British Columbia is considering a new way to answer one of the most difficult questions facing its forest sector:

Where should timber production be expected to occur over the long term—and where should it not?

The Province has proposed a Working Forest Landscape Model that would divide selected public-forest landscapes into three broad management zones:

a Working-Forest Zone prioritizing commercial timber production;

a Multiple-Use Zone combining restoration, biodiversity and some resource activity;

and a Conservation and Protection Zone focused primarily on ecological integrity and habitat.

The government plans to begin working with First Nations to identify candidate areas, followed by targeted engagement with industry, communities and environmental organizations. The first areas selected to test the model are expected to be announced in fall 2026.

At first glance, this is a land-use planning story.

For B.C.’s pulp, paper, sawmilling and wood-products industries, however, the more important issue is fibre predictability.

The Province says the Working-Forest Zone could help stabilize an economic land base capable of contributing to an annual timber harvest of approximately 45 million cubic metres.

But that figure needs careful interpretation.

It is not a new provincial allowable annual cut.

It is not a guaranteed harvest.

And it does not mean 45 million cubic metres of economically usable wood will automatically reach mills every year.

The real test is whether clearer landscape planning can narrow the gap between timber that exists legally on paper and timber that industry can actually access economically.

B.C. Has a Harvest Problem That an AAC Alone Does Not Explain

British Columbia’s official timber statistics illustrate the challenge.

The province’s annual harvest was close to 90 million cubic metres at its 1987 peak and averaged around 75 million cubic metres between 1988 and 2013.

Since 2014, however, the harvest has fallen sharply.

The latest provincial environmental indicator reports a decline from approximately 71 million cubic metres in 2014 to 39 million cubic metres in 2023.

More importantly, actual harvesting has repeatedly remained below the allowable annual cut.

Over the previous 20 years covered by the Province’s analysis, the average AAC was around 77 million cubic metres, while average actual harvest was about 60 million cubic metres—roughly 22% lower.

That gap is central to understanding the new model.

The problem is not simply:

“Is enough timber theoretically available?”

It is:

“Can that timber be harvested at an economically workable cost, under predictable rules, in areas where mills can actually use it?”

Those are different questions.

Allowable Cut Is Not the Same as Economic Fibre

An allowable annual cut sets the maximum sustainable harvest rate for a timber supply area or tree farm licence under B.C.’s forest-management framework.

It does not guarantee that every cubic metre within that number can be profitably harvested.

Actual fibre availability depends on additional factors including:

terrain;

road access;

species;

log quality;

distance to mills;

wildfire damage;

insect mortality;

harvesting costs;

market prices;

operational restrictions;

and conservation requirements.

The Province itself says timber-supply forecasts contain uncertainty around merchantability, operability, forest management, wildfire, insect epidemics and changes to the timber-producing land base.

That distinction matters for investors.

A mill does not run on AAC.

It runs on truckloads of economically delivered fibre.

The 45 Million m³ Figure Is Therefore the Number to Watch Carefully

The Province says the proposed zoning system could help identify where sustainable timber production should be prioritized in order to stabilize an economic land base contributing to an annual harvest of 45 million cubic metres.

The wording is important.

The government is not saying that zoning itself creates 45 million cubic metres of harvest.

It is attempting to create enough long-term clarity around the land base to support that level of activity.

That makes 45 million m³ a useful policy benchmark.

But it should not yet be entered into a mill investment model as guaranteed annual supply.

There is still a considerable gap between:

land designated for working forestry

and

merchantable timber economically delivered to a mill gate.

Closing that gap will require much more than drawing lines on a map.

Why Pulp Mills Should Pay Particular Attention

For B.C.’s pulp industry, the relationship between harvest and fibre supply is even less direct.

Many kraft pulp mills rely heavily on residual chips generated by sawmills.

That means a pulp mill’s fibre supply is connected not only to the forest harvest but also to how much lumber is actually being manufactured nearby.

If sawmills close or curtail production, fewer chips become available.

The pulp mill may then need to:

haul fibre from farther away;

use more expensive alternative fibre;

compete for residues;

or reduce production.

British Columbia has already seen this mechanism in practice.

In 2024, Canfor Pulp indefinitely curtailed one line at its Northwood facility, explicitly citing declining availability of economic fibre. Canfor said sawmill closures and curtailments had sharply reduced residual-chip availability even though the region still contained substantial timber resources.

Two years later, Canfor announced the permanent closure of Northwood.

