The Ministry of Forests and Range's enforcement of small scale salvage practices was found to be appropriate. However, two areas of potentially serious weakness were identified—the district only assessed risk on about 23 percent of licences audited and enforcement staff only conducted inspections on about 10 percent of licenses that were active during the audit period.

In April 2007, a group of snowmobilers from the Valemount area asked the board to investigate whether it was appropriate to use section 58 of the Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA) to close local areas to snowmobile access. The complainant believes that the closures benefit the commercial heli‐skiing industry and that this is not the intended use of the legislation.

The Ministry of Forests and Range (MFR) Compliance and Enforcement (C&E) program is responsible for promoting compliance with, and ensuring enforcement of, the province’s forest legislation. Conducting inspections to determine licensee compliance is a key activity of this program, and is the ministry’s primary source of information to assess compliance.

This investigation examines, at the district level, the number of compliance and enforcement (C&E) inspections completed in 2005 and 2006, and the range of alleged non-compliances identified in inspection reports for six forest districts: North Coast and Campbell River in the Coast Region; Skeena-Stikine and Fort Nelson in the Northern Interior Region; and Kamloops and Chilcotin in the Southern Interior Region.

In September 2007, the Board conducted a compliance audit of forest planning and practices of the British Columbia Timber Sales (BCTS) program and timber sale licence holders, in the Kamloops Business Area’s Clearwater Field Unit, located in the Headwaters Forest District.The audit assessed the planning, activities and obligations of the BCTS program and its timber sale licence holders.