As mills fall across the province—from Crofton to Prince George—the WFCA warns that BC’s forest restoration economy is being hollowed out from the inside
British Columbia’s forestry sector is experiencing a collapse so broad and so persistent that calling it a “downturn” feels like an act of optimism. The province is now witnessing mill closures in every region: Vancouver Island, the Interior, the North. Each shutdown is another domino falling, and the chain reaction is beginning to threaten not just manufacturing, but the very businesses responsible for restoring BC’s forests.
The latest blow came on Vancouver Island, where Domtar permanently closed its Crofton pulp mill, eliminating around 350 jobs. The company cited poor pulp pricing and lack of access to affordable fibre—a phrase that has become the unofficial slogan of BC’s forestry obituary. Domtar acknowledged the hardship for employees, the Cowichan Valley community, business partners, and the coastal forest sector, while promising to explore “a variety of possibilities” for the site’s future. In industry language, that usually means: don’t hold your breath.
BC Forests Minister Ravi Parmar called the closure “gut‑wrenching,” noting pressures from volatile markets, low pulp prices, shrinking fibre, climate‑driven wildfires, conservation measures, and U.S. duties and tariffs. Meanwhile, the Opposition Conservatives demanded Parmar’s resignation, declaring the coastal forest sector “collapsing.” In BC politics, forestry is one of the few topics where everyone agrees the situation is dire—they just disagree on whose fault it is.
The Crofton shutdown follows West Fraser Timber’s announcement that it will permanently close its 100 Mile House lumber mill, cutting 165 jobs by the end of 2025. And earlier, Canfor’s Northwood Pulp Mill in Prince George closed, sending shockwaves through the restoration sector. The Western Forestry Contractors’ Association (WFCA)—the businesses that plant trees, thin forests, reduce wildfire fuel, and restore damaged landscapes—warns that the collapse of manufacturing capacity is undermining the entire restoration economy.
WFCA executive director Jeff Lutes describes the closures as “another domino in the manufacturing capacity falling,” a trend that threatens BC’s ability to restore forests at scale. Restoration work produces low‑value fibre—thinnings, small‑diameter logs, wildfire debris—that mills historically purchased and processed. Without mills, that fibre becomes waste. And without revenue from fibre sales, restoration projects become financially impossible unless heavily subsidized.
BC once planted 240–260 million trees annually until 2018, then surged past 300 million between 2020 and 2024. But this year, planting has dropped to around 230 million, largely because less land is being harvested. Fewer logs mean fewer residuals, fewer replanting obligations, and fewer contracts for restoration crews. The WFCA warns that wildfire recovery alone could require double or triple current reforestation funding if catastrophic fires continue.
Contractors are now hesitating to invest in new machinery or retrain workers. Why buy a $500,000 mulcher when the fibre it produces has nowhere to go? Why recruit new planters when the land base is shrinking? Why expand capacity when the province’s regulatory environment is so slow that cutting permits and road‑building approvals can take months—or years?
Industry leaders echo the frustration. Kim Haakstad, president of the BC Council of Forest Industries, says the consequences of government inaction are unfolding in real time. While softwood lumber duties add pressure, she argues that not everything can be blamed on trade disputes. The core issues are predictable wood supply and a competitive regulatory environment. Without those, mills close—and once they close, they rarely reopen.
The Crofton mill, Parmar noted, “has anchored Vancouver Island’s economy for generations.” Its loss will hit workers, contractors, truckers, loggers, and local businesses hard—especially right before the holidays. The minister pledged to leave “no stone unturned” in exploring opportunities to preserve forestry jobs. But BC’s forestry professionals have heard similar promises before, and many are quietly asking whether the profession still has a future in the province.
The uncomfortable truth is that BC’s forestry sector is being squeezed from all sides:
Shrinking fibre supply due to past over‑cutting | wildfires, and beetle infestations | failure to manage decadence.
Add to that trade pressures from U.S. duties and tariffs | regulatory delays that make harvesting unpredictable | market shifts reducing demand for pulp and paper | political indecision that leaves industry without a clear path forward
For the WFCA, the stakes are existential. Without mills, restoration becomes a theoretical exercise. Without fibre buyers, thinning becomes unaffordable. Without a stable land base, tree planting becomes sporadic. And without a functioning forest economy, the next generation of forestry professionals may decide BC is no longer the place to practice their craft.
Wrap‑Up: The Biomass That Got Away
And as BC’s forestry sector continues to fold like a cheap camp chair left out in the rain, it’s impossible not to cast a sidelong gaze at the opportunity the province has politely ignored for decades: biomass. Not the hypothetical, PowerPoint‑friendly version, but the real stuff — the mountains of deadfall, slash piles, windthrow, beetle kill, and wildfire debris carpeting the province like a renewable resource begging for adult supervision.
For years, scientists, contractors, and even a few brave bureaucrats have pointed out that BC is sitting on one of the largest untapped biomass reserves in North America. Entire valleys full of fuel that could be turned into pellets, district‑energy heat, bio‑oil, or electricity. A resource that could stabilize rural economies, reduce wildfire risk, and give restoration contractors a revenue stream that doesn’t evaporate every time a mill shuts down.
Other jurisdictions — Scandinavia, the Baltics, even parts of the U.S. — built biomass industries out of far less material. BC, meanwhile, has treated biomass like that perfectly good tool in the shed that no one uses because it’s behind the lawnmower and someone would have to move the lawnmower.
The irony is almost poetic. The province is losing mills because they “can’t access affordable fibre,” while millions of tonnes of perfectly usable biomass sit in the woods waiting to either rot or burn. Restoration crews generate biomass every day — thinning stands, reducing wildfire fuel, cleaning up post‑fire landscapes — and in a rational system, that material would feed a thriving energy sector. In BC’s system, it often ends up in piles, waiting for the next lightning strike to turn it into smoke.
A biomass industry could have cushioned the blow of mill closures, diversified rural economies, and given the WFCA a stable market for the fibre they produce. It could have turned deadfall into paycheques, slash piles into energy security, and wildfire debris into climate‑friendly fuel. Instead, BC has spent decades debating cutting permits, regulatory bottlenecks, and land‑use plans while the raw material for a renewable energy revolution quietly composts itself.
This is the missed opportunity that stings: BC could have led North America in biomass innovation. Instead, we’re leading in slash‑pile inventory.
Perhaps the next generation of forestry professionals — assuming they stay — will finally build the biomass industry BC should have started 20 years ago. Perhaps they’ll look at the vast, sometimes burning forests and see not crisis, but potential. But until then, the province will continue exporting raw logs, importing policy indecision, and leaving the future of forest restoration to the whims of markets, mills, and ministries.
A province with this much fibre shouldn’t be running out of options. Yet here we are — staring at the biomass that got away, still waiting for someone in power to notice that the solution has been lying on the forest floor the whole time.
Written by CoPilot, Directed by Mack McColl, Published by McColl Magazine Commerce News
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