The company cited both the structural oversupply in global pulp markets and persistent challenges accessing fibre, saying the combination had produced prolonged unsustainable losses. The closure removes approximately 300,000 tonnes per year of NBSK capacity.

That history demonstrates why a more predictable working forest could matter to pulp producers.

But it also shows why the 45 million m³ objective cannot be translated directly into pulp fibre.

First, logs need to be economically harvested.

Then enough of those logs need to enter sawmills.

Then the sawmills have to operate at sufficient rates to produce residues.

Only then does part of that fibre become available to pulp operations.

Fibre Predictability Is a Chain, Not One Number

For an integrated forest economy, the chain looks roughly like this:

forest planning → permits and access → harvesting → log allocation → sawmill production → residual chips → pulp and paper production.

A disruption at any stage affects the next one.

This is why B.C.’s proposed shift away from highly fragmented, permit-by-permit decision-making could matter commercially.

The Province argues that setting broader landscape objectives in advance could reduce permitting uncertainty and give operators greater clarity over where commercial forestry is expected to remain a long-term priority.

That could potentially make:

road planning;

harvest scheduling;

mill procurement;

silviculture investment;

and long-term capital decisions

easier to coordinate.

But the degree of improvement will depend on how the model is translated into actual operational rules.

A Working-Forest Zone Is Not a Harvest-Anything Zone

The terminology also needs careful treatment.

A Working-Forest Zone would prioritize sustainable commercial timber production.

It does not mean biodiversity, water, cultural values or other forest-management obligations disappear inside that zone.

Detailed management direction would still be developed through existing forest landscape plans, land-use planning and First Nations-led processes.

Likewise, actual AAC decisions remain part of the existing professional timber-supply process.

Under B.C.’s Forest Act framework, allowable annual cuts for timber supply areas and tree farm licences are periodically determined using current forestry information and management objectives.

That means the proposed zoning model is better understood as a landscape-level planning framework, not a replacement for detailed forest-management decisions.

This distinction is important.

Industry may gain greater certainty over where timber production is expected.

It does not gain unrestricted access to every tree inside the zone.

The Multiple-Use Zone Could Become the Most Complicated Part

The Working-Forest Zone and Conservation and Protection Zone have relatively clear primary objectives.

The Multiple-Use Zone is more complex.

The Province says these areas would focus on:

ecosystem restoration;

wildfire-risk reduction;

watershed protection;

habitat enhancement;

climate adaptation;

and other stewardship activities,

while still allowing carefully managed forestry and other resource uses.

From a forest-industry perspective, this could become an important source of fibre.

Wildfire-risk reduction, restoration, commercial thinning and other treatments can generate wood.

But the economics will depend heavily on what kind of fibre those treatments produce.

Small-diameter trees, damaged timber or low-grade material may have limited value as lumber but could potentially support:

pulp;

pellets;

bioenergy;

biocarbon;

or other fibre-based products.

That creates an opportunity for more complete use of forest biomass.

It does not mean every restoration treatment will pay for itself through fibre sales.

Harvesting, sorting and transportation costs remain critical.

The No-Net-Loss Concept Could Be the Most Politically Important Feature

The Province is also exploring a no-net-loss principle for both the Working-Forest Zone and the Conservation and Protection Zone.

Under the concept, the total amount of land assigned to each of those two categories would remain stable over time.

If eventually implemented, that could address two competing forms of uncertainty.

Industry wants confidence that land identified for long-term timber production will not continually shrink through incremental decisions.

Conservation interests want confidence that protected landscapes will not later be reopened simply because timber supply becomes tight.

A stable land base on both sides could make longer-term planning easier.

But this is still a concept under development, not an adopted no-net-loss legal rule.

The Province explicitly says further work is required.

That qualification matters.

Until the actual mechanism is established, companies should not assume working-forest acreage is permanently guaranteed.

Conservation Still Expands Under the Model

The zoning proposal also sits alongside B.C.’s commitment to conserve 30% of its land base by 2030 and continued implementation of the Old Growth Action Plan.

The Conservation and Protection Zone is intended to support that objective in partnership with First Nations.

This means the policy is not an attempt to maximize timber production across all public forest land.

It is trying to make the trade-off more explicit.

Some landscapes would be primarily managed for commercial timber.

Some would primarily support biodiversity and ecological protection.

Others would be managed for several objectives simultaneously.

