Cap and trade key to silviculture funding: Minister

Minister of Forests and Range Pat Bell said the province will announce four major forestry initiatives in the next three weeks.

Bell was one of the keynote speakers at the Association of B.C. Forest Professionals conference in Prince George Friday. The four announcements will focus on promoting advanced silviculture, increasing access to waste wood left behind by logging, mapping software to predict the value of pine killed by the mountain pine beetle, and an aggressive project to promote B.C. forest products in China.

"We are arguably the best in the world at cutting down trees. We are very good at making flat boards out of round trees," Bell said. "But we need to start thinking about how we manage our (tree) stands. We're going to be releasing, in the next two-three weeks, a discussion paper on advanced silviculture planing."