Four Board members’ terms will be expiring at the end of this year, including the Chair. While some Board members may be eligible for reappoint-ment, some will not and so we’re lookIng for expressions of interest from potential candidates. The Board Chair is a full time appointment, and leads the organization, as well as the appointed Board members.

Board members serve part-time and provide strategic advice and direction to the organization. They come from a variety of backgrounds in resource management, but do not represent any particular sector. We strive to achieve a balance of areas of expertise and geographic representation on the Board. The Board meets quarterly face to face and monthly by telephone.

Contact:

Dave Clarke, Executive Director
Dave.Clarke@gov.bc.ca
(250) 213-4702

One of the Board’s current strategic priorities is to compile the results of recent work to pull together reports on trends and issues that can inform and influence the future of forest and range management in BC. This year we have been publishing a series of bulletins to promote discussion of important issues in management of our public forests.

So far we have addressed cumulative effects, professional reliance and public involvement in forest management. We also put out a bulletin on the value of having independent oversight for forest practices. There is one more bulletin to come in the series and it will be out this fall. It will look at the need for a land manager who is accountable for resource management decisions. Response to the bulletins so far has been very positive and we hope they are serving their purpose of getting people thinking and talking about these issues.

In addition to the bulletins, we are currently working on several longer reports. One report addresses the management and enforcement of range planning and practices under the Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA), based on the many audits and special investigations the Board has conducted over the last decade. This report is due out this fall.

Another special report in preparation will be examining the issue of risk and decision-making under FRPA. This is a frequent issue in complaints that come to the Board from the public, where a forest licensee and other land users (water users, tourism operators, trappers, etc.) are disagreeing over proposed forestry activities, yet it is the forest licence holder who has the authority to assess the risk and decide whether its activities will proceed, even though it is not the party that will bear the consequences that may result. There are issues both with how risk is assessed and the fairness of decision-making.

We will also be summarizing the complaints received by the Board over the years in a special report, and we are working on a report that will provide the Board’s views on how well FRPA is working, nearly 10 years into implementation of the results-based legislation.

Current Board member Dr. Bill McGill was elected to the rank of AAAS Fellow in the “Agriculture, Food and Renewable Resources” section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Each year the AAAS Council elects members whose “efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications are scientifically or socially distinguished.”

Bill was inducted on February 16, 2013 in Boston, MA. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an international non-profit organization dedicated to advancing science around the world by serving as an educator, leader, spokesperson and professional organization. In addition to numerous other activities, the AAAS publishes the journal Science.

Over the past six months, government has responded to a number of recommendations made  by the Board in recent reports, including the Campbell River BCTS Audit, the Vernon-Oyama Water Quality Audit, Reporting the Results of Forestry Activities, and more. We post the responses to our recommendations with the related report on our website. Be sure to check back and see what government and other licensees have said in response to recommendations made in recent reports on the topics of interest to you.

The 2013/14 audit season is in full swing. So far auditors have been to Southern Vancouver Island, the Sunshine Coast, the North Coast and Nass Valley, the Columbia Valley from Invermere to Golden and the Prince George area, including the Robson Valley. They have looked at woodlots, major licensees, BC Timber Sales and a BC Hydro transmission line for compliance with FRPA and the Wildfire Act. Several more audits will be carried out before the snow flies in October.

The Board recently published an audit of a transmission line project in a fairly remote corner of northwestern BC.

This audit was a perfect illustration of the benefits the Board could provide to government and the public by commenting on activities of non-forestry licensees that impact public forest land. Because our mandate is limited to licences issued under the Forest Act, we could only audit the clearing of the transmission line right-of-way for this independent power project. We were not able to comment on the clearing, construction or maintenance of the access roads that form a major part of the project because the authority for the roads was issued under the Land Act. The project proponent also has an approval certificate under the Environmental Assessment Act that sets conditions for construction of these roads, to ensure environmental protection is achieved. While it may be the responsibility of other government agencies’ inspectors to check on compliance, this is a remote area and our auditors were flying over the roads while they were looking at the transmission line corridor. Wouldn’t it make sense for them to examine and report to the public on how well the proponent is meeting its obligations under other environmental legislation, at the same time? We certainly think so. It would provide assurance and oversight for minimal additional cost. The Board is continuing to discuss its mandate with government and we urge you to weigh in with your thoughts.

Of all the reports released in the last six months, the most media interest has been in the February 2013 Roads and Bridges Special Report—which describes the significant increase in non-compliance that our audits have found for these two types of activities in the past few years—and the June 2013 Compliance Monitoring and Inspections Special Report—which describes the significant decrease in government’s inspections of forest harvesting and roads activities in the past few years. In terms of overall interest, the most website visits have been to the roads and bridges report, our bulletin on cumulative effects  and our audit of Interfor’s operations in the Great Bear Rainforest.

The Board has been invited to present the results of the Roads and Bridges Special Report in a number of venues across the province. Before the report was published, Board staff gave a photo-based PowerPoint presentation of this work in Cranbrook at the Resource Roads in BC conference last November. They were then invited to present the results to a number of staff at the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations and also to the Joint Practices Board of ABCFP and APEGBC. The Board has been invited to present it to the Road Health Coalition, “Road Safety in the Boom Times,” taking place in Prince George October 7 & 8 and at the APEGBC annual conference in Whistler, October 23 & 24.