Big bucks in boreal.

Hard-hit forestry communities now have a practical how-to guide to diversify the industry by going beyond the traditional harvesting of trees into lumber.

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Three Sault Ste. Marie forestry researchers have taken their collected years of expertise in studying non-timber forest products and the emerging global bio-economy and fashioned it into a new groundbreaking book.

"Bioproducts From Canada's Forests: New Partnerships in the Bioeconomy," co-authored by Suzanne Wetzel, Luc Duchesne and Michael Laporte, urges forestry professionals, entrepreneurs, and policy makers to take stock of the underutilized wood fibre and natural products in the North and maximize the beneficial uses of these assets.

Wetzel, a federal researcher at the Great Lakes Forestry Centre, says the 257-page book scheduled to hit the store shelves in mid-October is already creating a buzz.

"Compared to any other (scientific) paper I've written, I've never received so much attention," says Wetzel, who specializes in tree physiology. Of the 100 advance copies received from Springer, she's distributed 75 books to interested individuals.

The book provides a comprehensive treatment of Canada's biggest natural asset by pulling together much of existing scientific research work and forecasts the economic potential of creating a new $100 billion home-grown and harvested market in forest bio-products.

"It stimulates your thinking past the traditional timber and how we can diversify and what the potential markets might be," says Wetzel.

The book is at the leading edge of a growing national dialog to help diversify the struggling forestry into a multi-dimensional sector using as many as 500 types of plants, microbes and wildlife species used commercially today.

The publication was inspired by Wetzel's husband, Luc Duchesne, a former Canadian Forest Service (CFS) researcher and a leading expert on non-timber forest products. He left the public sector to champion this new economy through his own Sault-based consulting company.

Both felt it was time to move beyond writing scientific papers read only by a handful of academics and reach a broader audience with something more practical and rewarding.

Published by Springer of New York, the book covers the gamut of Canadian bioproducts used in biofuels, bioenergy ventures over to smaller scale non-timber forest products in foods, nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals. The market value of these forest commodities is also estimated.

Food forest products alone, maple syrup, mushrooms, wild rice, berries--already contributes between $725 million to $1.33 billion to Canada's economy. The market for aesthetic and decorative products, such as Christmas trees, wreaths and birch bark, is roughly $175 million.

They also provide case studies including a successful non-timber forest products co-op in northern Manitoba, the Northern Forest Diversification Centre that employs more than 350 harvesters in 25 communities and has developed a catalog of wild crafts, floral supplies, wild foods and medicinal products from the boreal forest.

Non-timber forest products could add $20,000 to $30,000 to an average household income," says Wetzel. "If there's a future for some towns, coming up with a nutraceutical company producing dried blueberries for anti-oxidants and putting them into the market is where the future is."

Wetzel has high hopes the book will offer some creative thinking among government policy makers.

To properly develop a thriving and sustainable bioeconomy, she says government incentives, such as tax breaks for start-up businesses, are necessary to help leverage private dollars and bringing new green technologies from prototypes into commercialization stage.

"The government's incentive would be the tipping point to get the investment going."

Wetzel says Northern Ontario's "biggest ticket" item is the development of bioenergy from unmarketable tree species like white birch or poplar, an initiative that would move the region toward energy independence. "That's the biggest bang for your buck right now."

She forecasts future feed stock for the chemical industry will come from forest biomass, not petroleum-based sources. "I think there's going to be new gold rush for tree resources and I think it's really important that the North understands it's up to us to hold onto it first."

By IAN ROSS

Northern Ontario Business