Thread by @TorranceCoste

LONG THREAD about forest industry jobs, based on Stats Can data:

1/30
So I'm looking at numbers on logging levels and forest sector employment for some research I'm doing, and comparing how many jobs are created by logging in different provinces.

#bcpoli #cdnpoli #forestry

2/30 The data is from this Stats Can data set, which lets you toggle between the numbers for logging (by volume or by area), employment, inventory, investment and other values.

cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/statsprofile/e…
#bcpoli #abpoli #cdnpoli #forests #forestry

3/30 I'm particularly interested in efficiency --not in the standard sense under capitalism, but with regard to the actual value this industry provides to our communities, in exchange for it's huge impacts, which anyone who follows me on here will be aware of my thoughts about.

4/30 The main rationale given by our political class for logging, and to oppose conservation measures that would limit it, is jobs.

"We can't protect forests because we'll lose jobs, and that's bad."

It's a simple message, and government and industry are good at it.

5/30 A while ago @ThomasforBC, who blogs on forestry issues and who I generally recommend following if you're interested in this, posted this graph showing the effective decoupling of logging levels and forest industry jobs in BC since the late 1990s.

6/30 Essentially, fluctuations in logging levels used to be much more correlated to fluctuations in the amount of forest industry jobs. Since the early '90's jobs have plummeted while logging has gone up and down less dramatically.

#bcpoli #cdnpoli #forestry

7/30 Let's look at the changes over time. As the graph above shows, in 1991 B.C. had 97,000 forest industry jobs, and logged 74 million cubic meters of timber.

74 million ÷ 97 thousand = 762.8, so, in 1991, the B.C. forest industry had one job for every 762m3 of wood it cut.

8/30 (for context, a cubic meter of wood looks like a tight stack of firewood that's 1m by 1m by 1m, or, roughly equivalent to one city telephone pole)

By 2018, because of mechanization and other factors, the jobs/wood cut rate in B.C. had fallen to one job per 1294m3 cut.

9/30 The corporations that dominate the forest industry would describe this trend as a massive improvement in their efficiency: more product created with fewer jobs (overhead) resulting in more value for shareholders. Good stuff. Great companies.
#bcpoli #forestry

10/30 But this isn't how politicians (@bcndp and @bcliberals alike) pitch the value of #forestry to the public.

They don't say "we can't protect old-growth because of corporate profits and shareholder dividends," they say "we can't protect old-growth because of jobs."
#bcpoli

11/30 They leave out the fact that the industry maintains fewer jobs per tree cut than it used to, and they definitely, definitely don't talk about other provinces, because that's where the numbers get really stark.

#cdnpoli #bcpoli #abpoli #forestry

12/30 I crunched the jobs/m3 of wood cut numbers across Canada, and this is what it looks like:

AB: 1 job per 1837m3 (the worst)
BC: 1 job per 1294 m3
SK: 1 job per 1217m3
NB: 1 job per 972m3
QC: 1 job per 484m3
ON: 1 job per 356m3
MB: 1 job per 348m3

average: 1 job per 845m3

13/30 I've done these comparisons before (bit.ly/3y8HFFJ) and I always find them so fascinating.

B.C. has the most forest industry jobs, but it also cuts dramatically more wood, by a far larger margin.
#bcpoli #cdnpoli #forestry

14/30 For the same volume of wood cut down in the forest, Manitoba and Ontario create upwards of FOUR TIMES as many jobs as #Alberta and B.C.

#bcpoli #abpoli #cdnpoli #forests #forestry

15/30 Resource sector jobs are a much bigger part of the public political conversation in the west, but Alberta and B.C. are by far the worst in the country in terms of the amount of these jobs created relative to the amount of forest cut down.

#bcpoli #abpoli #cdnpoli #forestry

16/30 Again, the corporations would probably call this "efficiency" but the main defence of logging and rationale for why more forest can't be protected used by governments in BC + AB (regardless of party) is jobs.

In that context, these numbers speak volumes (pun intended obvs)

17/30 Ok, so now for the why.

Here's the thing about forest industry jobs: the vast majority of them are not in the forest.

I'll say that part again. Most forest industry jobs are not in the forest.

#bcpoli #abpoli #cdnpoli #forests #forestry #oldgrowth

18/30 Collectively, we don't think about this enough.

When I ask journalists covering forest issues what they picture when they think about "forest industry jobs," they almost always say "a logger or someone driving a logging truck."

#bcpoli #cdnpoli #forestry #oldgrowth

19/30 But again, most forest industry jobs are not those things.

Most forest industry jobs are in mills and plants.

Look at these numbers from Canada, BC and Ontario:

20/30 While the mill/manufacturing jobs always vastly outnumber the jobs in logging, the difference is more stark in provinces with poor jobs/m3 cut rates.

For example, BC, which has the second fewest jobs per m3 cut, has about three times more jobs in mills than in the woods.

21/30 In Manitoba and Ontario, which have the highest amount of jobs per amount of wood cut, the jobs in mills/manufacturing outnumber those in logging by rates of 13:1 and 9:1.

#cdnpoli #forests #forestry

22/30 This is a huge difference, and it allows some provinces to do better than others in terms of jobs created relative to the amount of forest cut down.

This has (or should have) huge implications in a province like BC, where there is conflict + tension over logging.
#bcpoli

23/30 Logging corporations and the B.C. government are quick to demonize efforts to protect old-growth as anti-jobs, arguing that protecting special forests in line with science would hurt jobs and communities.
#bcpoli #cdnpoli #forestry #oldgrowth

24/30 But they make this argument without acknowledging that B.C. is one of the worst when it comes to getting as many jobs as possible from the forests we are cutting -- every province except Alberta does better at this.

#bcpoli #forestry #oldgrowth

25/30 In order to meet its commitments on old-growth, endangered species, climate change, and in the case of many territories, Indigenous rights, the @bcndp government has to reduce the amount of logging that happens here.

That's just a fact.

#bcpoli #forestry #oldgrowth

26/30 But instead of fighting this tooth and nail, and pitting communities against each other by entrenching the myth that urban environmentalists are out to kill rural jobs, our government should learn from other jurisdictions that do a better job of creating more with less.

27/30 A future model of forestry that balances values like ecological function, carbon, Indigenous sovereignty, tourism and recreation, water and others doesn't have to mean hardship in forest communities across B.C.

We can pick a different path.

#bcpoli #forestry #oldgrowth

28/30 Prioritizing investments that look to create more jobs with less m3 logged (perhaps by penalizing corporations with low jobs/m3 ratios) would do more to maintain forest industry jobs than forgoing or limiting old-growth protection would.

#bcpoli #forestry #oldgrowth

29/30 We're in twin climate + biodiversity crises, and the protection of old-growth needs to happen immediately.

But a conversation about how we define "efficiency" and the gulf between the political messaging on #forestry and what's actually prioritized is also long overdue.

30/30 If you're still here, thank you very much for reading, I really appreciate it.

And if you have any thoughts about this subject, I'd be interested to hear them.

#bcpoli #cdnpoli #forestry #oldgrowth

(I should have clarified: this calculation is based on the 2018 harvest and employment numbers)