ABSTRACT
The biggest forest products company in British Columbia (BC), a Canadian province that depended heavily on forestry for both employment and revenue, MacMillan Bloedel had come under heavy fire from many sides. Environmentalists filled the media with negative publicity about MacMillan Bloedel's practice of clear-cut logging old-growth forests and organised boycotts on company products. An industry of growing importance, tourism, was also against clear-cutting: ugly bald clear-cut patches on mountainsides destroyed 'viewscapes' along the 'inside passage' to Alaska, the route travelled by a large number of cruise ships. Native land claims also created an element of uncertainty for BC forest companies. Environmentalists favoured the Forest Stewardship Council scheme, of which European furniture giant IKEA was a founding member. The Forest Stewardship Council had not yet developed criteria for certification of forestry in BC, but indications of what would be required could be identified based on criteria already established in other forest ecosystems.
