Flexible crossroads : the restructuring of British Columbia's forest economy / Roger Hayter.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hayter, Roger, 1947-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Forests and forestry--Economic aspects--British Columbia.

Forests and forestry.

Forest policy--British Columbia.

Forest policy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (449 pages) : illustrations, maps

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Vancouver : UBC Press, c2000.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Front Matter

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Acronyms

Global and Historical Perspective

Global Industrial Transformation, Resource Peripheries, and the Canadian Model

Life on the Geographic Margin: The Evolution of British Columbia's Forest Economy from the 1880s to the 1970s

Booms, Busts, and Forest Reregulation in an Age of Flexibility

The Anatomy of Change

MacMillan Bloedel: Corporate Restructuring and the Search for Flexible Mass Production

Foreign Direct Investment: Help or Hindrance?

Small Firms: Towards Flexible Specialization in BC's Forest Economy

Trade Patterns and Conflicts: Continentalism Challenged by the Pacific

Employment and the Contested Shift to Flexibility

The Diversification of Forest-Based Communities: Local Development as an Unruly Process

Environmentalism and the Reregulation of British Columbia's Forests

The BC Forest-Product Innovation System and the (Frustrating) Search for a Knowledge-Based Culture

The BC Forest Economy as a Local Model

References

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. [405]-420) and index.

ISBN:

1-283-11184-5

9786613111845

0-7748-5207-0

OCLC:

180703931