The government’s argument is that making those decisions earlier and at landscape scale could reduce the uncertainty created when conflicts are addressed one permit at a time.

Whether that works will depend heavily on the quality of the planning process.

First Nations Are Not a Secondary Consultation Step

Another important feature is the sequence.

The Province says it will begin working with First Nations to identify early candidate areas, before broader targeted engagement with industry, local governments and environmental groups.

That is significant in British Columbia, where forest planning intersects with Aboriginal rights, title, treaty relationships and increasing First Nations participation in forest ownership and management.

For forest companies, long-term fibre certainty increasingly requires more than a provincial tenure or permit.

It requires durable relationships with the Indigenous Nations whose territories overlap the operating landscape.

A zoning framework developed without that foundation would have limited ability to provide the predictability government says it wants.

Predictability Could Matter More Than Maximum Harvest

This may be the most important economic point.

A forest-products company does not necessarily need the largest possible harvest.

It needs a harvest level that is sufficiently:

stable;

economical;

geographically accessible;

and predictable

to support investment.

Consider a pulp mill evaluating a C$300 million modernization.

Management needs to estimate fibre supply not for one year but potentially for several decades.

The question is not simply whether enough forest exists today.

It is whether the company can reasonably forecast:

what land remains available;

what volumes can be harvested;

what those logs will cost;

which sawmills will still be operating;

and how much residual fibre will be available.

Uncertainty increases investment risk.

Companies respond by:

raising required returns;

reducing capital commitments;

or investing elsewhere.

That is why the Province repeatedly links the Working Forest Landscape Model with investor confidence.

But Zoning Cannot Fix Global Pulp Markets

This is also where the limits of the policy should be clear.

Greater fibre certainty cannot make an uneconomic pulp mill profitable by itself.

Northwood is the obvious example.

Canfor’s July 2026 closure announcement cited not only fibre constraints but also a structural shift in global pulp markets, new global production capacity, oversupply and downward pressure on pulp prices.

A cheaper or more predictable chip supply might improve a mill’s cost position.

It does not control:

Chinese pulp demand;

South American capacity additions;

global NBSK prices;

currency;

energy costs;

or international freight.

The proposed forest model should therefore be evaluated for what it can realistically change.

It can potentially improve domestic fibre access and planning certainty.

It cannot remove global commodity cycles.

Nor Can It Reverse Forest Biology

British Columbia’s declining timber supply is also partly structural.

The Province’s own long-term analysis identifies:

mountain pine beetle mortality;

catastrophic wildfire;

and increased conservation

as major reasons projected timber supply has declined from historical levels.

Those constraints cannot be solved administratively.

A clearer permit process cannot recreate timber lost to wildfire.

A working-forest designation does not make immature stands ready for harvest.

And an economic land base still has to regenerate sustainably.

This is why the current 45 million m³ discussion should not be compared casually with the 70–75 million m³ harvest levels B.C. once regularly achieved.

The forest itself has changed.

The operating model has to change with it.

45 Million m³ Is Still Above the Latest Reported Harvest

That said, the policy objective is not insignificant.

Latest provincial reporting places 2023 harvest at approximately 39 million m³.

A sustained 45 million m³ harvest would represent roughly 6 million additional cubic metres compared with that level.

That is about a 15% increase.

But even this simple comparison requires caution.

2023 is the latest year in the Province’s published environmental dataset, not necessarily the final 2026 harvest baseline.

The geographic mix and quality of an additional six million cubic metres would also matter as much as the volume.

Six million cubic metres close to existing mills and roads could have substantial economic value.

The same amount dispersed across difficult terrain or far from processing capacity could have much less.

Volume without delivered cost is incomplete information.

The Recent TFL 30 Decision Shows Why Regional Detail Matters

British Columbia’s timber supply is not managed as one homogeneous provincial pool.

AAC decisions occur at individual management-unit level.

Just days after announcing the Working Forest Landscape Model, B.C.’s deputy chief forester set a new allowable annual cut of 340,000 m³ for Tree Farm Licence 30, a 17.6% reduction.

The decision reflected wildlife retention, riparian protection, rare ecosystems, cultural values and land that was no longer considered economically harvestable.

That is a useful reminder.

A provincial aspiration for a more stable economic land base will coexist with local AAC reductions where the evidence supports them.

The two are not necessarily contradictory.

The goal is not to force every management unit upward.

It is to determine more clearly which areas can carry long-term commercial forestry and which cannot.

