Logging the globe: The changing context for Canadian forestry

My primary objective is to describe the nature of global changes in the location of the forest industry.I will also argue that Canadian companies have never been major players in international forestry, and have acted primarily as staples providers for more advanced economies.In the contemporary situation, where new companies in countries that have not previously been engaged in industrial forestry are now becoming competitive, Canadian companies have been slower to restructure their operations than northern European companies.I will express scepticism about the wisdom of continued, and in Alberta, expansion of, dependence on the remaining natural forest cover in Canada. Prior to the 1970sCanada used to be one of the northern countries-along with Sweden, Finland, and Norway-that produced pulp and dimensional lumber for larger metropolitan countries: the United States in the case of Canada, and Western Europe for Sweden and Finland.We produced newsprint but hardly any finer grades of paper.Because advanced wood products met with tariff barriers at the U.S. border, and because the U.S. markets for dimensional lumber and pulp were strong throughout most of the post-war era, there was no incentive to diversify our products or our market destinations.Many of our major companies were owned by parent firms in the United States, and very few Canadian-owned companies were listed, none in the top ranks, of Pulp and Paper International's or other annual world rankings of forest companies.During this same post-war period, Japan became the second largest paper producer in the world.But Japan had to obtain raw materials from elsewhere because its four small islands had nowhere near sufficient wood supplies to meet the paper demand of its population.Almost half of the deficiency was met by recycled newsprint purchased on international markets, and the remainder was imported from North America as well as many other areas.When countries put log export bans in place, Japanese companies sought wood-chips, and when those supplies were curtailed, they began to look to other countries where they could establish pulp mills to supply their paper mills in Japan.Japanese construction companies also purchased tropical logs from the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and other neighbours during this period. The 1970s and the 1980sIndonesia imposed an export ban on logs in 1975, and was successful in establishing a domestic plywood industry

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