In response to Quadra Islanders’ concerns about the amount of our Island’s logs that are exported internationally rather than being processed in British Columbia, Mosaic sent an explanatory website link (https://www.mosaicforests.com/about-our-business#servinglocal). This link attempts to justify the exports, but it also reveals the wider social and economic strategy that guides Mosaic’s behaviour and its logging practices on both Quadra and elsewhere. It makes informative reading.

Previously, in The Quadra Project entitled “Biomass and Logging” (Issue #825, Feb. 23/24), the information cited was a sample of the logging and the log exports that relate to Quadra.

As David Broadland wrote, on the Discovery Islands Forest Conservation Project website, “the total volume cut by all tenure holders on Quadra in 2019 was 98,143 cubic metres.”

In a subsequent email, he explained that while TimberWest’s Tree Farm License 47 is twice the size of the 11 woodlots on the island (11,020 hectares to 5,400), in 2019 they cut 55,585 cubic metres as opposed to the woodlot’s 42,558 cubic metres. So the 10 woodlots that harvested that year actually ‘cut more intensely’ than TimberWest.

 Broadland states, “The Ministry of Forests’ records also show that, for all of BC, 84 percent of the total volume that was advertised for export in 2019 was exported, so it’s very likely that 80 to 90 percent of the trees logged on Quadra Island in 2019 were exported as raw logs.”

Assuming that this percentage was representative of TimberWest’s sorting facility in Gowlland Harbour, then 74,760 cubic metres of Quadra’s trees were exported as raw logs.

On its website, Mosaic proclaims that it “manages the forest planning, operations and product sales for TimberWest and Island Timberlands.”

Broadland pointed out that Mosaic is not the legal licence-holder of TFL 47; the licence is held by TimberWest Forest Corp.

“Mosaic is a joint management operation that does the same work for TimberWest and Island Timberlands, both of which are the legal names of the companies doing the logging. If the legal name on the licence switches from TimberWest to Mosaic, I will start calling it Mosaic.”

In Mosaic’s website, it contends that, “The trees we grow on our lands” are “supporting more than 50 local mills up and down the Coast.” But it notes that “Mosaic has also worked hard to build a strong international customer base – and we rely on international market access to support the economic operation of our business, as the prices available on the domestic market are significantly below international prices and often below the cost of production. Access to the international market for a portion of our harvest volume provides the economic margins that allow us to supply the domestic market at lower prices.”

Notably, the trees on Quadra are not on TimberWest’s private land; they are on the public’s Crown land, and are only managed by Mosaic under a Tree Farm Licence. Also, the trees being cut and exported were not “grown” by Mosaic, but were the result of natural regeneration.

Broadland emailed, “This is true for the woodlots, as well. TimberWest has some privately-owned land on Quadra in the TFL (Granite Bay Area and northern peninsula). Some woodlot owners have some privately-owned land in their woodlots. But both TFLs and woodlots are utterly dependent on publicly owned land.”

The Mosaic site goes on to explain that, “Logs can only be exported if they are deemed by regulators to be surplus to domestic needs. Therefore, all logs must be offered first to domestic mills. If any mill makes an offer on the logs – and the regulators deem that offer to be ‘fair,’ even if that offer is not accepted by Mosaic – the logs are blocked from export. This gives BC log purchasers significant leverage to control and depress domestic pricing below international market rates.” The Mosaic site goes on to justify its log exporting business by explaining that, “There is no shortage of fibre for domestic mills,” and that “No forest company can sell production at below cost – nor should they have to.”

All this supports the argument that Mosaic’s export of Quadra’s raw logs to the international market is the logical result of a corporation trying to remain viable in a province that has unfairly regulated forest resources. But this argument can be considered from another perspective.

Once upon a time in British Columbia, “appurtenancy” was the operating principle. That is, timber resources were allocated on the basis of the log processing that took place locally. The result was a thriving forest industry that both logged and milled trees. Hundreds of these mills produced lumber, pulp, and paper for the international market. The end of appurtenancy eventually resulted in the closure of most of these mills and opened the pathway to the mass export of raw logs.

Corporations such as Mosaic or its predecessors would not have been innocent parties to this process. Since the export of raw logs has always been more financially profitable than local processing, they would have had an incentive to lobby for the end of appurtenancy while encouraging a shift toward exports. Indeed, as their website contends, the business of supplying logs to local mills is actually a money-losing transaction for them because the financial returns are less than their operating costs. Consequently, we can expect them to be resistant to any local processing, and to take political measures that inhibit log processing in British Columbia.

For us on Quadra, whether we like it or not, Mosaic is a presence in our Island community and a player in the international game of resource exports. We can look lovingly at our trees as much as we like, but their future is bound to international markets. Many of the forests that are our places of recreation and enjoyment are slated for a less ideal future than we are comfortable to imagine. The trees that we relate to so personally are ultimately converted to cubic metres to be bought by the highest bidder in the international market—depersonalized objects that are logged and sold without any consideration for our affection and caring.

Quadra Island is proudly promoted as “Simply Paradise”. The reality is different. If it were such a “paradise”, its forests would be allowed to grow to their majestic maturity as nature has always intended, and local environmentalists would not have to be continually struggling against an agent that thrives by exploiting the implacable forces of market economics.

Ray Grigg for Sierra Quadra

‘This article was originally published on March 19 and a number of corrections pertaining to data drawn from David Broadland’s work were made on March 24.

Top image credit: Raw logs are being loaded onto a barge on BC’s coast – Photo by David Stanley via Flickr (CC BY 2.0 DEED)