The Valhalla Wilderness Association complained to the Board that forest practices undertaken by the Nakusp and Area Community Forest (NACFOR) near Summit Lake is impacting western toad habitat and causing direct mortality to the toads.
In its investigation, the Board considered current research being undertaken at Summit lake into the life cycle and habitat requirements of the western toad.
As there are no current legal requirements under the Forest and Range Practices Act to protect the toads, the Board looked into whether NACFOR and the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations took reasonable steps to minimize harm to the toads during forestry operations.
The Board investigated a complaint from a community group about the potential visual impacts of a licensee’s planned logging near Lillooet. This area has visual quality objectives (VQOs), and the licensee’s forest stewardship plan contained results and strategies to meet these objectives. The complainant was concerned that planned logging would not meet the VQOs, and wondered why the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development would issue a permit and why their compliance and enforcement branch would not do something prior to logging.
In planning the logging, the licensee had completed visual simulations and was working with community members to be consistent with the VQOs. This report describes the community member’s concerns, efforts by the licensee and government, and results of these efforts after logging.
The Forest Practices Board received a complaint that alleged the visual section in ATCO Wood Products (ATCO) approved Forest Stewardship Plan is not compliant with Forest and Range Practices Act and is not enforceable. The complaint is not about any of ATCO’s field activities not meeting visual quality objectives (VQOs) after harvesting and road construction had occurred. VQOs reflect the desired level of visual quality after harvesting and road construction has occurred.
Elphinstone Logging Focus, an environmental group on the Sunshine Coast, complained that cutblocks sold by BC Timber Sales would impact at-risk plant communities and affect the integrity of the ecosystem near Mt. Elphinstone Park.
The Board investigated and determined that the mature forest stands in the cutblocks contained plant communities listed by the BC Conservation Data Centre as being in peril, or of special concern. There are no government objectives protecting the plant communities and BCTS’s protocol for managing species at risk only includes plant communities found in old forest, not the mature forest stands in this area.
The Board made two recommendations to government and BCTS to address the situation.
A government mapping error lead residents of Granite Bay (the complainants), on Quadra Island, to believe that the area across the bay from them was a park and would not be logged. When the Granite Bay residents discovered that the area could be logged they asked the district manager to establish a visual quality objective of retention so that any logging will be difficult to see. This letter reports the resolution of this complaint.
