Audit of District Manager Obligations on Forest Service Roads in the Skeena Stikine Forest District
As part of its 2008 compliance audit program, the Forest Practices Board randomly selected the Skeena Stikine Forest District as the location of a limited scope compliance audit. The Board chose to conduct an audit with a focus on forest service roads (FSRs) that are solely the responsibility of the Ministry of Forest and Range’s (MFR’s) district manager, as well as riparian area management and fish passage at fish stream crossings along these FSRs. After initiating the audit, it was determined that the district manager was solely responsible for only wilderness FSRs within the audit area.
An FSR is a road, including bridges and major culverts, built and/or maintained by the MFR. The FSRs that are solely the responsibility of the district manager are not normally assessed in Board audits of forest companies or of British Columbia Timber Sales.
Audit: DM’s Obligations on FSRs in the Skeena Stikine Forest District
Fish Passage at Stream Crossings
This Forest Practices Board report presents the results of an investigation of fish passage at stream crossings in 19 watersheds in the central and northern interior and on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. In total, 1,159 crossings of fish-bearing streams were examined. Each watershed had a mix of crossings built before the implementation of the 1995 Forest Practices Code of British Columbia Act (the Code), after the implementation of the Code, and also after the replacement of the Code with the 2002 Forest and Range Practices Act.
The number of stream crossings within British Columbia is constantly increasing due to new road development. Government estimates that there are approximately 370,000 stream crossings in the province, of which about 76,000 are culverts on fish streams (BC MOE, 2008). For this reason, fish stream crossings may be the single most important habitat impact affecting fish.
There have been numerous studies of stream crossings in the province. Nearly all of these studies have focused on fish passage through closed bottom structures (CBS). However, watersheds also contain a variety of other crossing types, including open bottom structures (OBS) such as bridges, log culverts, arch culverts, and open box structures. This study is the first to examine fish passage in context: on a watershed scale, in a large number of watersheds, reporting on the overall fish passage through road crossings.
Fish Passage at Stream Crossings
Burns Lake Community Forest Ltd. – Community Forest Agreement K1A
Audit of Forest Planning and Practices: Burns Lake Community Forest Ltd. – Community Forest Agreement K1A
An audit of the Burns Lake Community Forest in the Nadina Forest District has determined that the operation complied with forest practices legislation. The audit found generally good practices on the ground, but identified four cutblocks with excessive soil disturbance.
Compliance Inspections and Management
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.
Compliance Inspections and Management
High Retention Harvesting and Timber Sustainability on the British Columbia Coast
Originally published in 2008, this report was revised and re-published in January 2009. Revisions were made to correct data errors and to clarify the Board’s views on the findings of the investigation. The conclusions and recommendations in the original report did not change.
This investigation examines the sustainability of timber supply in areas with high retention harvesting on the Queen Charlotte Islands and the central and northern B.C. coast, by assessing post-harvest stand structure and condition in recent cutblocks. The investigation found high-grading of cedar and some spruce trees—selectively removing the valuable cedar and spruce trees, leaving behind mainly old rotting hemlock trees spread across the cutblock. The investigation also found that important social and environmental values such as viewscapes and biodiversity, often cited as the reason for using this method, were protected.
