The BC Government released its paper earlier this week on Modernizing Forest Policy in British Columbia.
The President and CEO of the BC Council of Forest Industries, Susan Yurkovich, said in a release “the forest industry has been foundational to the economy and quality of life in the province for generations. That’s why it’s important that the Government of BC has outlined its vision and intentions with respect to modernizing BC’s forest policy.”
“The policies we have in place right now are a couple of decades old. I think it’s appropriate from time to time to look at things, we’ve had a lot of changes over that period. Fiber supply has changed, we have a significant focus on climate.” Yurkovich said, “So I think it’s entirely appropriate to take a look at the policy environment and think about how we want to move forward.”
Yurkovich said this important work won’t happen overnight citing that the forest industry is a very complex business and it’s a complex global marketplace. There are a lot of moving parts and what’s really important is that they move forward on them in discussion with nations, governments, communities, stakeholders, and industry.
“And that we take a thoughtful approach. That we think about where we want to go and we make sure that we do the good work that we have to do. Do the analytics, understand the implications of the changes that we’re going to make, and understand where the opportunities lie clearly so that we can capitalize on those.”
Yurkovich stated in a release “We appreciate the Province’s desire to work collaboratively to ensure healthy forests, create more opportunities for Indigenous people and communities, sustain good jobs for British Columbians and deliver low carbon forest products to the world. We also appreciate the government’s acknowledgment that having a sustainable and competitive forest products industry here in BC will help us achieve all those objectives.”