On June 25, 2002, the Board received a complaint from a rancher who lives south of Quesnel. The complainant owns and leases land on both sides of West Fraser Road.
The complainant’s neighbour (the licensee) holds a grazing permit for part of the West Fraser Road right-of-way, including the part that bisects the complainant’s owned and leased property. Under the terms of the grazing permit, the licensee’s cattle are permitted to graze in the road right-of-way for two weeks each spring. The complainant’s fence separates his private property from the road right-of-way. According to the complainant, the licensee’s bulls knock down the fence and breed with his cows.
On July 5, 2002, the Sunshine Coast Conservation Association (the complainant) submitted a complaint that International Forest Products Ltd. (Interfor) did not show the municipal boundary of Sechelt in the correct position on their forest development plan maps. The complainant thought that the public review and comment period would be more meaningful if the maps showed the correct boundary. As a solution, the complainant wanted to have the correct boundaries shown on Interfor and Ministry of Forests’ maps.
The Fraser Headwaters Alliance (the complainant) complained to the Forest Practices Board about a plan to harvest trees to reduce the threat of mountain pine beetle in the Horsey Creek to Small River area of the Rocky Mountain Trench, about 50 kilometers southeast of McBride.
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.
