Examining the British Columbia Logging Industry Through a Core/Periphery Model

British Columbia's forest industry is a very important powerful force within Canada's Pacific province and research into it can gain us insight into the province as a whole. However, the issue of logging in this coastal rain forest contains a lot of conflict between the environmental imaginary of the core and the periphery of the region. The various institutions within the sector are reflections of the imaginaries of the core and periphery that influence them, and how strong each is in this area. In forestry activities all over the world these factors compete for influence, and how strong they are in relation to each other can help determine whether and area, be it an entire stat or a smaller region, belongs to the industrialized core or the developing periphery. Although BC's forestry companies and the interests of the periphery are both very powerful forces, probably more powerful than the interest groups representing the core, they are not powerful enough to judge BC a peripheral area when compared to other such areas.

The core/periphery model (also known as the heartland/hinterland model) is used to try and explain how the capitalist economic system has changed and evolved certain economies into varying spatial units (Bone, 2005, pg 19). Essentially a select few areas industrialize and develop, and in the end become very powerful and influential; these industrialized and developed areas become known as the core, or the heartland. They become dependent on other areas to supply them with the raw resources that they require to support themselves; these areas tend to become the periphery, or the hinterland. The core controls both how fast and in what direction the development of the periphery goes and tends to have almost complete economic and political control over it (Bone, 2005, pg 19). The actual areas themselves, as well as the views or imaginaries of their residents, often reflect this. Core regions tend to be powerful, wealthy and due to how they view their natural areas, heavily protected and regulated. Peripheral regions on the other hand are often weak, poor, unregulated, unprotected and highly dependent upon the core. Residents of peripheral regions usually view the environment around them as something with which they can extract their living from and exploit to better their lives, whereas most residents of core regions would view the natural environment as something to be preserved for aesthetic and other purposes. They are both mutually dependent upon each other, but this dependency is often disadvantageous to the periphery both economically and environmentally because resources management is geared towards the needs of the core in one way or another rather than the needs of the local people and their environment (Mather and Chapman, 1995, pg 59). The environmental effects of resource exploitation in the periphery are usually not very concerning to the mindsets of the people in charge of them, who tends to have the best interests of the far away yet powerful core, rather than the local yet weaker periphery, on their minds (Mather and Chapman, 1995, pg 59). Examples of this include but are not limited to; many former colonies of European empires, as well as former and current economic colonies of American "neo-colonialism". Most of these periphery areas have a GDP of less than half to less than 1/20th of their former/current colonial masters, who often make up core areas (Stutz and Warf, 2005, pg 471 figure 13.1). These areas often have environmental problems that are linked to their resource exploitation activities.

Forestry in periphery areas, such as in South America, often shows evidence of these environmental problems, and traditionally peripheral views of the natural landscape. An example of one of these areas in South America would be Brazil's Amazon rain forest. Large scale deforestation of the Amazon began in the mid 1970's, due to logging and agricultural expansion (Middleton 2003, pg 53). In a more recent study of this area over a 5 year period from 1999-2004 it was found that just over 3/4 of timber harvest practices cause sufficient canopy damage to leave the surrounding forest area susceptible to drought and fire damage (Asner, Broadbent, Oliveira, Keller, Knap and Silva, 2006). In this same study it was also found that "logging in the Brazilian Amazon is dominated by highly damaging operations, often followed... by deforestation decades before forests can recover sufficiently to produce timber for a second harvest" (Asner et al, 2006) and also that "under the management regimes in effect at the time of our study in the Brazilian Amazon, selective logging would not be sustained" (Asner et al, 2006). These activities come with many deleterious environmental effects, on levels ranging from local to global. There are negative effects on local hydrology such as increased flooding due to loss of the the regulating role of the forests on local rivers and stream, resulting in increased siltation. There are also negative local effects on soil degradation and erosion. On a more global scale the effects of mass clearance of the Amazon contributes to problems with the hydrological cycle of the planet, as approximately half of the annual rainfall there is returned to the atmosphere via evapotranspiration (Middleton, 2003, pg 58) as well as loss of biodiversity and negative impacts on climate change as a whole. The role of the Brazilian government has been crucial in the deforestation of the Amazon basin. A government that viewed the Amazon as empty land that was rich in resources resulted in policies that were designed to make a concentrated effort at exploiting this tropical frontier and it has become so dependent on the exploitation of it that "for Brazil to cease development of it's largest sovereign natural resource is... neither desirable nor feasible" (Middleton, 2003, pg 61). These views of the environment and how they are put in to practice very closely reflect a peripheral imaginary.

