(Submitted photo/National Institute of Forestry)

By Dawson Thompson

Forest Week

Saskatchewan celebrates forestry by bringing awareness to the many industries it impacts

Sep 20, 2021 | 4:00 PM

The Government of Saskatchewan recently announced September 19-25 as National Forest Week. The week highlights the important role that provincial forests play, both is terms of the economy and environmental sustainability.

The theme for the event this year is ‘our forests’ and ‘continually giving.’

“It is all about highlighting renewal, and opportunity,” Bronwyn Eyre, minister of energy and resources in Saskatchewan told paNOW. “Forested land covers 34 million hectares in Saskatchewan. The forestry sector plays a key role economically and environmentally.”

Forestry is northern Saskatchewan’s largest sector, supporting 8,000 jobs and hundreds of businesses. In 2020, the industry produced more than $1.1 billion in sales, an increase of nearly 30 per cent compared to the previous year.

“In recent weeks we announced some major mill re-openings, expansions, and timber allocations for those mills,” Eyre said. “This is very good news on the economic front as well.”

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Earlier this month, timber allocations were awarded to four facilities in northern Saskatchewan, including One Sky Forest Products, which is set to build a new Oriented Strand Board mill in Prince Albert. The project, which also features significant equity investment by Indigenous communities, is expected to create over 700 jobs in northern Saskatchewan.

Another provincial timber allocation will support the reopening of the Paper Excellence pulp mill in Prince Albert, which is expected to create over 1,650 jobs and also enhance Indigenous economic and labour development opportunities.

Other allocations support the expansion of the Dunkley Lumber sawmill in Carrot River and increased production at the Carrier Forest Products sawmill in Big River.

“These new announcements that we made on mill re-openings, expansions, and timber allocations will create over 2,000 more jobs, and there will be more production,” Eyre said. “This will help us reach our goal of doubling the forest sector by 2030.

“While a lot of the direct benefits are to the north and in First Nations communities, it is a very important sector to our province as a whole.”

Every spring, approximately seven million trees are planted in Saskatchewan.

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Dawson.thompson@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @dawsonthompson8