Although describing a base case and three scenarios, the socio-economic analysis considered only variations of one approach for the society and economy in the region of the North Coast: status-quo timber extraction. Thus, this document gives the impression that there is really only one option to maintain the social and economic fabric of the region. As such, this assessment provides little useful analysis to develop a sustainable economy and society for the region.
Some important social and economic options that were not considered include:
• establishing value-added wood manufacturing facilities closer to the forest in the North Coast area;
• marketing and developing large-scale, and/or diverse small-scale ecotourism based on the substantial wilderness values remaining in the North Coast. If the annual allowable cut is not reduced significantly, these options will be all but lost in the next five years before the next Timber Supply Review is carried out;
• organizing co-operative approaches to diverse development of the region that involves a mixture of people and organizations. Sometimes what one organization or individual is unable to develop technically and financially, a group of individuals and organizations are able to achieve by working together. The Nisga’a Tribal Council wishes to establish and participate in this kind of co-operative approach; and,
• establishing a timber industry based around the production of high-quality old-growth wood, using partial cutting systems instead of clearcutting.
The socio-economic analysis entirely ignores the Nisga’a North Coast tree farm licence proposal, which incorporates both sustainable ecological and economic approaches. The proposal includes logging with partial cutting rather than with clearcut systems, protection of ecologically sensitive sites currently scheduled for logging, long rotation periods to produce high quality wood, and significant ecotourism operations.
An effective social and economic analysis must include a cost-benefit analysis to compare options using total cost accounting which compares all of the costs and all of the benefits for each option. In total, cost accounting benefits are assigned to clean air, pure water, and other aspects of a clean environment, while costs are assigned to environmental degradation.
The Nisga’a believe that the first step in developing a sustainable approach is to choose a social and economic option that is based upon maintaining fully functioning forests at all scales. A Timber Supply Review would follow and take direction from this first step. This is in contrast to the existing Timber Supply Review, which assumes that the status quo timber-based economy is the only option, without serious consideration of other alternatives.
