Major Breakthrough on Forest Certification in British Columbia

A week later, on June 10, MacMillan Bloedel, Canada’s largest wood products company with 1997 sales of $4.5 billion (Canadian), announced that it will phase out clearcut timber harvesting over the next five years in all of its British Columbia operations, roughly 2.7 million acres (1.1 million ha), and pursue a stewardship strategy that focuses on old-growth forest retention and habitat conservation.

A third timber industry giant, International Forest Products (Interfor), which harvests timber in a number of the most pristine and ecologically significant coastal rainforests in the Province, announced that it will follow MacMillan Bloedel’s lead in phasing out clearcutting. Together, these three companies control more than half of British Columbia’s coastal forests, according to Tamara Stark, a Greenpeace forest activist there.