As part of COFI's community relations program BC WoodWORKS! Director, Mary Tracey, and COFI Markets and Trade Director, Paul Newman visited various communities during November.

Mary started in Fort St. James at a Community Luncheon, then stopped in Prince George to speak to the Downtown Rotary Club and concluded her tour in Smithers at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon.

In all three COFI communities Mary's message was to encourage designers and architects to embrace wood as a building material. She told audiences that there needs to be more of a "wood culture" in BC by making wood the number one choice for building. Mary is pleased the media center for the 2010 Olympic Games is designed to incorporate wood, even some beetle killed wood or "denim pine" as it is commonly referred to. She says municipalities have also begun to use more wood when constructing new community buildings such as recreational facilities and town halls. Mary says the most significant aspect to using wood is its environmental qualities because it is the renewable building resource.

The environmental qualities of wood were also highlighted by Paul Newman in his presentations later in the month in Houston, Chetwynd and Quesnel. Paul focused on the efforts by the BC industry and government to develop new markets in China. He began each presentation with a brief overview of the emerging Chinese market and talked about the social and economic changes currently underway.

Paul pointed out that there is more building going on in Beijing, a province of 20 million people, than in all of Europe. China consumes 55% of the world's concrete and 36% of the world's steel.

Paul believes the key for BC wood producers in this part of the world is to not just think "lumber and wood products sales". Instead, he urges BC forest companies to think "building homes" and to work with Chinese companies to establish supply chains and partnerships. He adds Canada can also help China achieve its energy conservation goals by continuing to encourage more use of wood because it takes far less energy to produce wood products than either concrete or steel.

Both speakers were well received in the communities they visited. The COFI speakers Tour is part of the association's commitment to serve the forest industry information needs of its communities along with the Community Dinners and Forest Education programs. These programs along with efforts by member companies in each community ensure that people in COFI communities are always current about the key issues and challenges facing BC's number one industry.

For more information contact: Doug Routledge by e-mail: routledge@cofi.org or by phone: (250) 564-5136.