The B.C. Liberal government has established a committee to examine how the province can benefit from the burgeoning bio-economy.
Independent member of the legislative assembly, Bob Simpson, Cariboo North, a longtime proponent of the bio-economy, is a member of the committee and sees only an upside for communities like Quesnel.
“The work of this committee will be critical to positioning B.C. rural communities at the forefront of this emerging shift in the global economy,” Simpson said.
Bio-economy is a relatively new avenue of forest and agricultural exploitation. It involves the conversion of biomass into energy, chemicals and materials, potentially including pharmaceuticals, non-toxic food additives and light-weight plastics.
“Bio-economy presents an opportunity to create the next generation of forest products and will allow us to extract the maximum value from every tree,” Jobs, Toursim and Innovation Minister, Pat Bell said.
“This presents huge opportunities for our forest sector and rural B.C. communities.”
This is all music to the ears of city of Quesnel mayor, Mary Sjostrom.
“We’re always looking to diversify our economic base,” Sjostrom said of the city’s tax base that includes 59 per cent of tax revenue from the forest industry.
Growth of the bio-economy is being spurred by an increase in the demand for products that are sustainable and come from natural renewable resources, the government press release said.
Ultimately, the goal of the committee is to explore how best to align the forest and agricultural industries within the bio-economy to solidify B.C.’s position in the the developing market.
“This work builds on the province’s well-established commitment around climate action and takes us to the next step – leveraging our environmental successes into a growing industry that will create jobs in B.C.,” Richmond-Steveston MLA, Parliamentary Secretary for Clean Technology and chair of the bio-economy committee John Yap said.
In their report, The Bioeconomy to 2030: designing a policy agenda, The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimated the bio-economy could contribute as much as 2.7 per cent of gross domestic product by 2030.
A report by the Forest Products Association of Canada, estimated the bio-economy to be worth trillions of dollars and as such has the potential for significant impact on future prosperity.
Released in February, the FPAC report The New Face of the Canadian Forest Industry: the Emerging Bio-Revolution, presents scenarios on how the Canadian forest products industry is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the new bio-economy and benefit from a potential global market of around $200 billion for bio-energy, bio-chemicals and bio-materials that can be extracted from trees by 2015.