Sprol

British Columbia, Québec and New Brunswick are the 3 major lumber producers of Canada. This year, the Québec government had to impose a 20% reduction in wood cut because the resource is simply not there anymore.

For centuries lumber was synonymous with Canada and the mechanization of the industry in the late 20th century devastated forests for decades. The industry is actually lobbying to push the northern limit of legal lumber from the 50th to the 60th parallel. Trees take almost 100 years to reach maturity at this latitude.

These images show the Gaspésie region, eastern Québec. Notice the “beige” spots and, particularly, the biggest spot in the middle. Not much population here, the principal economic activity is lumber, then tourism, then fisheries (not much tough, stocks have depleted as in the Newfoundland banks). There was mining but the mines are now closed down.

As it is a peninsula at the end of the St-Lawrence corridor right under the North American jet stream, it is a windy region. It could be the home of the biggest wind-powered generators park north of California but the right wing government and lobbies are trying to kill the project.

Above: a major clear-cut area, almost 150 square kilometers. Clear-cut the old fashioned way between 1990 and 2004. The desolation of the land is
evident. Here’s an overview by the Global Environment Outlook from the
United Nation Environment Programme.

This image shows what the forest ministry call an “evolution”: eco-friendly cuts (sic). That cute little green patch in the middle is supposed to seed the whole cutted area. Ten years later, we are still waiting for trees to grow. The soil has been compacted so much by the lumber equipment that only weeds can grow. It could take another 20 years before a well-aerated hummus coat regenerates, allowing trees to grow roots.

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A little update on windpower production, Québec’s Environment Minister Thomas Mulcair announced that he refuse to nationalise the windpower production in the province. Thus putting a little more stress on the lumber industry, windgenerator conception/production was seen as a sustainable industry for the workers of the declining lumber opportunity. People are going to fight to keep their job, and lumber is all they got.

Electric power production (thermal and hydro) is a state monopoly in Québec and the announcement is seen a breach in the government policy. There are concerns about the ownership of the land where the wind generators will be placed (mostly crown land), if it will be leased or sold to private interests and if royalties will be paid to local communities (Gaspésie has one the highest unemployment rate in North-America). People also worry about the lack of local impact on local economies since wind generators are actually not conceived locally. Actually the government loans money to contractors so they can run and install generators produced by General Electric in southern Québec, Ontario and the great lakes region whilst technology/knowledge and industries are capable of doing it in Gaspésie. Nationalisation was seen as a mean to force investment in the region, wich desperatly needs durable jobs.

On another hand, local farmers see the possibility of leasing some of their land to private contractors or install a wind generator themselves for their own consumption or to sell power back to the gridlock. Although such projects represent a minor part of the windpower capacity of the peninsula since the best wind fields are located on crown land and that large windgenerators are too expensive for small investors like farmers. Economic impact is also low when generators are not produced locally and run by corporations from outside of the region, profits being spent abroad instead of locally.

You can see the NPR press release in French on page 2 of this .pdf. I haven’t been able to find the Canadian Press release (in both French and English) for free on the internet, I’ll post when I’ll find it.

http://www.metronews.ca/uploadedFiles/Metro_Montreal_1213_2005.pdf