Background

Canada has the third-largest forested area in the world. It supports hundreds of thousands of jobs, and many billions of dollars in GDP and exports[1]. In this way, Canadian forests form the backbone of a large amount of economic activity. It begins with harvesting activities, where raw products are extracted from the forests, employing loggers, transporters, silviculture experts and tree farmers. The products continue through complex supply chains involving lumber producers, wood pellet manufacturers, particleboard and plywood makers, and pulp and paper mills. End users across Canada and throughout the world benefit. Canadian lumber is used to build our homes, Canadian wood waste is used to heat our homes, and Canadian pulp produces the paper and packaging we see every day.

Canadian forestry supply chains have evolved to ensure that very little of what is harvested goes to waste: the right log for the right purpose. A “saw log” is different from a “pulp log.” Sawdust is different from wood shavings, which are different from wood chips. Pulp made from softwoods has different characteristics than pulp made from hardwoods. Logs can be turned into lumber (of a variety of grades for a variety of uses), telephone poles or fence posts. Sawdust can be burned in boilers or used to make particleboard. Wood chips go to pulp mills. Planer shavings can be used for animal bedding. Canadian industry has evolved to make every effort to ensure that the maximum benefit is extracted from the harvested resource.

Management of Canadian forests is the responsibility of provincial governments. Each province takes a slightly different approach to how its forests are managed, though most have “tenure systems”, i.e., mechanisms to impart rights to access a given area and harvest from it. Manufacturing end users in each province have also developed different means of acquiring their product. For example, in Nova Scotia, private land plays an important role in supplying products[2]. In British Columbia, nearly 100% of harvested products come from provincial Crown land. However, BC Timber Sales manages nearly 20% of the annual allowable cut, allowing for relatively easy access to the forests for smaller, short-term uses.

The diverse products originating in Canada’s diverse landscape of forests, combined with a highly regulated environment for extraction, makes this a very complicated sector on which to generate statistics.