When we look at what a forest industry belonging to a core state looks like, we can see that things are very different. A forest industry in a core state would have to be withing the periphery of that core, an area such as the Eastern US Appalachian region. Although there are conflicting views within the region and the core view of the environment is often far less powerful and far less prevalent than that of the periphery, it is still present and powerful enough to be reflected in government policies and regulations. In Appalachia large scale logging activities began in the late 19th century with the penetration brought by the introduction of the railroad. Within a 30 year period from 1890-1920 nearly all of the region's indigenous timber was harvested (Nesbitt and Weiner, 2003). As early as the 1900's, however, most timber companies as well as many conservationists supported the creation of national forests for a variety of reasons and in 1911 the US government began purchasing units of land for this purpose and by 1915 more than 1/4 of the land in some counties of the area was owned by federal agencies. By 1999 this number had increased to almost 30% in some areas (Nesbitt and Weiner, 2003). Throughout the 20th century the area was also subject to increasing environmental regulations, the promotion of ecotourism and the creation of bio-reserves that occured occasionally at the behest of environmentalists and outsiders that came from the core. This has led to some conflict in the area (Nesbitt and Weiner, 2003) between people with opposing views and imaginaries of the environment, but both sides have a strong presence both officially and unofficially within the region and have views from both the core and the periphery regardless of whether they were from those areas or not. This is typical when compared to many other core areas, mainly in the northern hemisphere, where although logging occurs, deforestation has been largely either halted or reversed (Middleton, 2003, pg 49).

Forestry has traditionally been the largest economic sector within British Columbia (Bone, 2005, pg 339) and because of this the forestry companies are a very powerful force within BC, some employing thousands of people and having sales figures in the Billions of dollars (www.canfor.com). Forestry related activities make up approximately 1/3rd of British Columbia's manufacturing sector and in 2001 accounts for 4.4% of its total employed labour force (Bone, 2005, pg 353). There is considerable support for logging companies due to all of this and many livelihoods throughout the province depending on them. However, there is also a significant amount of opposition to them as well. There are many entities which have environmental views that would be deemed similar to those of a core populace who make their presence known and attempt to protect the environment and limit logging activities. The general population tends to be fairly sympathetic to these goals. A number of government policies exist that reflect this core imaginary; that surrounding natural areas should be preserved for aesthetic and other reasons rather than being exploited as raw natural resources. Policies such as the Forest and Range Practices Act that requires forestry companies to replant native tree species in areas that have been logged, as well as making them preserve soils and riparian areas (www.bcforestinformation.com) and restrictions and limits on clear cutting are a result of the core type of environmental imaginary and could only really be implemented in a core area. Bodies such as the Ministry of Forests and Range, as well as Environment Canada have also been created to regulate and control the logging industry and are due to this core imaginary. The cumulative result of all of these regulations and government bodies, themselves a result of the view of the environment held by people living in BC, have resulted in BC having adopted some of the most "stringent forest sustainability requirements in the world" (www.bcforestinformation.com). BC still shows plenty of what would be deemed problems by the core, such as how little monetary compensation logging companies pay for the environmental degradation that they cause, which is a result of the peripheral type views still held by many, but the fact that there is so much opposition to the exploitation of BC forests and that government regulation and forest protection policies exist, is evidence of a significant influence being exerted from BC that is typically associated with developed, core areas.

Within the core/periphery model certain characteristics, such as industrialization, development and seeing the environment around them in a more conservational view have been attributed to the core, wheres being undeveloped, environmentally irresponsible, poor, dependent upon core regions and viewing the environment around them as something to exploit have been attributed to the periphery. Within these contexts the logging industry within Brazil's Amazon rain forest can be deemed to be within a peripheral state of this model due to utter lack of governmental regulation, and actual government encouragement of irresponsible timber harvesting. The logging sector in the Eastern United States, however, can be perceived as belonging to a core state due to increasing governmental regulation and control of the resource in the area, even though there is still plenty of conflict among area residents regarding it. When compared to these case studies, as well as the conditions previously outlined, BC's forestry sector shares many of the characteristics attributed to core areas. Although there is a lot of conflict between the varying views, there are still plenty of governmental policies, bodies and regulations that are indicative of a core area and residents with the corresponding views.

Bibliography:

Bone, RM. The Regional Geography of Canada. 3rd ed. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press. 2005

Mather, A.S. and Chapman, K. Environmental Resources. Essex, England: Pearson Education Ltd. 1995

Stutz, F.P. and Warf, B. The World Economy: Resources, Location, Trade and Development. 4th ed. New Jersery, USA: Pearson Education Ltd. 2005

Middleton, N. The Global Casino: An Introduction to Environmental Resources. 3rd ed. New York, USA: Oxford University Press. 2003

Asner, G.P., Broadbent, E.N., Oliveira, P.J., Keller, M., Knapp, D.E. and Silva, J.N. Condition and Fate of Logged Forests in the Brazilian Amazon. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. August 22, 2006. Vol. 103, Issue 34.

Nesbitt, J.T., and Weiner, D. Conflicting Environmental Imaginaries and the Politics of Nature in Central Appalachia. Geoforum. 2001, Issue 32

Cashore, B. PhD, Global Environmental Forest Policies: Canada as a Constant Case Comparison of Select Forest Practice Regulations
available at: www.bcforestinformation.com

www.Canfor.com