By Adam Berls

forestry

‘The industry is broken’: Local business owner says forestry sector needs overhaul

Dec 12, 2023 | 1:35 PM

PRINCE GEORGE — A local business owner involved with the forestry industry in British Columbia for over 50 years, is sounding the alarm about the current state of the sector.

John Brink is the owner of Brink Forest Products Ltd., and has served as a director of the Council of Forest Industries (COFI), and has also represented Canada in softwood lumber disputes with the United States. He says that the forestry industry “is broken” and the “policy around it is broken.” Brink says that British Columbia needs to “totally from the bottom up, redesign our forest policy.”

Brink says that due to lack of access to fibre in B.C., companies are pursuing opportunities elsewhere and major primary manufacturers are going to places like Sweden and the Southeastern U.S. due to access to fibre and being able to plan ahead in terms of fibre availability.

Unless the market changes and prices for lumber drop, Brink says that investors are going to be deterred and a reasonable access to fibre, he says, would attract companies to invest.

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“We have to fight with the quality of the fibre locations, the marketplace. We have people that are willing to invest … but we cannot do that unless we have reasonable expectations to access to fibre” – John Brink, Owner, Brink Forest Products Ltd.

So if the status quo isn’t working, what is the solution? Well Brink says that the future of the industry is in innovative primary manufacturing and in combination with intensive secondary, also mentioning that we “must put more effort into intensive forestry like it is a crop that we are managing.”

The challenge put forward by Brink to government and industry, is that if we do not act now, when?

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Twitter: @AdamBerls

Email: Adam.Berls@pattisonmedia.com