There’s no doubt that new Brunswick’s forestry industry was dealt a knockout punch in 2007.

With its profitability solely dependent on the long-gone weakness of the Canadian dollar against the U.S. greenback, the industry has been decimated. Instead of updating old technology and improving efficiency, mill owners, large and small, have gambled away the province’s largest industry while the world has kept pace.

Most of New Brunswick’s mills are now closed, enrolment in the province’s world-renowned university and college forestry programs has been cut in half and workers are moving to the Alberta oilsands in droves. Let’s face it: the traditional model for forestry production in New Brunswick is near death.

But all is not lost. The pendulum is swinging the other way, sweeping significant capital into a number of new, emerging, world-class industries that are putting the province on the verge of a new economic paradigm.

As with Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, the big push is into energy — green or otherwise. The only thing is that New Brunswick, unlike these other two provinces, has no oil or natural gas to speak of. What it does have, however, is a strategic piece of land smack dab in the middle of a necessary route to the U.S.’s eastern seaboard. So, it’s no surprise to hear Liberal Premier Shawn Graham mention plans to turn New Brunswick into “the energy hub of Atlantic Canada” and a destination for the transformation and transportation of oil and gas products.

The Irving family’s new Canaport LNG state-of-the-art liquefied natural gas receiving and regassification plant off the Bay of Fundy — not to mention additional plans to spend billions on a second oil refinery — seems like a perfect fit. But it doesn’t do much to meet the global demand for cleaner energy.

So, where’s the green? (I mean that both ways.) If you spend any time listening to the power-brokers in New Brunswick, it’s in adding value to existing products and creating a new, cleaner energy-producing industry. Consider Atlantic Hydrogen Inc. in Fredericton. Backed by the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation and a host of venture-capital firms, the company is in the process of commercializing a unique process that removes carbon from natural gas, leaving it in a solid state rather than a gaseous one. This could potentially add significant value to the gas that is passing through the province. And as the world races to slow down global warming, Atlantic Hydrogen is a company to watch.

Then, there’s all the talk about wind farming, tidal generation and ethanol made from trees — all of which have yet to make any real progress. Maybe some of the 30 million raindrops that fell from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s recent $1-billion community-aid cloud can go toward leveraging the funds needed to germinate some real money-making energy opportunities — instead of more studies. Anything would be better than prolonging the demise of the existing forestry industry.

But handing out money and tax incentives to global companies that will come in and resume “business as usual” practices is a bad deal. Instead, we should look at companies such as India-based AV Byrla Group: three years ago, the firm took over a paper mill in the small town of Nackawic, N.B., which was devastated when its former owner closed up and took the employees’ pensions with it.

Armed with fresh capital, Byrla put the mill back in commission, making pulp for paper while simultaneously preparing to switch the mill to a new pulp used to make rayon fabric. The plant now sells 100% of its output.

So, if New Brunswick wants to reach its goal of getting off equalization by 2025, putting money into innovation is its best bet. IE