Industry Update spoke with members working
in forestry to gain their insights into the
challenges and trends they ’re seeing in
forestry. Recently, Industry Update spoke with
Brian Baarda, CPA, CMA, chief operating officer
with TimberWest, Dan Buckle, CPA, CA, finance
director and corporate secretary of Fortress
Paper, and Lisa Michie,
CPA, CGA ,
finance
and planning manager, Canadian Timberlands,
Weyerhaeuser Company Limited.
Can you give a brief overview of your
organization and your role within it?
Baarda: TimberWest is the largest private timberland
company in Western Canada. The company owns
325,000 hectares of managed forest, and holds annual
harvest rights to 600,000 cubic metres of public forest. At
TimberWest, I oversee the safe and environmentally sound
harvesting of the forest in order to meet the long-term
financial objectives of our two shareholders: the British
Columbia Investment Management Corporation and the
Public Sector Pension Investment Board.
Buckle: Fortress Paper is an international company,
headquartered in North Vancouver, that currently
produces dissolving pulp, banknote, and other security
papers. Our dissolving pulp division, located in Thurso,
Quebec, produces dissolving pulp mainly for rayon/viscose
producers for clothing and other applications. Our security
papers division, located in Landqart, Switzerland, produces
banknote, passport, visa, and other security papers. As
finance director and corporate secretary, I’m involved
in all financial areas of the company, including financial
reporting, acquisitions and divestitures, financings, and
company strategy.
Michie: Weyerhaeuser is one of the world’s largest
private owners of timberlands, primarily in the US. The
company is a Real Estate Investment Trust, headquartered
in Washington, and has multiple business segments
including Timberlands, Wood Products, and Cellulose
Fibers. In Canada, Weyerhaeuser Company Limited (a
wholly owned subsidiary of Weyerhaeuser Company),
manages timberlands under long-term licenses that
provide raw material for our eight manufacturing facilities
in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario. Based in the
Interior, I am the finance and planning manager for the
Canadian timberlands organization, which is accountable
for the financial statements relating to the logs and chips
that are delivered to our facilities. My group also works
closely with our timberlands operations managers in
forecasting, budgeting, and business strategies.
The forestry industry faces a number
of environmental challenges from
sustaining forestry stock to pest
infestations (like the mountain pine
beetle) to climate change. How has your
company dealt with these challenges?
Michie: The mountain pine beetle is an issue we have
dealt with in British Columbia and now Alberta. To help
contain the infestation we focused on affected areas and
made sure to harvest and manufacture the contaminated
affected trees as quickly as possible. This helps prevent
the beetle’s spread and allows us to use the timber
before it degrades to the point where it is not suitable to
manufacture lumber. We had to be responsive and move
to different areas f