By Cheryl Jahn

Community forest for PG?

Jul 4, 2023 | 1:56 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Prince George exists in the middle of an enormous forest and this city’s mayor wants to act on that. He hopes to create a community forest.

“I would like to see the community forest large enough to go along with the other community forestry around this area. McBride, Mackenzie, Burns Lake. What we should be doing is putting all our resources together, to be able to attract some secondary manufacturer to add more value to the forest.”

There are a number of community forests in B.C. McBride has had a 60-thousand-hectare community forest since 2007. Even the College of New Caledonia has a community forest. It’s a good idea, according to the Forests Minister.

“I think the mayor has got the right idea of where you would locate a community forest in the Prince George region. I wouldn’t know offhand, but I think the strength of the community forest is they are linked, as the name implies, to the community,” says Bruce Ralston.

And Mayor Simon Yu points to a most obvious partner in this venture.

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“We will most likely we will be co-managing the community forest with Lheidli T’enneh and we will take a look at their force model and how they want to see that happen as well in the force major and need to be consulted.”

He says the face of forestry is changing.

“Our forestry industry for the past, I would say 50 or 60 years, is a geared for cost efficiency to produce two-by-four, two-by-six, two-by-eight, two-by-ten. We don’t have trees left with too many trees left to produce two-by-12. So that competition has subsided. But during that process, the energy model was never really just part of production costs.”

He says the model we in B.C. have been practicing for years is disappearing and a new energy industry is blossoming, especially in this community.