For decades, B.C. loggers have been among the best timber fallers in the world, but now they’re taking their hard-earned skills underwater.
Last month, Triton Logging Inc. signed what could be the world’s largest underwater logging concession agreement in Ghana.
The Victoria-based company plans to cash in on tropical timber from lost, underwater forests with an agreement that gives it access to 1,400 square miles of Ghana’s Volta Lake reservoir.
“That’s kind of the icing on the cake,” Triton president and CEO Peter Keyes said of the agreement. “It’s the ability for us to go into an operational phase with that, and we’re very excited.”
The company’s proprietary SHARC Underwater Harvester is already en route to the African country where it will begin scouring the lake bottom for forgotten trees early this year.
As bizarre as it might sound, Keyes said underwater timber harvesting is a sector with a bright future.
Not only do the trees remain preserved in fresh water, but also Ghana’s hardwood fibre basket above ground has been steadily shrinking.
That means the supply base is declining while demand for tropical hardwoods in everything from construction materials to household items has increased.
“In the mid-1990s [Ghana was] harvesting three million cubic metres per year and in 2010 about 750,000 cubic metres, we think we’re providing that resource at a time when they need it,” said Keyes.
He added that China’s demand for tropical hardwood products has also increased.
But are there enough underwater forests to sustain a company?
Triton estimates there are 300 million trees submerged worldwide.
“We believe that there are many, many reservoirs around the world, and we believe the resource is available for us … gosh, we think the world is our oyster.”
And Triton isn’t the only B.C.-based timber company that’s seen the underwater opportunities.
Outfits such as Vancouver’s Coast Eco Timber Inc., Castlegar’s Underwater Logging Ltd. (UWL) and Bluewater Technology Corp. in Victoria are all focused on extracting submerged timber.
UWL owner Frank Marks got into the business 16 years ago after a conversation with some friends about “what a person could do that not everybody else could do.”
These days, the two-man operation uses side-scan sonar technology to salvage 50 to 60 cubic metres of logs per day above the Hugh Keenleyside Dam.
UWL doesn’t extract high-value tropical hardwoods like Triton, but the B.C. timber it does pull is promptly sold to nearby saw and pulp mills.
Marks said a salvage operation that focuses solely on B.C. timber is unlikely to become very large because the wood doesn’t command the same values as hardwood.
That said, he’s not likely to go out of business either.
“We’ve been very fortunate because … we didn’t have very far to deliver our wood, and when one went [mill] went down for a shutdown the other was going,” Marks said. “It’s the type of business we could shut down for a year and come back and start working … because the market is always there for us.”
But one business that doesn’t plan on taking any breaks is Coast Eco Timber.
In fact, 35-year-old president Alana Husby is in the midst of creating a new forest industry in Latin America.
“We’re extracting from the Panama Canal and working with the local government authorities down there to do things properly,” Husby told Business in Vancouver.
She said the company has invested some $260,000 into Panama’s underwater jungles and thus far processed roughly $350,000 worth of product.
Coast handpicks exotic woods such as Brazilian Teak, Espave and Zapatero from the canal and has them shipped back to B.C. where they’re turned into everything from furniture to flooring.
Husby, an energetic fifth-generation B.C. logger, employs some 20 to 30 people in Panama and has made sure her timber tenure there is Forest Stewardship Council certified in an effort to protect the environment.
But beneath her sustainable focus, Husby is as convinced as Triton and UWL that underwater logging is a long-term business.
“We hope to just kick ass, and I’m really hoping it works.”