The main advantage that I think is of interest to this committee is that when we take the economic value or cost of different harvesting approaches—clear-cut harvesting and partial cutting—and combine that with the costs of the different greenhouse gas emissions that will result depending on which way you do things, it becomes apparent that at least in some of the forests that we've been studying, when you combine the carbon part with the economic part of the value of the timber, partial cutting is a better deal.
Traditionally—at least in B.C., and I think in many other provinces—we have been focusing on clear-cut harvesting because it's the most economical, and in some cases it's been safer, although we've been able to address some of those safety issues as well. This research indicates that when you look at the carbon cost of clear-cut harvesting, it becomes very expensive. Partial-cut harvesting provides us with one of the tools that we can use to both get economic value from the forest in our traditional way and also somewhat reduce the carbon emissions that result and promote the ability of the forest to capture carbon.