VICTORIA -The Forest Practices Board will audit the forest planning and practices in Tree Farm Licence #1 held by Skeena Cellulose Inc. The operating areas for this licence are north and south of Terrace in the Kalum forest district.

This is a full-scope audit that will look at operational planning, harvesting, roads, silviculture and fire protection activities to determine levels of compliance with the Forest Practices Code.

The Forest Practices Board is required to carry out periodic independent audits to see if government and forest companies are complying with the code. The Skeena Cellulose licence was chosen randomly, not on the basis of location or level of performance.

The eight-member audit team of forestry, engineering and audit professionals will be in the licence area beginning June 4 to do office and field examinations of Skeena Cellulose’s timber harvest areas and hundreds of kilometres of logging roads.

Once the field work is done, the audit team will report its findings to the board. Any party that may be adversely affected by the audit findings will receive a chance to respond. The board’s final report and recommendations will then be released to the public and the government.

To date, the board has completed compliance audits of 40 forest companies and Ministry of Forests small business forest enterprise programs. Nineteen were clean audits, meaning the forest planning and practices met code requirements in all significant respects. Twenty-one were qualified audits, meaning that there was some significant non-compliance with the code. The board is undertaking nine audits this year, which include one area-based audit, a range audit and an audit of forest practices on Nisga’a lands.

The Forest Practices Board is an independent public watchdog, established in 1995, that publishes reports about compliance with the Forest Practices Code and the achievement of its intent.

The board's main roles under the Forest Practices Code are:

• Auditing forest practices of government and licence holders on public lands.
• Auditing government enforcement of the code.
• Investigating public complaints.
• Undertaking special investigations of code-related forestry issues.
• Participating in administrative reviews and appeals.
• Providing reports on board activities, findings and recommendations.

Forest Practices Board
Phone: (250) 387-7964
1-800-994-5899

fpboard@gems9.gov.bc.ca