The Kitimat Mayor is encouraging Canada through an open letter to Governments and Canadians (kitimat-mayor-an-open-letter-to-canada) to increase value added manuracturing. The forest sector in identified as one of the natural resource industries being challenged to take action. Increasing value-added or secondary wood manufacturing  then BC is not new. Actions have been taken for over several decades on this issue with limited success.  The most recent is the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations’  mflnro-competiveness-agenda and companion value-added-sector-action-plan. Both of these documents address issues related to markets and other support services but they do not mention the major factor of certainty of wood supply which has been identified as a major barrier for many manufacturers.  The MFLNRO Fibre Working Group is supposed to be working on this through creating regulations to encourage “business to business” opportunities.  However, it is yet to be shown this approach will work when there is a disparity of interest and control between the parties.  Hopefully, this will be resolved but until then, the identified priority issue of communities to diversify their local forest sector will be limited at best.

Media release – The Cariboo-Chilcotin Beetle Action Coalition is changing its strategy http://c-cbac.com/communications/media-releases. Comments provided here CCBAC changes strategy-opinion

Information-Analysis report on Christmas tree-real or artificial and its carbon footprint- which is less? It depends.  http://www.sightline.org/2015/12/21/your-christmas-trees-carbon-footprint/  Christmas tree industry contributes to community diversification while not impacting climate change in many conditions.