VANCOUVER – A Port Alberni forest company with a new engineered wood product that uses one of the world’s most sought-after lumber species – Western Red Cedar – is at the cutting edge of a rebirth of British Columbia’s value-added forestry sector.

Coulson Lumber Manufacturing is taking the best of the best – clear cedar boards – cutting them down to an eighth of an inch in thickness and then laminating them to a plywood core. In the process of making a new product, Coulson has taken a step away from the commodity lumber business that is the staple of the B.C. forest industry and moved into the world of high-valued wood products where esthetics, not price, rules.

“It’s not a commodity. It’s not even for a niche market. It’s a boutique product,” said company president Wayne Coulson. “It’s like the perfect cedar board. You don’t have it shrinking on you and it comes in standard lengths.”

After losing market share to substitutes, the forest sector is back with new products, Coulson said.

“We are starting to compete. We are taking back the market.”

Coulson’s engineered cedar is expected to be one of the highlights at a value-added wood products conference and trade show beginning today at Whistler. The show is attracting global buyers seeking innovation in forestry.

The B.C. value-added wood products sector has gone through a rough half decade, brought on by the collapse of the U.S. housing market, said Brian Hawrysh, chief executive officer of BC Wood, which is sponsoring the Whistler conference. But new products like engineered cedar are leading the sector back to what he believes will be a new era of innovation.

More than 1,000 value-added products are to be showcased this week at the conference, called Global Buyers Mission.

“This speaks to the innovative way industry can adapt to changes in the business and look to new opportunities,” said Hawrysh. He said the Coulson line of engineered wood takes two issues that are afflicting the industry – the declining timber because of the mountain pine beetle, and the dwindling cedar resource – and turns it into a new product.

It’s only one example in an industry that was knocked to its knees during the recession of 2008/09 but is well on the road to recovery, he said.

Hawrysh said B.C. has developed a value-added industry worth $4.8 billion a year and employing 19,000 people by seeking out niche markets for wood products that have global appeal.

Up to 250 buyers from 19 countries will attend this year’s mission, running until Saturday. The conference and trade show will host 80 B.C. companies showing off their wood products.

The mission is sold out, a sign of the developing strength of the value-added sector, Hawrysh said. Engineered cedar will be on display with something as simple as decking for the U.S. market or as detailed as kitchen cabinets for Korea.

Hawrysh said the value-added wood business in B.C. is maturing, following a pattern already established in European countries of developing niche markets.