This is the Board’s report on the area-based audit of government’s enforcement of the Forest Practices Code of British Columbia Act and related regulations (the Code), and forest planning and practices in the eastern portion of the South Island Forest District.

This report deals with a complaint that the amount of harvesting in a forest development plan (FDP) was insufficient to meet the requirements of the Forest Practices Code of British Columbia Act and its regulations (the Code). On February 13, 2002, a resident of Ucluelet (the complainant) submitted a complaint to the Forest Practices Board. The complainant asserted that a company's 2001-2005 FDP did not meet the requirements of the Code. Specifically:

1. the FDP did not propose five years' worth of timber harvesting as required by the Code;
2. the licensee did not address the comments that the complainant had provided during the public review and comment period; and
3. the statutory decision-makers did not give adequate consideration to social and economic factors when approving the plan.

The Carmanah Forestry Society submitted a complaint to the Forest Practices Board on February 27, 2001, about the 2000-2004 forest development plan (FDP) for the Cowichan operating area under the South Island Forest District Small Business Forest Enterprise Program (SBFEP). On March 22, 2001, the Sierra Club of British Columbia (Sierra Club) asked the Board to pursue an administrative review of the same FDP. The Board declined that request, but decided to investigate the Sierra Club's concerns as part of this complaint investigation. The Board also received a complaint from Shawnigan Lake Watershed Watch in May 2001, part of which concerned a similar issue. The Board decided to include the relevant part of that complaint in this investigation.

In 2000, a member of the Sierra Club of British Columbia examined a forest development plan (FDP) that he had reviewed a year before during the public review and comment period. It was International Forest Products' (the licensee's) 1999-2003 FDP for Tree Farm Licence 45 at the head of Knight Inlet, 175 kilometres northwest of Vancouver.

The FDP and its maps were different from what the member had reviewed in 1999. Information related to wildlife habitats and other biological resources had been removed from the FDP, apparently after the public review process was finished.

The Sierra Club filed a complaint with the Forest Practices Board because it believed that: removing the information after the end of the public review and comment period reduced the value of public review of the FDP; the information that was removed had been known to the licensee and government for many years, so it was not appropriate for a district manager to require its removal; the FDP should not have been approved because several cutblocks were proposed within sensitive areas, as indicated by the removed information; and the district manager should have obtained comments from the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks before approving the FDP.

Shawnigan Lake Watershed Watch, an organization made up of local residents, complained to the Forest Practices Board about the management of the water resource in the watershed. The organization is concerned that forest development on private lands in the Shawnigan Lake watershed, located in the South Island Forest District, is not being adequately considered before harvesting is approved on Crown land.