New marketing campaign aims to revive forestry

“Wood is good.”

That was the catch phrase emblazoned across the T-shirt of Okanagan College’s Casey King, and it’s also what most succinctly explained what the new Minister of Forests said to a room full of construction students, Tuesday.

It’s been two weeks since Pat Bell took over the Ministry of Forests, and in his Kelowna debut he worked to raise awareness about the wonderous world of wood—highlighting its potential to help the environment and keep the money flowing through the province.

According to Bell, and John Allan, the vice chair of the B.C. forestry climate change working group, forestry isn’t just a struggling industry, it’s also an area of tremendous opportunity.

“Forestry has played a critical role in our economy and this today is about ensuring that our industry can play an even bigger role in the future,” said Allan, in reference to the somewhat new marketing program that will sell consumers and developers on the idea that wood should be the material of choice because of the forests’ ability to reduce carbon, regenerate itself and be overall the best eco-friendly material for developers.

Noting that a well managed forest can neutralize 700 tonnes of carbon per hectare, versus the 400 tonnes of an unmanaged forest, Allan said environmental concerns could help make forestry an industry of choice for eco-savvy consumers. And there’s no better time than now to cash in on that idea.

“More than ever (forestry) is facing unprecedented challenges. The recent past has been hard on all of us, particularly here in Kelowna, and we aren’t through the tough times yet.”

But by “making the most” of the situation at hand, Allan and Bell repeated that this province’s economic mainstay could get back on its feet and forge new ground.

“When times are difficult, that’s the opportunity for change. Status quo does not breed resilience, the status quo does not breed innovation,” said Bell.

Ironically, he added, the province which has relied on forestry as an economic backbone, hasn’t necessarily always thrown its support behind keeping it afloat.

B.C., he noted, has been in the throes of one of its biggest growth periods in its history, yet developers and consumers haven’t always seen fit to support the industry by using wood as a building material of choice.

“Here we are standing in the middle of a building, in the centre of the province that has the most under-utilized wood in commercial construction,” said Bell.

“When I look around what do I see? Concrete blocks, I see steel beams, and construction out of carbon producing materials—materials that put more carbon into our environment increasing the challenges around green house gases and climate change and global warming.”

Bell said there’s no reason why new buildings can’t be made from engineered wood products, nor is there any reason that the products can’t be made appealing to new marketplaces.

“We have a huge opportunity here, usually when they talk about new markets they think of China they think of India they think of Korea,” he said.

“But a very real, very new market for us is commercial and institutional construction. Currently wood products are used in 19 per cent commercial industry—60 per cent of residential—but if we could grow that to 30 per cent, that would be a huge opportunity.”

For more information about the campaign, go to www.bcclimatechange.ca.