° wrong; By HUGH WEATHERBY Correct me ‘if Tm wrong. - Ina recent column, I indicated that . -only a fraction of the revenue collected from: :our forests was ‘used. to. protect and perpetrate : - those ‘forests. I drew. "immediate fire; consult . the annual ul report, I was... told. - Yr The figures show that, in 1977, sevenue amounted. to. and: expenditures were about: $87 © ‘about: £83. millions, * millions. At first I was shocked, for no” journalist — likes to make mistakes, but.a- little thought convinced. me that there” ‘was something the amount of fevenue was too low, far too low, it should have been _ over $300, millions, which would: have put the ex- penditures at around 25 per cent. of revenue, about the ratio IT remembered. ~ Most. tables in the report ’ go back ‘several years, but the one tabling expenditures oo” only the current year, 19 oy found another table, ’ listing “revenues back to 1973, which served. my purpose ‘very well. The ' revenue for that calendar year was — wait for it — _-$245.-millions!:~What-hap- - pened to the: difference. . between perhaps: *,$400 million; . dards, : and: ‘the: $83 ‘millions tabled. in. the Forest Service annual report? . Answers, please. WHY FELL THEM? While I was. studying the report, I came across a couple of other items that I found interesting; we ex- ported several times as many - whole logs as the Forest Act . by. today’s. stan- ' transpose allows. This was readily ' answered by the first forester _I questioned. Nobody here ' would even put in a bid on the logs, mostly No. 3’s. Of course, there still remains . the question | ‘of. why they” _were felled in the first place. The next ‘thing: I found © ‘interesting | was the amount ‘allocated. to. reforestation, a little over “$19 million , to plant 24,500. acres,. which ‘breaks down to, roughly, $800. per acre. This figure ~.- “seems high, but may not be, ' financial . conditions ‘being — what: they are. today. : It. works out to $1. per planted tree. Bear in. mind that this — . figure - covers. nurseries. for. -taising the seedlings, cone ‘gathering ‘or cone orchards, site preparation, ministration. _ ' The annual report a used” to be responsible for it) is confusing, even to an old hand. This may be deliberate. “proached the minister with the. idea of simplifying the report, making. itso clear that anyone ‘could un- derstand . it. He replied, “Hugh, leave the format alone; we don’t, want too many people to understand ° ce BUREA UCRACY The 1977 report has chronological column reading from bottom to top, rather than from top down, the conventional’ way. _Figures are quoted for both fiscal and calendar years, whichever. appears most advantagous to the forest service. And most offensive, ‘the report dodges back and forth between metric and con- ventional measures, such as grams, hectolitres, hectares, etc., which old characters — young ones, too — must into pounds, bushels, acres. Deliberate? I cannot help wondering. ‘dedicated to : petuation of our forests, - and ad-. I once ap- It seems to me that ‘the. forest service, once “the - per- really dedicatéd, has become: simply one more. : the . bureaucracy, _ with. forests existing to perpetuate the bureaucracy. Like ‘markets that once existed to serve the‘people, while now the people are regarded as a * customer supply : for. the supermarkets. ° . NEW WORK: CONCEPT - There are other: things that need” explaining,.- such 3s companies. engaged © ‘forestry, . rather. forest -harvesting and. the manufacture of the _har-. ~ vested | timber, : ‘complaining - . about “their high tax: levels,.. and asking for relief so they can improve their forest practices, while still showing 8 profit in 1978 that is double thatof 1977, I get fed up with the old “If you force us to do so-and-so, Unbeatable YVALUE _ climate. ‘people flock here to build ‘FOREST. DEBRIS ; at’ ¢ Carpenter Lake, near Lillooet. The lake level was. raised. to 7 - provide power, probably for nearby mines; thousands of trees were drowned to create . the debris mess that drifts, wind-driven, back and forth across the surface of the lake. we'll have to lay off : so many men,” This has always sent ‘the government into a hasty retreat. The fact is, we'll always have a surplus labour problem here in — British Columbia, partly due to our Construction mills and plants, and a large Proportion of them remain, a vt thus overcrowding the labor . market. As. .our technology | ad- . vances, : fewer and fewer men will be able to produce. more. and more. The answer is a redividing of the available work, or the undertaking of vast — and viable — public works programs.