Opinion: Poor policy decisions have helped B.C.’s forestry decline

By Jock Finlayson and Ken Peacock – BIV News

The forest products sector has long served as B.C.’s leading source of exports and a key driver of jobs and other business activity across the province. But the industry has fallen on hard times—to the point where it is no longer B.C.’s number one export sector. Some of this reflects fallout from the pine beetle infestation that devastated forests in the interior in the early to mid-2000s. The beetle destroyed a sizable fraction of accessible fibre in the affected areas.  More recently, wildfires have added to the downward pressure on the timber supply.