Harvesting prescribed in Arrow Mountain subunit plan in the Kootenay Lake Forest District

The Board received a complaint from an environmental society concerning a silvicultural prescription that was inconsistent with a local resource use plan. The complaint asserted that:

• The Ministry of Forests failed to adequately address issues raised by the complainant by not providing evidence of root rot in two areas where harvesting was proposed because of disease problems and that the Ministry’s response to this and other concerns were inadequate;
• Silviculture prescriptions were prepared and approved that were not in compliance with a local resource use plan that had been in existence since 1993. Specifically, the approval of the cutblocks resulted in exceeding the maximum allowable five year cumulative volume of wood to be sold for the area as specified in the approval local resource use plan;
• The proposed harvesting for one cutblock is not in compliance with the Code since harvesting methods are inappropriate and are not scientifically proven to address root rot problems;
• That the forest district failed to allocate opportunities for single tree selection sales for horse loggers; and
• That the complainant has been unable to get the Ministry of Forests to respond to repeated requests to obtain permission under the Code to construct a trail.