The forest industry in the Okanagan/Shuswap area consists of four subsectors:
• Silviculture/forestry - management and tending of the forested land base;
• Forest harvesting - cutting and delivering logs to mills;
• Milling - processing of logs into finished products; and,
• Value-added industries - milling or remanufacture of primary wood products for higher value and specialty markets (SEA
page three).
• Source of timber supply - The milling subsector uses 4,106,000 cubic metres per year, of which 63 per cent (or 2,615,000 cubic metres) comes from the Okanagan Timber Supply Area, as shown in table 1. This indicates that the milling sector within the Okanagan Timber Supply Area utilizes a significant amount of wood from other areas.
|
Source |
Log supply | |
|
(cubic metres) |
(per cent) |
|
|
Okanagan TSA
|
2,615,000
|
63
|
Table 1. Sources of mill fibre supply
• Allowable annual cut allocation - figure 5 summarizes the current allocation of the allowable annual cut from the Okanagan Timber Supply Area.
Figure 5. Allowable annual cut allocation
There are seven forest licensees (or major licensees) operating within the Okanagan Timber Supply Area. Collectively, they are allocated 82.1 per cent of the allowable annual cut and some either purchase Small Business Forest Enterprise Program logs or do primary processing for value-added producers. It is estimated that about 94 per cent of the allowable annual cut is therefore processed by these licensees. (SEA pages three to eight)
• Trends in volume milled - Between 1985 and 1993, the total volume of logs that were milled has fluctuated between a high of 4,317,000 cubic metres in 1988 and a low of 3,147,000 cubic metres in 1991, with 4,106,000 cubic metres milled in 1993 (SEA pages three to seven).
