© Local 1-80 president Bill Routley inspects MB clearcut on public land. Meanwhile company is poised to flip private forests for profit, taking them out of the productive land base.

MacBlo and Weldwood gear up for private land development

MacMillan Bloedel has nearly 240,000 hectares of private land in Management Forest Land status on Vancouver Island, the Cariboo, the Queen Charlotte Islands and New Westminster in the lower mainland. As such they also appear to be one of the early entrants into the forest industry gone real estate developer sweepstakes.

Charles Smith, Director of Timber- land and Properties at MacMillan Bloedel told the Lumberworker that MB is into real estate developing more than other companies and not just with forest lands - it’s with any assets.

“Managed forest units are a contin- ually changing animal because of defi- nition in the Assessment Act which is that you can only have lands in man- aged forest units if (their) highest and best use is growing and harvesting trees,” he said.

“Situations can change both ways,” said Mr. Smith. “Lands can revert from industrial use to a forest growing use or from a gravel pit to a forest poring use. Land can similarly go

m forest lands to industrial (use) or (a) gravel pit or highways and devel- opments just because towns come out and sort of swallow you up.”

Near Youbou in the Cowichan Val- ley, MB has taken out 100 acres of Jand from Managed Forst Land status which is, in part lake shore property.

“The chance for long-term sustain-

forestry on that land was near jough zero,” said Smith.

_ With the leave strips that would have to be left along Lake Cowichan, potential resistance to logging near

the community of Youbou, MB decid- ed to develop the lands instead, to Mr. Smith.

He also said the “forest wasn’t very

% me anyway, there’s a lot of trees

that have no value at all.”

MacBlo already has taken out the

sher quality marketable timber.

said the company took out the st values “so all we were giving up

. from a forestry point of view was

the next crop . . . 80 years out . . . 80 years from now who knows what will be happening...”

Apart from that comment the MacBlo representative said that the corporation’s long-term plan is to manage all long-term forest lands as forest lands but when things around us change . . . we have to accept that.”

People are moving to Vancouver Island where MB has a lot of forest Jands. Will that create a real estate bonanza for MB?

“I guess the values are going to go up, ... what we’re struggling with is to find a... line on the map that we can draw and hold. Ultimately whether we like it or not, the line is

”

going to be drawn somewhere.

MacBlo is drawing one itself near the city of Parksville, has taken 895 acres out of forest production and has applied for amalgamation into the city.

Mr. Smith told the Lwmberworker that “if we don’t get amalgamated the lands highest and best use still is forestry. But its a very low use... it isn’t good forest land.”

That land is along the side of the Englishman River which feeds fresh water to the Straight of Georgia.

“We've done a preliminary planning study on the land which mandates that there are not specific things that should stop it from being a successful development if that’s what we want to do,” said Smith.

Parksville will decide if it wants MB, if it doesn’t then Smith said MB won't develop.

He said over 10 years there could be population growth rates of 50% in the Parksville area.

“That puts unbelievable pressure on the surrounding lands. There’s just no way of drawing a line and holding it, if people keep moving in and an area like Parksville won’t got to high rise apartments to take the population in the area.”

Does MB refute that it will become more of a real estate developer as time goes on?

“In a sense I do (refute that) because our prime emphasis is our investment in our converting mills and (to) keep a fibre flow to these mills. We won’t knowingly do any- thing to damage that.”

“We've got lands all over the place, that perhaps . . . if we wanted to get really aggressive, would have develop- ment potential and we would create great islands of resorts, etc., out in the middle of nowhere which can do very well, but we wouldn’t put our working forest under that kind of pressure.”

Mr. Smith said that MB has not sold off prime timber growing islands and said that it is trying to defend prime forest land on the west coast of Van- couver Island and the east coast as well.

“We've never taken anything out (of production) to my knowledge where we've been leading the change.”

“We react to the pressure put on us and to that extent, yes, as and when the opportunity arises that is forced on us, we'll take advantage of it.”

Private land

Continued from previous page

the Regional District for rezoning. The company has also taken out lands on Gabriola Island in the Gulf Islands between Vancouver Island and main- land B.C.

Tom Sitar, Treasurer of Weldwood Canada, said the Union Bay develop- ment is adjacent to other company land that has long been taken out of the managed forest area.

According to Mr. Sitar the removal of forest land is not an indication that Weldwood will take more land out of Managed Forest Land status in the future.

But he did say: “One has to recog- nize that in certain areas the land has now a higher value for purposes other than forestry.”

So then will Weldwood really take more forest land out of production?

“It’s conceivable,” said Mr. Sitar, “I would never say never. Sure there are certain (private land) areas right around the town of Cumberland . . . that were in (the managed forest) cat- egory . ..some still are.”

The Union Bay land being taken out of production is about 2% of the com- pany’s private lands on the Island. Mr. Sitar says the loss in timber produc- tion is about 2000 cubic meters and he said based on industry wide statistics, it amounts to the loss of 8 direct and indirect jobsayear. -

-So will Weldwood try to find other jobs for the laid off workers effected by the land withdrawal?

“You cannot take a correlation like that,” said Sitar. “The fact that you take it out does not mean that 8 peo- ple have lost their jobs.”

“In reality the move at Union Bay will not result (in the loss) of any- body’s job,” said Sitar. But he admit- ted the drop in annual allowable cut will provide a lesser area to be includ- ed in the managed forest.

One opponent to Weldwood’s plans for Union Bay is Harold Macy, forest technician, electoral area director of the Comox-Strathcona Regional Dis- trict, and President of the North Island Wood Lot Association.

He said in an interview with the Lumberworker that the issues of keeping private forest lands in pro- duction is crucial for local economies.

“Everyone talks about these buzz words like ‘value-added manufactur- ing’ but we often fail to realize that we need basic raw materials - and that is trees,” said Mr. Macy. “You can have all the millwork and violin and door jams factories milking that last dollar of added value, but if you don’t have trees you don’t have anything.”

Macy agrees there should be no more loss of working forest lands and said if large areas are taken out local- ly they shouldn’t be compensated for in areas that are a long distance away from communities. He believes if there are productive forest land sites locally, then they should be managed for timber so workers don’t have to leave their families to work in distant areas.

Macy also said Weldwood’s forest. land removal is going to put a lot of pressure on the overall planning sys-

tem at Union Bay. He said that such a large development area will put a lot of pressure on the infrastructure (i.e. water, sewage, power). Such entre- preneurial zeal, said Macy, doesn’t fit into the community’s overall structure and put excess stresses on the plan- ning process.

Tom Sitar said Weldwood is not putting pressure on the planning process in Union Bay.

“We are being very pro-active and up front with the community in terms of showing proposed rezoning and development concepts.”

Weldwood held an open house in September of 1992 and March of this year.

Does Weldwood value that land for real estate over timber?

“The value is not just established by us. It is a value that is established by society in general in the value that it places on recreation, recreational, and commercial uses.”

How does Weldwood know what the social values are?

Mr. Sitar said the company polls people at open houses who fill out response cards. The polling is done to those who show up, and not in any random scientific way.

Does Weldwood believe that the IWA should continue to support it in keeping their forest lands intact?

“I see nothing on conflict with that (support) based on what is happening in a couple of areas such as Union Bay,” he said. “We can’t simply make blanket blind statements that are (applied) in all situations without regards for the specifics.”

LUMBERWORKER/JUNE, 1993/15