Flexible Crossroads: The Restructuring of British Columbia’s Forest Economy

British Columbia’s forest economy is at a crucial crossroads. Its survival, Roger Hayter argues, rests on its ability to remain flexible and open to innovation — a future by no means assured given recent policy initiatives and the current contested nature of British Columbia’s forests. Flexible Crossroads looks at the contemporary restructuring of British Columbia’s forest economy, demonstrating how both resource dynamics — the transition from old growth to managed forests — and industrial dynamics — changing technology and global market forces — have shaped this transformation. Conceptually, the restructuring is portrayed as a shift from a commodity-based, cost-minimizing production system (Fordism) to a more product-differentiated, value-maximizing production system informed by the imperative of flexibility. The first part of the book provides global and historical perspectives by situating British Columbia’s forest economy within the wider context of global industrialization, the history of resource dynamics, and the current shift from Fordist to more flexible systems of production. In the second part, Hayter assesses the extent to which British Columbia’s forest economy is enacting this shift by focusing on factors such as foreign ownership, the strategies and structure of MacMillan Bloedel, the role of small firms, trade relations, employment and labour relations, forest community development, environmentalism and resource use, and innovation policy. Flexible Crossroads will appeal to geographers, political economists and forestry professionals, as well as to students of British Columbia’s economy and forest economies generally.