In September 2011, the Board conducted a full-scope compliance audit of forest planning and practices on Babine Forest Products’ (BFP) Forest Licence A16823. This is the first time this forest licence has been audited by the Board. The audit assessed over 80 cutblocks and close to 300 kilometres of road activities and obligations, as well as operational planning, and found that BFP complied with the legislated requirements of the Forest and Range Practices Act and the Wildfire Act, as well as the Lakes District Land and Resource Management Plan and the Lakes North Sustainable Resource Management Plan.
In 2011, a complainant experienced an unexpected loss of water and two floods. Concerned that his property, livelihood and the value of Twinflower Creek to his interests were at risk of harm from the cumulative effect of current weather, climate change, mountain pine beetle, and salvage harvesting, he contacted the Board to investigate.
The complainant expressed frustration that, under the framework of the Forest and Range Practices Act, it is the forest licensee that decides whether to proceed with forest activities on Crown land that could negatively affect values on which he depends, as well as his assets and livelihood.
This is the Board’s second investigation of a complaint about the effects of pine beetle salvage logging on this watershed.
This bulletin is the eleventh in a series of Forest Practices Board bulletins describing aspects of forest legislation, practices and trends, and their implications for forest stewardship. These bulletins are intended to foster discussion and to improve understanding of forest practices.
This paper presents the submission of the Forest Practices Board to the Natural Resource Road Act Project, in response to the Discussion Paper of October 2011. The Board makes submissions on three points:
The Forest Practices Board offers this submission based on its experience and expertise with resource roads in the forestry sector and with the public watchdog model.
The Forest Practices Board is an independent agency of the Government of British Columbia. The Board was created in 1995 under the Forest Practices Code and was continued under the Forest and Range Practices Act and the Wildfire Act.
Reports from the forest industry about the effects of their activities have always been important to managing the public forests. However, forestry in BC is in a new era that differs from the past in two important respects in the context of reporting.
First, the move to a results‐based regime under BC’s Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA) means that accurate reporting is now more important than in the past. Under FRPA, forest licensees have been given freedom to carry out their forest practices provided those practices are consistent with objectives set by government for forest values. One corollary to this freedom to manage is that licensees must provide complete, accurate and timely reports about what has happened, and what the effect has been on the forest, so that government can assess whether its objectives are being met.
A second and perhaps more important difference is that, over the last decade, the forest ministry has dramatically reduced the number of field and office staff responsible for overseeing forestry activities and the role of the remaining staff has changed. In the past, ministry staff could, and did, go to see what was happening on the ground and they provided first‐hand reports. They also received reports submitted by agreement holders, and were involved in ensuring the quality of those reports, and maintaining information in their own offices
British Columbia’s Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA) and Wildfire Act (WA) are at the core of the provincial government’s stewardship framework, setting out rules that must be followed when forest or range activities are undertaken. If an activity results in a breach of these rules, and it is determined that FRPA or the WA has been contravened, government may order a licensee to remedy the harm.
During the course of this investigation, the Board looked at 55 orders made since 2004 under FRPA and the WA. Most of the orders investigated were in response to contraventions arising from road construction, timber harvesting, silviculture, fire suppression, and range use. The investigation found that some orders raised a concern as to whether or not they were enforceable. It also found that government’s response to non‐compliance with orders has been weak, and that the consequences for not carrying them out have been minimal.
As part of the Forest Practices Board's 2011 compliance audit program, the Board randomly selected the Kamloops District as the location for a full-scope compliance audit. Within the district, the Board selected non-renewable forest licences (NRFL) A80706, held by Tk’Emlupsemc Forestry Development Corporation, A81385, held by the Ashcroft Indian Band, and A83410, held by the Neskonlith Indian Band , for audit. The NRFLs were awarded under the Forest Act, section 47.3, to address the salvage of fire and insect damaged timber in the district.
The three NRFLs have a combined allowable annual cut of 83 575 cubic metres. Harvest is restricted to lodgepole pine stands that have been heavily attacked by mountain pine beetle and fire damaged stands. During the two-year period of this audit, 146 014 cubic metres were harvested under these NRFLs.
The Board’s report on a complaint into the activities and decisions of the Wildfire Management Branch during the initial stages of the 2009 Tyaughton Lake fire.
The complaint lists a number of issues and includes a request that the cutblocks proposed by Tamihi Logging Co. Ltd. (licensee) not be allowed in the Post Creek area. Board staff investigated the complaint and consulted with all parties to try to resolve it.
There are a number of concerns in this investigation, the first being the licensee’s right to harvest given that a wildlife habitat area (WHA) for spotted owl exists in the proposed harvest area.
A WHA may be protected from logging through general wildlife measures associated with it, but not always. In this case, the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations and the Tamihi Logging Co. Ltd. agreed on an exemption for several of the licensee’s blocks as a way to mitigate for operating areas lost to Spotted Owl Management Plan #2.
A follow up report to the Board's 2004 report that examined the topic of NTFPs and opportunities for enhancing NTFPs while managing for timber. The follow-up work found that the Board's original recommendations regarding research and knowledge extension have been implemented to a fair degree, but exploration of regulatory options and development of objectives for NTFPs—with limited exceptions related mostly to cultural heritage resources—have not.
Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) are an important forest resource in British Columbia, with the potential to make a significant economic contribution to small, resource-based communities. Non-timber forest products, also known as non-wood forest products and botanical forest products, include all the botanical and mycological resources of the forest, other than conventional timber products such as logs, pulp logs, shakes and firewood.
