Abstract
The forest industry has been a crucial part of British Columbia's economy for a very long time. Up until the 1970s, it was widely claimed that 50% of every dollar spent in BC was generated by the forest industry (from textbook, Farley 1972, 87). Today, this industry still remains the backbone of the economy of the Province as well as its individual communities and the regions. In 1993, the British Columbia Roundtable found that "94,000 British Columbians were directly employed in the forest sector and that the livelihoods of as many as 140,000 more depended largely on the forest sector" (p.43). Unfortunately, the emergence of sophisticated technologies and rules encouraging overharvesting has led to many conflicts and crisis in the forest industry. For many years, opposing views and interests have been creating a climate of uncertainty in the whole industry.
What are the main issues concerning forest harvesting in British Columbia and why are there different views about it? What are these opposing views and who is advocating them? Is it possible to reach a consensus or to find a long-lasting balance between these divergent interests?
