What giving the New Brunswick public forest 
to corporations won't deliver:

--more jobs. Across Canada, the forest industry has been cutting more wood each year with fewer workers. Currently, the industry itself says there are too many sawmills and too much mill capacity across North America and plants are being shutdown from coast to coast. That means that even if the industry's plan does generate more wood for big mills, there is little chance it will result in new mills being built in the province. This reality is combined with the threat of closures of existing family-owned mills.

--healthy forests. Tree farms are not forests, as European countries like Finland and Sweden have discovered. These countries have seen dramatic decreases in forest wildlife due to the industry-driven changeover of almost all of their forests to tree plantations. Finland alone now has 692 threatened forest species!

--future opportunities. No new protected areas, wildlife-poor tree plantations, continued clearcutting. Is this the image that New Brunswick wants to send the world? Tourism is one of the world's fastest growing industries, but tourists are not attracted by tree plantations and clearcuts.

--job generating wood businesses. Poor quality, high volume wood is not going to help New Brunswick build new job-rich wood businesses. In fact, smaller mills producing high-quality veneers and other products from natural hardwoods, hemlock, cedar and pine could well be pushed out by tree-farm forestry.

--water and wildlife protection. Cutting into forest buffers around rivers, lakes and streams is a recipe for ruining water quality and fisheries thanks to increased erosion, runoff from cutover areas into rivers and increased water temperatures.

Only big companies will benefit from a plan to increase the flow of wood from public forests to big mills employing fewer and fewer workers. The industry's plan for New Brunswick's forest promises short-term gains for some and long-term pain for all.