Pulp Mills Need Sawmills to Survive Too

For pulp and paper executives, the proposed reform should therefore be viewed through the entire solid-wood chain.

If the Working-Forest Zone improves economically viable timber access, sawmills may be able to run more consistently.

If sawmills run more consistently, they generate:

chips;

sawdust;

bark;

and other residues.

Those residual streams can support:

chemical pulp;

mechanical pulp;

pellets;

bioenergy;

and emerging bioproducts.

This is why the health of a pulp mill cannot be separated from the health of nearby sawmills.

Canfor said exactly this in 2024 when it explained that sawmill closures and curtailments had dramatically reduced chip availability to its pulp operations.

That should be one of the metrics used to judge whether B.C.’s new model works.

Not just:

Did permitting become faster?

But:

Did economically harvested logs increase enough to keep downstream manufacturing supplied?

“More From Every Tree” Requires a Market for Every Part of the Tree

The Province also talks about using the working forest to help B.C. make more value from each tree harvested.

That is the right industrial logic.

A sawlog may become dimensional lumber.

Residual chips may become pulp.

Bark may produce process energy.

Sawdust may go into pellets or engineered products.

Lower-grade fibre may support bioenergy, biocarbon or other bioproducts.

The more integrated the regional industrial system becomes, the more economic value can potentially be recovered from the original harvested tree.

But diversification only works if each material stream has a commercially viable destination.

Calling low-grade wood “biomass” does not create a profitable market for it.

The transportation and processing economics still have to work.

This is especially important for the Multiple-Use Zone, where restoration and wildfire treatments may generate fibre that differs substantially from conventional sawlogs.

The Pilot Areas Will Tell Us More Than the Provincial Announcement

The next important development will come in fall 2026 when B.C. identifies the initial landscapes where it intends to test the three-zone model.

Those candidate areas should be evaluated carefully.

For industry, the key questions will include:

How much timber currently comes from the area?

How far below AAC is actual harvesting?

Which sawmills and pulp facilities depend on that fibre?

How much land moves into each zone?

What happens to existing tenures?

Which permits can genuinely be simplified?

How will First Nations-led plans interact with the zoning framework?

And how will success be measured?

Without baseline numbers, it will be difficult to determine whether a pilot improves anything.

The Province should eventually be able to show not only maps but operational outcomes.

What Would Success Actually Look Like?

A successful Working Forest Landscape Model should probably produce evidence in several areas.

For the forest sector:

less variance between economically available harvest and planned harvest;

shorter and more predictable approval timelines;

greater certainty over future operating areas;

and enough fibre to support efficient processing assets.

For First Nations and communities:

greater participation in planning, stewardship and economic benefits.

For ecological management:

measurable habitat, watershed, restoration and biodiversity outcomes.

For wildfire resilience:

more strategic treatment where appropriate.

Those objectives sometimes reinforce each other.

Sometimes they conflict.

The value of landscape planning is supposed to be that those conflicts are addressed earlier rather than discovered only when an individual cutting permit reaches the approval stage.

Before Mills Put 45 Million m³ Into a Capital Model, Follow the Fibre

For B.C. sawmills, pulp producers, paper mills and prospective bioproduct investors, the Working Forest Landscape Model could become important.

But do not begin with the provincial 45 million m³ figure.

Begin with the mill.

Define its realistic fibre procurement radius.

Then map:

current actual harvest by management area;

AAC versus economically accessible harvest;

planned Working-Forest Zone acreage;

sawmill production within the region;

available residual-chip volumes;

haul distances and delivered fibre costs;

wildfire and insect exposure;

and the permits or planning decisions currently preventing economically viable fibre from moving.

Then ask what the proposed zoning model changes.

If it converts theoretically available wood into predictable, economically delivered fibre, the policy has industrial value.

If the maps change but actual wood flow does not, mills will see little difference.

That is the benchmark B.C.’s forest sector should use.

The Province is trying to replace a system of repeated project-by-project uncertainty with clearer long-term landscape objectives.

That could improve investment confidence.

But a working forest becomes economically meaningful only when wood can move from the landscape through the sawmill and into the next manufacturing process at a cost the market can support.

For B.C.’s pulp and paper sector, the real measure of this reform will therefore not be how many hectares receive a Working-Forest label.

It will be whether mills can finally predict their next decade of fibre more confidently than they can today.

Last Updated on 07/09/2026 by Jota Machinery