A report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) alleges that an increasing portion of British Columbia’s forests is being harvested to produce wood pellets for export to Japan, where they are burned as fuel. The report claims that pellet producers are turning to raw logs instead of scrap wood, raising concerns about the use of primary forest trees for overseas powerplant fuel. Conservationists and the report’s analyst, Ben Parfitt, believe there is not enough scrap wood to meet the demand for wood pellets, and that using valuable primary forest wood for this purpose is unacceptable. The B.C. government and the company operating most of the province’s pellet mills deny the allegations, maintaining that pellets are primarily made from scrap wood.
