The forest industry is the most important economic activity in the Province of British Columbia, with half the families in the province depending directly or indirectly on the industry's $400 million annual payroll. Predictions of $1 billion worth of new capital investment materializing within the next five years provide a firm indication that the industry will retain this position of economic importance throughout the forseeable future. The growth of the forest industry has had a profound effect upon the settlement pattern of British Columbia, characterized principally by an extreme concentration of productive facilities, and hence of population, in the south-west of the province, and a thin diffusion of employment and population throughout the remainder. In this large hinterland the population is scattered throughout a myriad of camps, company towns and isolated settlements which are able to provide for their residents a minimum level of goods and services and a narrow range of opportunities for personal development and self-realization. Thus, for many thousands of workers and their families, employment in the forest industry involves denial of the opportunity to participate fully in the prosperous and variegated way of life which the industry has so materially assisted to create within the province. The Provincial Government has, to some extent, indicated an awareness of this condition, for the two declared objectives of its forest policies are the assurance of a perpetual yield of timber, and the establishment of prosperous permanent communities. Policies to ensure the fulfillment of the first objective have been thoroughly prepared, and conscientiously and competently applied. Policies to ensure the fulfillment of the second objective, on the other hand, are still lacking. The anticipated wave of new investment in the industry will produce significant changes in provincial settlement patterns, in the form of several new towns in hitherto undeveloped areas and of a re-structuring of communities in already established areas. If controlled by firm government policy, these changes could be directed toward the creation of a settlement pattern which would make available to the citizens of the province the highest level of goods, services and urban amenities which the province is capable of providing. In order to achieve this objective the developmental activities of the forest industry would have to be coordinated with those of all other agencies, both public and private, which are engendering urbanization within the province. Such coordination could only be achieved by the creation of a framework for developmental planning which would be province wide in scope, comprehensive enough to embrace all developmental action, and capable of accounting for regional variations. By establishing a Provincial Development Department at Cabinet level, with the portfolio being held by the Provincial Premier, a means would be provided for effectively initiating and controlling development on a comprehensive province wide basis. By establishing regional branch offices of the Provincial Development Department a means would be provided for the achievement of regional accountability. It would, be the responsibility of the Regional Development Offices to prepare regional development plans for the areas under their jurisdiction. Coordination of activity at the regional level would be assured through the establishment of a Regional Inter-departmental Committee consisting of the regional representatives of all government departments functioning within the region. By bringing the regional representative of the British Columbia Forest Service into the Regional Inter-departmental Committee, and by making all forestry development subject to the Regional Development Plans, developments within, the forest industry could be directed and controlled so as to make the maximum possible contribution to the realization of an optimum settlement pattern within each region. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

According to several recent studies, the future of the forest industry in British Columbia is in jeopardy. If present forestry management practices are continued, it is conceivable that within the next decade the timber harvest will decline, employment will be severely reduced, and government revenue from the forest resource will be significantly less than in previous decades. Public ownership of the vast majority of provincial forest land means that government policies are largely responsible for this state of affairs. However, there are relatively few academic studies of the history of those policies. The purpose of this thesis is to review the evolution one aspect of forest policy, the way in which timber is allocated in British Columbia, and to analyze the dynamics of this evolution in light of six alternative theories of the policy-making process. Forest policy in British Columbia is extremely complicated and is the result of decisions made to meet various demands at different times in history. It is only through a detailed understanding of the history of forest policy and the nature of the provincial state that planners, resource managers, and public policy-makers can attempt to resolve the current crisis in the forest industry. Public timber is allocated to private forest companies in British Columbia by a variety of tenures. The form of these tenures has changed dramatically over time. Prior to 1912, access to the forest resource was granted primarily by leases and licenses which carried few restrictions and relatively low royalties and rents. These tenures were perpetually renewable until the merchantable timber was removed. Between 1912 and 1947 the primary method of disposing crown timber was through competitive bidding on short-term timber sales. The crown not only received royalties and rental fees from these Timber Sale Licenses, but also a bid price. The Forest Branch established a minimum bid price based on the value of the end product minus the costs of production and an allowance for profit and risk. After 1947, the government attempted to regulate the harvest of timber in such a way as to guarantee a perpetual supply of timber. They did this by awarding huge tracts of public land to owners of private forest land and perpetual tenures in order for them to manage the whole property on a sustained yield basis. On the remaining majority of forest land the government set aside large areas which were to be managed by the public sector on sustained yield principles. Over time, as a result of these policies, competition for the resource was virtually eliminated and, as one consequence, the government always received the appraised upset price for timber. It appears that this has undervalued the crown's share of the resource rent. The combined effect of timber allocation policies after 1947 was to accommodate, if not encourage, the consolidation of timber rights. In order to explain the evolution of timber policy in British Columbia and to guide future policy development, the thesis examines six broad theories of how the state operates. These are categorized as follows: rationalist, pluralist, neo-conservative, neo-marxist instrumentalist, neo-marxist structuralist, and Canadian. After reviewing these theories the thesis concludes that elements of each theory can be employed to explain different policy changes over time. No single theoretical model is totally adequate to answer the question of why B.C. governments' acted the way they did. Nevertheless, the neo-marxist structuralist and Canadian theories provide the fullest explanation of the role of the state in British Columbia. It is apparent that large forest companies have had a disproportionate influence on public forest policies. Over time, the provincial state has become increasingly dependent on those companies to carry out many forest policy objectives, to provide employment arid generate tax revenues. New resource policies designed to meet the current crisis in the forest industry must recognize these two important facts. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

