An Editorial Opinion – Right From The Stump, November 28, 2024
Despite all the negativity shrouding the BC forest industry there are some positive trends to comment on. The coast and interior Crown harvests are improving year-to-date. Given the headwinds facing the industry including troubles in obtaining permits, to observe an increase in harvesting is a bit of a head scratcher. Of course, as always when we dig down into the data, there is more to this story.
For the coast, the Crown harvest has increased 2.5% ytd or 140,405 m3 as of September. The vast majority of that gain has come from the BCTS harvest, which is up 21.1% ytd or 122,593 m3. That means the coastal non-BCTS tenure holders are not experiencing much of any improvement in their harvest, which is barely positive at 0.3% ytd or 17,812 m3 – the equivalent of a single larger sized cutblock. In fact, the major licences’ harvest year-to-date harvest is actually negative, down 0.1%.
So BCTS can toot their horn on more harvesting from timber sales, the question is where is that extra harvested volume going?
Coastal lumber production is off by 7.9% ytd (as of July). On the other hand, log export volumes have been improving, registering a gain of 11.4% ytd or 205,162 m3 as of August. I would think that this increased export volume is largely coming from private timberlands, rather than BCTS timber sales. That said, the private timberland harvest has been declining, down 5.7% ytd or 174,934 m3 as of September. This suggests that the increase in the Crown harvest from BCTS is possibly supplanting private timberland supply for the domestic market.
For the interior, the data shows that the northern and southern areas overall are performing much better than I would have expected. The northern interior Crown harvest is up 6.0% ytd for September and the southern interior is up 10.5% ytd. To be honest, a year ago, I had forecast the interior to continue declining, but I have been proven wrong.
The interior’s BCTS harvest is mixed. The northern interior BCTS harvest is negative 35.0% ytd while the southern interior BCTS harvest is positive 55.5%. So, the theme continues for BCTS having troubles in the northern interior while on the coast and southern interior they have been more effective in getting volume to market.
Unlike the coast, non-BCTS tenure holders are harvesting more, with the northern interior increasing 11.5% ytd and the southern interior up 5.3%.
The interior Crown harvest overall is up 8.3% or 1.46 million m3 so far this year, yet interior lumber production is down 2.1% ytd as of July.
So where is this extra Crown harvest from the coast and interior going? More than likely it is heading to pulp mills for whole log chipping. With sawmills reducing production or outright closing, there are fewer residual chips being produced, increasing the pulp sector’s reliance on logs directly from the woods (at a higher expense).
It implies pulp mills are playing a much bigger role in harvesting than the last few years.
Unfortunately, the sawmill closures that have been announced across this province this year will start to drag down that positive harvest trend in the fourth quarter. I forecast the overall 2024 annual Crown harvest will be just about comparable to 2023 levels.
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Written By David Elstone, RPF
Publisher, View From The Stump newsletter
Managing Director, Spar Tree Group Inc.
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