosystem
– Damages soils, river systems
– Requires roads, mills, chemicals
• Regrowing the forest takes time, money
• Most forest is on crown land, traditional
lands of First Nations
Subsistence
• Strong tradition of subsistence use of
forests in Canada
– Begun and continued by First Nations
– Many rural communities still exploit the forest
in this way
Northern Peninsula, Newfoundland
• Strong traditions of self-provisioning and
subsistence
• People cut, haul and store their own
firewood from public land
• People grow vegetables on public land
– Raleigh
Black Tickle, Labrador
• People still heat with firewood
– Oil and propane available but expensive
• Island community has no trees
• Islanders cross the sea ice on skidoo to
harvest firewood 70 km inland
Subsistence
• May not seem impressive
• May not involve lots of money
• But is the only sustainable form of forest
exploitation we currently have
Commercial Expoitation
• Commercial considerations dominate
forest exploitation in modern Canada
• Major companies mostly exploiting forests
they don’t own
– On crown land or aboriginal land claims
Forestry Empires
• J D Irving owns Irving Tissue makers of Facelle,
Royale and Majesta
• Other Irving companies:
– Irving Oil; J.D. Irving Ltd; Irving Equipment; Kent
Building Supplies
– New Brunswick Railway; New Brunswick Southern
Railway; Eastern Maine Railway; Maine Northern
Railway
– Brunswick News; Acadia Broadcasting
– Midland Transport; Irving Shipbuilding
– Cavendish Farms
Staples Thesis
• Formulated by Harold Innis
• Canada greatly shaped by the commercial
exploitation of its natural resources for
export to outside markets
– Canada begins as a resource-producing
colony exporting to Europe
– Resource-exploitation a powerful factor in the
development of Canada’s urban centres,
transport routes
Staples Thesis
• The resource staples are varied, change
over time:
– Fur, fish, lumber, minerals
– Oil, gas, hydro, potash
• Canada plays a role as a resourceproducing hinterland exporting to
metropolitan ‘heartlands’ elsewhere
– Europe, the USA, eventually Asia
Industrialization
• Commercial forest exploitation becomes
industrial
– Part of the industrial system
– Uses industrial technology, organization
– Run and governed by a priority of industrial
values
– Deployment of mill towns to the forest regions
An era of classic mill towns
•
•
•
•
•
Thunder Bay ON
Espanola ON
Atholville NB
Sayabec QC
Temiscaming QC
Industrialization
• Enjoyed a golden age from 1910s to the
1970s
• Foreign investment flows in to exploit
Canada’s forests
– Builds mills, companies, company towns,
ways of life
– Enriches Canada’s stock markets and banks
– Canada exports paper, lumber mainly to the
USA
Industrialization
• Canada’s forests now facing global
competition
– From low-waged economies
– From economies with weaker environmental
protections
– From previously inaccessible forests
– From all three
Industrialization
• Demand has changed
• Technology altering demand for newsprint,
fine paper
– Advertising shifts to the web
– Electronic media replacing paper
• Growth of paper recycling relocates pulp
supply regions to urban markets
US Real estate collapse
• Dramatic reduction in demand for
Canadian softwood lumber for
construction
Industrialization
• In recent decades the US has been
restricting Canada’s access to US forest
products markets
– Softwood lumber dispute resolved by
imposing import penalties on Canadian
lumber
– BC, more dependent on softwood lumber
badly hit
• 2015: US restricting Canadian glossy
paper
An era of mill and company town
closure
• Grand Falls-Windsor
• Brooklyn NS
Changed Values
• In the golden age of industrial forest
exploitation little attention was paid to
– the needs of the environment
– The rights of First Nations
• Government, industry, the general public
accepted that the priority was industrial
production
Changed Values
• Since the 1960s:
• Rising public concern in Urban Canada
over pesticides, clear-cutting, pollution,
sustainability of the forests
• Rising public sympathy for rights of First
Nations
– Barriere Lake Algonquins link 2
• Forests facing depletion
Changed Values
• Commercial forest exploitation faces the
challenges of accommodating
environmental, First Nations concerns
– Does not always give in
Changed Values
• Chlorine-based pulp bleaching was
phased out
– Mercury issues
• Replaced by sulphur bleaching
Community and Labour
• Commercial forest exploitation creates
community:
• Company towns
• Company workforces
– Sweeney & Holmes (2008)