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Technology & Engineering Forestry

Flexible Crossroads

The Restructuring of British Columbia's Forest Economy

by (author) Roger Hayter

Publisher
UBC Press
Initial publish date
May 2000
Category
Forestry, Environmental Economics
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780774840736
    Publish Date
    Nov 2011
    List Price
    $99.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780774807760
    Publish Date
    Oct 2000
    List Price
    $34.95
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780774807753
    Publish Date
    May 2000
    List Price
    $95.00

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Description

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.

About the author

Awards

  • Short-listed, Harold Adams Innis Prize, Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Contributor Notes

Roger Hayter is Professor of Geography at Simon Fraser University, where he has taught economic geography since 1976. In 1999, he received the Award for Scholarly Distinction from the Canadian Association of Geographers.

Editorial Reviews

Hayter offers a comprehensive and well-written treatise on the economic geography and history of the "forest economy" of British Columbia. He expertly describes the difficult conflicts between logging, jobs, people, indigenous people, and old growth.

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