In Search of Sustainability

The pace, nature, and scope of change in B.C. forest policy over the last decade has attracted unprecedented scholarly and public attention. This book provides a substantial, timely, and comprehensive assessment of this rapid evolution. It will be read with keen interest by a variety of audiences and play a key role in framing the ongoing debate over the limits and potential of public policy to promote sustainable forestry. -- Chris Tollefson, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria, editor of The Wealth of Forests: Markets, Regulation, and Sustainable Forestry (UBC Press 1998) If you want a book that goes beyond simple description and keenly analyzes factors that shaped forest policy in BC in the 1990s and will continue to shape policy in this area well into the future, then you owe a debt to the authors of In Search of Sustainability. These authors not only accomplish this goal, but they do it in a straightforward and readable manner. -- Lori Poloni-Staudinger, Indiana University

A provocative, sobering examination of British Columbia's forest industry in the 1990s.In recent years, the forests of British Columbia have become a battleground for sustainable resource development. The conflicts are ever present, usually pitting environmentalists against the forest industry and forestry workers and communities. In an effort to broker peace in the woods, British Columbia’s NDP government launched a number of promising new forest policy initiatives in the 1990s. In Search of Sustainability brings together a group of political scientists to examine this extraordinary burst of policy activism. Focusing on how much change has occurred and why, the authors examine seven components of BC forest policy: land use, forest practices, tenure, Aboriginal issues, timber supply, pricing, and jobs.