Community stability in the sense of the long run survival of forest industry centres has often been declared an objective of public forest policy. It has been widely asserted that "community stability" can and does result from the practice of sustained yield forest management. Sustained yield also generally includes a requirement for an even annual flow of timber (equal to the annual growth). The implication is that stability of employment opportunities and incomes in the forest industry over shorter periods can also be attained as a result of the planned even flow of timber from the forests. This model of forest regulation has recently been defended and justified on this basis, particularly when criticism has been focussed on its obvious economic inefficiencies. It is argued here that even-flow regulations per se can not achieve the desired and anticipated effects on employment and incomes when the forest industry of a region produces primarily for a volatile export market and is also subject to economies of scale and location. However, in British Columbia, certain public policies and procedures introduced in the pursuit of technical objectives may have had substantial indirect effects on regional development and community stability through their influence on the corporate structure, geographic location and capital intensity of the forest industry. Qualitative and quantitative, (econometric) methods are used to analyse the socio-economic consequences of these changes, focusing particularly on employment - its stability, trends and location - within a defined region. It was found that the logging, processing, assembly-repair and service occupations are the most relatively unstable, and that the instability of total unemployment has been much greater in a single-industry town than a diversified city. Furthermore, employment instability in the primary wood-using industries was found to be correlated with changes in the price of lumber destined for Export markets. The conclusions emphasise that forest policies to regulate the short-run supply of timber from the provincial forests are not the most relevant to questions of stability of employment in the forest-related industries. The British Columbia forest Service does not have exclusive control over regional development or "community stability". This analysis suggests that not only reappraisal of Forest Service practices and procedures, but also of its objectives and capacity to fulfil them, is indeed long overdue. While the forest industry remains dominant in the regional economy, a wood products marketing agency or a price support scheme might contribute to community stability by buffering some of the exogenously induced shocks. However, for a number of reasons, it is considered that the most realistic prospects for attaining employment stability lie in the diversification of the regional economy. Since this cannot be accomplished costlessly, it remains to be decided by the political process how much community instability the people of British Columbia can afford and what steps they are prepared to take to attain more stability. / Forestry, Faculty of / Graduate

There are very few published studies that have investigated in detail the economic impact of the forest industry at a subprovincial level in British Columbia. The reason most often cited is that the techniques of analysis viewed as most appropriate for handling such an undertaking require more economic data than are easily obtainable. It is the hypothesis of this study that sufficient data do exist to allow a close examination of the economic impact of the forest industry at a regional or local scale and that such an analysis can be conducted with some widely utilized and relatively simple techniques of measurement. The central interior of B.C. has been chosen as the study region because of its heavy dependence upon the forest industry for its economic well-being. The thesis begins with a discussion of the historical development of the forest industry in the central interior. It concentrates upon the economic factors that have affected the industry's direction and rate of growth and the impact that this has had on overall regional development. Analysis of the present relationship between the forest industry and the regional economy is in part accomplished using two forms of Economic Base Analysis - the Location Quotient method and the Minimum Requirements technique. Both of these forms of measurement are reviewed, highlighting the major theoretical and empirical research involving their application, particularly in regards to the forest industry in other regions of North America. Using Statistics Canada labour force data, the analysis has concluded that an employment multiplier of 2.13 is justifiable for the central interior of B.C. The latter portion of the thesis attempts a dynamic approach to tracing the linkages between the forest industry and the rest of the regional economy. Applying statistical analysis to three types of data - employment, earnings, and unemployment - the study reveals the complexity of the interindustrial linkages within the regional economic system. Several of the more significant findings are that the nonbasic sector of the economy exhibits surprising resilience to short-term employment fluctuations and that the unemployment rate is an often overlooked effect that must be carefully considered in determining the actual rate of development within a region. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

