Focus On Fibre For A Forest Fix

In recent months, there have been mill closures and layoffs in Canada’s forest industry, analysts have been quoted as saying more operations are "on the bubble" and could also close, and there are increasing calls for governments to take the lead in developing a national strategy (with industry) to mitigate the impacts of the current industry adjustment and secure the future of the forest industry.

Brian Emmett Assistant Deputy Minister Canadian Forest Service Natural Resources Canada (photo: Couvrette/Ottawa)

Canada’s forest products industry, particularly pulp and paper, has traditionally gone through cyclical swings. As these swings continue, the industry faces a fundamental structural change driven by growing, low-cost competitors, increasing input costs (e.g., energy, delivered wood costs), and a general decline in the tree size and quantity of the fibre basket. The eastern Canadian pulp and paper industry, for example, is a mature business with many older, smaller and less efficient facilities. And, given the way investment works with commodity products, size does matter. It helps keep unit costs down, and thus, helps the companies to compete successfully.

Globally, there is no shortage of fibre. Investment is moving to places where fibre is cheap and available. Mills are being built—large ones—producing some of the world’s most competitively priced pulp and keeping world prices low. One future vision of the forest products industry in eastern Canada depicts fewer plants, fewer jobs, less production in traditional commodity products and a weakened rural economy.

While this dilemma is mainly centred in the East, those affected are not alone. The mountain pine beetle infestation in the West has provided the industry there with a large supply of fibre, probably for the next decade or so, but the beetle infestation has accelerated the arrival of the wood supply gap and focussed it on a very precise period in time. The West will also be facing a transition in its interior lumber industry and the sub-sectors (e.g., pulp) that depend upon it. Where will things be in 15 or 20 years? What will happen? What industry could thrive in a B.C. interior with anywhere between 30-50 percent less volume (pine)?

Is this all just a reality of the market or a consequence of climate change and the best we can do is adapt? Or can something be done to mitigate the impacts of this transition and attract investment to replace that which is being lost?

We can let market forces prevail and then deal with the fallout, moving in with traditional remedies, i.e., retraining for the workforce and suggesting alternative, entrepreneurial opportunities to keep towns alive.

Or, we can deal with the fallout using research and development and innovation to create a climate of investment in Canada’s large, cellulose-based resource basket.

The latter approach forms the basis of the thinking behind the creation of a forest fibre research centre. We have national forest research institutes that address production issues related to pulp and paper, wood, laminates, harvest and transport, but there are aspects and dimensions of fibre that are as yet unexplored.

Canada’s forest sector still has huge built-in advantages. We have an enormous amount of wood, water and energy. We have a skilled workforce, an existing infrastructure, and we have lots of fibre, though not the same quality that was there 100 years ago.

Photo: J. Robert, NRCan-CFS

If there is to be a world-class, forest-based economy in Canada’s future, as there has been for the past several decades—and I believe there should be—then let’s re-examine the fibre source and what can be done with it. Let’s look at natural products in comparison to petroleum-based products—cellulose versus plastics.

There could well be a suite of products we can’t imagine—products unrealized because of the focus we have placed, through necessity, on trimming costs to remain competitive in the commodities market.

The fibre centre, as envisioned, would be a virtual one. Those working on fibre-centred activities in their own agencies—the CFS, the research institutes, other partners—would remain where they are and continue their work, while we capitalize on the strengths of the different participants to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

As an example, we in the CFS do not have an over-abundance of expertise in the mechanical aspects of forest research. But we do know, better than anyone, the biological and ecological dimensions of the forest. We see our contributions to the fibre research centre as being in the areas of fibre quality, forest productivity for fibre, and in decision-support systems that enhance forest management decisions.

Our partners in the provinces and in industry agree with the concept. Together, we see this as an openly collaborative forum for the private and public sectors to explore major R&D; issues, as well as a mechanism to provide direct benefits to the sector by performing targeted research. Also not to be dismissed lightly is the opportunity for researchers to see the results of their research put into action.

The CFS has long prided itself on its ability to anticipate and respond to present and looming challenges to our forest sector. This is one more illustration of that characteristic—corralling the appropriate research resources and directing them to address a real-world, real-time problem.