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Forest carbon loss as a result of production from wood chip mills

Defunct wood chip exporting facility in North Vancouver

Woodchips are an inevitable by-product of BC’s logging/milling industry. While the industry characterizes chip production as “close utilization” of the resource, wood chips are just another way of wasting a living forest and turning stored carbon into atmospheric carbon. Since 80 percent of BC’s cut is destined for export, 80 percent of the production of wood chips arises from the industry catering to markets in other countries. The emissions listed below are based on the mills’ annual production capacity as recorded by the ministry of forests in its Major Mill Survey. All of the volume and associated emissions for wood chip mills are also counted under pulp and paper mills, which are the main end user of wood chips in BC.