In its review of the Timber Supply Analysis and the Socio-Economic Analysis, the CFLA report makes the following points:
• the land base is cut in half for a variety of reasons—inoperable areas, riparian areas, environmentally sensitive areas, unmerchantable forest types—the benefits of which are not examined
• harvest-level reductions are arbitrarily constrained to change in equal percentage amounts per decade, without falling below the estimated long-term harvest level
• generally accepted principles of socio-economic analysis indicate that comparisons of alternative timber harvest forecasts should use net present values, rather than future values as the Ministry of Forests has done in its analysis
• the value of visual quality objectives and forest cover requirements have not been analyzed or proven
• in the Socio-Economic Analysis, the use of person-years alone, rather than jobs, to measure employment; the failure to incorporate gross income benefits and taxes; and the inclusion of the public sector as a base industry all lead to an understatement of the true impacts of reductions in the allowable annual cut
• Ministry of Forests employment and income should be acknowledged in any socio-economic assessment of changes to the allowable annual cut
The analysis methods and conclusions put forth in the licensee analysis and the CFLA report are strongly supported by most of the submissions from the forest industry and the Sunshine Coast Forest Coalition.