This thesis examines some of the factors that will have significant impact upon employment in Douglas County, Oregon to the year 2000. The major question this research attempts to answer is: Given a continuation of current policies and programs, what will future employment levels in the forest product industries and total employment levels in all industries in Douglas County be to the year 2000.

With accelerating globalization, many industries have faced continuous pressure from rising importation. In the forest products industry, international trade has been intervened by either a tariff on roundwood or a temporary trade barrier on wood and paper products. In this dissertation, three studies are conducted to examine the patterns and impacts of these tariffs and trade barriers. In the first study, the adoption of antidumping and countervailing duty as a temporary trade barrier on forest products trade is examined. Initially, a two-step sample selection model is employed to identify determinants of trade barrier imposition by all the countries, and additionally, by developing countries as a group. Furthermore, the effects in paper and non-paper products are separately assessed by a probit regression. The results reveal that countries with high gross domestic products per capita can file more investigations than others. For these countries with petitions, they are found to be cautious to employ temporary trade barriers, as their attention shifts from the inefficiencies of domestic firms to unfair trade actions of foreign exporters. In the second study, outcomes of antidumping and countervailing petitions and their determinants are analyzed. The outcomes from preliminary and final investigations are separately evaluated by either a binary logistic model or a multinomial logistic model. The results reveal that more affirmative injury decisions exist if petitions initiated after 2000. Since the U.S. has announced the Byrd Amendment in 2000 to protect domestic firms, the trade environment is competitive. In addition, higher-income countries are associated with less affirmative decisions on petitions because of cooperation and retaliation. In the third study, the interaction between tariffs on roundwood and temporary trade barriers on forest products is assessed. A two-stage partial equilibrium displacement model is applied to measure the vertical linkage between roundwood and wood/paper products by estimating endogenous prices, quantities, and the change of welfare after imposing trade barriers. Tariffs on roundwood and temporary trade barriers on forest products are found to have a positive total welfare impact. The implementation of temporary trade barriers on forest products brings a higher welfare change than imposing tariffs on roundwood.

This study sought to determine the feasibility of introducing bamboo as a raw material to supplement the dwindling stock of traditional timber species for Ghana's forest products industry. First, the CEOs of the leading exporters of tertiary and panel products in the industry were canvassed to assess the current situation. Using descriptive statistics, it was discovered that the companies studied consume logs 12% in excess of the annual allowable timber harvest for the whole industry. There has been a drop in raw material availability and a 30% increase in raw material costs in the past five years. Harvest of lesser-used species in place of traditional species has also increased. Smaller companies have lost customers and are more restrained in raw material procurement. Next, barriers to the adoption of bamboo as a raw material perceived by the CEOs and institutional heads were identified. The major barriers perceived by CEOs include lack of information (e.g., on bamboo plantation management, products, processing, machines and markets) and lack of capital for investment. Institutions lack adequate information about bamboo technology and policy; they have research needs, (e.g., training, funding, laboratory equipment) and collaboration from all stakeholders. Institutions have done little to promote bamboo. Smaller companies were found to be more innovative in product development than larger companies. Companies located in the Ashanti region show higher propensity to engage in process innovation and product development. Companies appear to be receptive to initiatives that encourage bamboo adoption. In the current situation, few companies are willing to adopt bamboo but most companies are ready to adopt in the future if the existing barriers are mitigated. In the current situation, it is difficult for the industry to adopt bamboo until the government officially specifies roles for institutions and other stakeholders to make a compelling case for bamboo. Suggestions made for policymaking and change management include strategies for the creation of awareness, desire and knowledge for bamboo. Others include providing resources to enhance the ability of companies and institutions to adopt or promote bamboo, and reinforcing the change from timber to bamboo. / Ph. D.

