As year-end projections and valuations come into focus, strong views from the the Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Canada and the Wilderness Committee, published over the weekend in the Times Colonist:

“What B.C. needs is legislation that supports an innovative and adaptable forest industry that creates local jobs and moves products up the value chain. Raw-log exports must be banned. Strong laws should also be enacted to protect the ecological values of our working forests for future generations.

Instead of addressing our shortfall in sustainable forestry jobs, the B.C. government is narrow-mindedly fixated on the extraction and export of liquefied fracked gas. It is an unavoidable fact that B.C.’s proposed LNG industry would have to be fed by gas extracted using hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracking.’

The impact of this industry is already visible all over the province’s former wilderness: In certain parts of B.C., the oil and gas industry clears more trees than the forest industry.”

– Trees are the solution that LNG never will be – Times Colonist
(21 Dec.)