A Reserve Army of Timber: The Racialised Regime of Private Forest Lands in British Columbia

Abstract This article tells the story of how a massive belt of private forest land located on the eastern seaboard of Vancouver Island has functioned as a “reserve army” of timber that private capital has drawn on when they have found themselves increasingly constrained in their operations on Crown land. Crucially, this reserve army of trees was, and still is, constituted through a racialised regime of property ownership initiated by 19 th century land grants to the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway Company. The article details how the exceptionality of private forest lands has enabled an extractive forestry regime in which Indigenous nations have struggled to protect their rights and title in a context where private tenure reigns supreme.