In the past five years, most agricultural producers in the United States have suffered from depressed conditions in the commodity markets. The supplies of basic food commodities have burgeoned, demand has fallen, and price levels have declined, despite $55 billion in U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) commodity support program expenditures since 1983 (FAPRI, 1988). Since the early 1980's, farm income and asset balances have declined and debt has risen, increasing the financial stress for many producers. The financial strain could be more acute for those operators with a significant proportion of marginal land in production. Conversely, the USDA Forest Service recently projected that during the next 30-to-40 years softwood forest product demand will increase, available supplies will decrease, and real price levels will increase (USDA Forest Service, 1987). These conditions create the option of converting marginal agricultural lands to forestry investments. A technique was developed to compare possible financial returns between prevalent cropping systems and forestry investments on marginal soil series throughout Virginia. Crops and tree species used in the study include the following: corn (Mays L.), soybeans (Glycine max), soft red winter wheat (Triticum L.), orchard grass (Festuca L.), clover (Trifolium L.), fescue (Festuca L.) pasture, and loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.), and eastern white pine (Pinus strobus). With state-of-the-art management regimen for agricultural production, annual profit or loss estimates were computed for a variety of soil productivity classes and market price levels. Intensive management was also prescribed for the forestry investment analysis. Using current inputs and projected market price levels, a cash flow analysis program computed equal annual equivalent (EAE's) values for the investment analyses to derive results comparable to those for agriculture. Under the "base" assumptions and current and foreseen markets, forestry investment was determined to be competitive with agricultural production on the marginal soil series. However, government subsidies, benefiting both forest products and agricultural production, complicate the results. Further, the dependency of both markets on macroeconomic and other exogenous variables precludes any guarantee of investment performance over the 35-to-45 year investment horizon for either alternative. The study does provide a foundation for financial comparison, to which a landowner might add individual, subjective evaluations of land use (and financial criteria and assumptions) to reach a decision about the utilization of marginal agricultural lands. / Master of Science

Today, American industries are in a highly competitive international market. To achieve the competitive edge, manufacturers are demanding excellence from their vendor/suppliers. The pallet and container industries are the suppliers to the other companies. Statistical Process Control (SPC) is one-way to prove to the buyer the quality level of their products. One part of the this thesis is a handbook, which explains a step by step process of implementing an SPC program for the pallet and container industry. In addition, the thesis examines the quality levels of materials that goes into the pallet including the finished product such as raw material, cut-stock, fasteners, and workmanship. The raw material proved quite variable from the different sawmills. The between board variation was greater than the within for both the thickness and width. The cut-stock had less size variation in thickness than width. The workmanship of the finished pallets showed that the number of nail splits and uniformity of deckboard spacing to be a problem. While the number of missing nails, protruding nail points and heads, and the "out of squareness." It was not a problem. The physical characteristics of the fasteners proved extremely variable from one characteristic to another. There are a number of fasteners being produced outside of the NWPCA criteria for wire diameters. The most popular fastener gauges are the 11 and 11.5. In addition, the most popular fastener length is 2.25 and fastener flute number is 4. The MIBANT angle variation is higher for the stiffstock fasteners then the hardened fasteners. / Master of Science

Two analysis techniques were demonstrated for use in new product development by the wood products industry. A new molded wood structural product developed by the U.S. Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory known as FPL Spaceboard II was used to illustrate the techniques. Determinant attribute analysis was first employed to identify the product attributes most important to purchase decisions regarding substrate materials for the office furniture industry - the most likely target for introduction of Spaceboard II. A matrix-type decision model was then developed and illustrated which assists in selecting the most attractive product-market opportunity for a new product still in the development stages based on market attractiveness and relative competitive advantage of the product. Surveys were directed to manufacturers of office furniture and to producers of industrial particleboard and medium-density fiberboard which currently are the most common materials utilized as substrates in the office furniture industry. The furniture survey collected information regarding the perceived importance and variability of an array of physical product characteristics in the selection of a substrate material for office furniture. The survey of industrial particleboard and medium-density fiberboard producers acquired information regarding the importance of factors affecting decisions to enter and compete in a given market and ratings of the office furniture substrate market on those factors. The results of the determinant attribute analysis indicated that fastener withdrawal strength, surface smoothness, flatness, stiffness (MOE), and edgebanding capability were the product attributes which would most affect the decision to purchase substrate material for office furniture, and consequently are the attributes to focus on in developing a new product for that market. Use of the decision model was illustrated with Spaceboard II and resulted in a hypothetical matrix with the product positioned based on the attractiveness of the office furniture substrate market and Spaceboard II’s relative competitive advantage over existing materials in that market versus its competitive position in other market scenarios. / Master of Science