In August 1996, the Slocan Valley Watershed Alliance (the Alliance), an advocacy group for water-users, filed a complaint with the Forest Practices Board about the district manager’s approvals of operational plans in the Arrow Forest District. The Alliance asserted that the district manager should not have approved operational plans for at least 10 watersheds that supply domestic water because there had been no participation by water licensees in watershed assessments. A watershed assessment is an analytical procedure that helps forest managers anticipate water-related problems that may exist in a watershed. It identifies possible hydrological implications of proposed forestry-related development in a watershed.
The Alliance maintained that water licensees should have had the opportunity to participate in watershed assessments, regardless of whether or not the watersheds were designated as "community watersheds" under the Forest Practices Code of British Columbia Act (the Act). The Board investigated the complaint and acknowledged that there was some basis for such an expectation. However, there was no legal requirement for water-user participation. Nevertheless, the Board concluded that the issue of protection of domestic water supplies remains important, so the Board decided to examine the opportunities available under the Act and related regulations (the Code) for domestic water-users to have input into operational planning. The Board's report deals specifically with the Nelson Forest Region, where the complaint arose.
The Forest Practices Code has requirements in place to ensure that bridges along logging roads are built, maintained and removed safely and don’t cause harm to the environment or to the people using them. However, bridge maintenance problems are showing up more frequently in the Board’s recent audits.
Over half of all bridges audited by the Forest Practices Board for maintenance obligations in the past two years were not in compliance with the regulations of the Forest Practices Code. In this period alone, three audits have turned up instances of significant non-compliance in the bridge maintenance programs of licensees in British Columbia’s public forests.
The Forest Development Planning Special Project is a broad-based review of the current status of forest development planning throughout BC. The purpose of the project is to provide a public report about the state of forest development planning and the resulting forest development plans (FDPs) in the province.
Eighteen forest development plans were randomly selected for review: one FDP from each of three forest districts within each of the six forest regions in the province. Included in the three FDPs from each region is one Small Business Forest Enterprise Program (SBFEP) plan. The plans were all approved or in effect during 1999. Data were collected through review of the FDP content and review and comment input contained in the FDPs, as well as from interviews. The project did not include field inspection or verification.
The project methods included:
Enhancing the Board's Ability to Appeal Forest Development Plan Approvals:
Section 189(3) of the Forest Practices Code of British Columbia Act allows the Forest Practices Board to report to government and the public on matters related to Board duties. In considering whether or not to issue such a report, the Board considers a number of factors, including whether a report would serve the public interest by:
The aim of the following report is to suggest changes to reform in the way that some administrative reviews are conducted, in order to enhance public confidence in the new forest practices regulatory system.
