All mountain caribou in Canada are nationally designated as ‘threatened’. Threatened status means that action is required to improve caribou survival in order to avoid extinction . In 1996, British Columbia signed the National Accord for Protection of Species at Risk. That agreement obliged the province to act to protect species at risk and their habitats, and to develop recovery plans for nationally designated species.
Nevertheless, the number of mountain caribou in the province declined by 17 percent between the years 1996 and 2002. Experts anticipate further declines and local extinctions over time. Clearly, the survival of mountain caribou in BC is an issue of significant public interest.
Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) are an important forest resource in British Columbia, with the potential to make a significant economic contribution to small, resource-based communities. Non-timber forest products, also known as non-wood forest products and botanical forest products, include all the human-exploited uses of plant and fungal species of the forest, other than timber, pulpwood, shakes or other wood products. Rough estimates from 1997 placed the value of this resource at $680 million in provincial revenues and the sector has likely grown since then.
The harvest of NTFPs is currently unregulated in BC and this creates a whole range of issues, from lack of government revenue, to potential over-harvesting of the resource, to infringement of aboriginal rights and First Nations’ traditional use of NTFPs.
This special report provides the public with a picture of the British Columbia government’s progress in planning and implementation for biodiversity in provincial forests since the Forest Practices Code (the Code) came into effect in 1995.
Biological diversity or ‘biodiversity’ is a concept that has become a key issue in the management of British Columbia’s forests in the last two decades. Internationally, Canada has made commitments to conserve biodiversity under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. Conservation of biodiversity on British Columbia’s forested landbase occurs at several levels. At the highest level, the Crown forest landbase is divided into protected areas, inoperable forest, areas where timber harvesting is constrained, such as riparian reserves, and the timber harvesting landbase. Protected areas alone are not enough to conserve biodiversity across the landscape, so the Forest Practices Code applied measures to conserve biodiversity to the remaining forest landbase.
This bulletin is the third in a series of Forest Practices Board bulletins describing new aspects of forest legislation, practices and trends, and their implications for forest stewardship. These bulletins are intended to foster discussion and to improve understanding of forest practices. This bulletin addresses the public’s opportunity to review and comment on proposed forestry developments under the Forest and Range Practices Act.
British Columbia prides itself on its program of reforestation. The public expects that sustainable new forests will replace the approximately 5,000 cutblocks harvested each year. Timely establishment of new trees is necessary to meet public expectations for future timber supply, biodiversity and watershed recovery.
After logging an area, forest companies must create a “free-growing” new forest of appropriate tree species and the desired number of trees within a defined time period. Many cutblocks logged in the late 1980s and early 1990s should now be re-established with free-growing stands of new trees.
