Forestry

Higher lumber prices are helping Atikokan Forest Products stabilize operations after a long period of hardship, but company officials are worried that a bigger hardship may still lie ahead.

Consumer, retail and now government demands for certified wood have convinced a northeastern Ontario forest licence holder to go green. The Sustainable Forest Licence holders harvesting wood fibre on Crown forests north and east of Sault Ste.

Alex Welch and his son Curtis of New Liskeard would have gone bankrupt if they had been making payments on their logging equipment during a recent work stoppage in the Temagami forest. Luckily, they weren’t. But, Welch is not sure about next time.

A massive land-use planning study is underway to open up vast expanses of virgin wilderness in Ontario’s far North to commercial forestry within the next decade.

To Henry Wetelainen, value-added forestry begins in the bush at the harvesting site. The president of the Ontario Métis and Aboriginal Association Development Corp.

Like a bottle of spirits stashed away for a special occasion, so is Iroquois Falls’ Ed Pedskalny’s plan for a distillery. On the outside, it seems a simple plan.

Tembec has completed its deal to purchase the Weyerhaeuser sawmill in Chapleau for $26 million (Cdn), including certain elements of working capital.

A new Temagami birch mill should not be affected by a provincially imposed area-logging ban that has been in place since last winter.

In a risky move to create greater market share, Peter Moore, president of The Wilderness Group in Wawa, took over competitor Broland Enterprise in 2000 - a decision that led the company’s revenues to increase 200 per cent between 2000 and 2003.

So-called “power-retailers” such as Wal-Mart, Lowe’s and Home Hardware are proving to be major drivers in the forest-products industry worldwide, and are expected to continue to be a powerful driver for at least the coming decade.