There is a new, alternative source of news available online, The Federationist; this is definitely not your mainstream news source. However, they do publish interesting news. Today I found a posting about the impact that raw log exports have on the BC economy. Here is an excerpt from that posting:

BC’s steadily-rising levels of raw-log exports are contributing to forest-industry job loss in a number of ways.

The impact of log exports on jobs has contributed to the loss of over 35,000 forest-sector jobs since 2001. Over that  same period raw-log exports of nearly doubled, from 2.9 cubic meters to over 5.5 million.

Log exports kill jobs by eliminating manufacturing opportunities. Some 16 percent of all the logs exported in 2011  were high-value Douglas fir logs, the kinds that were supposed to support a new generation of BC sawmills like  Western Forest Products New Westminister sawmill. The mill was specifically designed to handle smaller-dimension  second-growth Douglas fir, yet it closed in 2007.

To read more about the raw log export issue visit The Federationist.