The Teal Jones forest company has shut down its second-growth logging operations in Honeymoon Bay, impacting dozens of local contract loggers. The Surrey-based company blamed the indefinite shut down on high stumpage rates, which are what the province charges companies to harvest timber on Crown land. Teal Jones CFO Haniff Karmally said stumpage fees are currently well in excess of what would be an economic rate for a second-growth harvesting operation focused on providing logs for domestic saw mills. “These high rates are incurring significant losses for the company, at a time of weak markets for lumber, shakes and shingles in Canada, the U.S. and abroad,” he said. …The impact of the harvesting shut down will result in immediate reductions in logging employment among contractors in Honeymoon Bay, as well as lost mill time and employment at Teal Jones’s mills in Surrey.