As part of the Forest Practices Board’s 2014 compliance audit program, the Board randomly selected the Campbell River Resource District as the location for an audit. Within the district, the Board selected Tree Farm Licence (TFL) 47, held by TimberWest Forest Corporation. The audit assessed all timber harvesting, roads, silviculture, protection activities, and associated planning, carried out over two years, commencing in August 2012.
TimberWest conducted its operations within the Campbell River and North Island Central Coast Districts, south-east of Port McNeil and on the islands to the east of Johnstone Strait. These islands are only accessible by water, making operations challenging. The TFL contains natural resource values, including scenic corridors, marine recreation areas, old growth forests, rare plant communities, and cultural sites, requiring special management. During the two-year audit period, the licensee harvested approximately 730 000 cubic metres of timber, in accordance with their forest stewardship plans.
The audit found that planning and field activities undertaken by TimberWest complied in all significant respects with the requirements of the Forest and Range Practices Act and the Wildfire Act.
The audit found an area of improvement related to fire hazard assessments.
The findings of this audit are unique and do not represent the standard of forest practices usually identified through Board audits. The Board has conducted well over 100 compliance audits since 1996, including over 20 audits of BCTS operations, and has never previously encountered this level of non-compliance.The results show significant and pervasive findings of non-compliance with the Forest and Range Practices Act and two instances of non-compliance with the Wildfire Act.
Overall, BCTS-CR and eight individual timber sale licence holders each had at least one significant noncompliance finding, while several had multiple significant findings. Some of these timber sale licence holders operated on more than one timber sale and significant findings were identified with each timber sale. There were also concerns noted with respect to forest practices that are technically compliant, but are considered by the Board to be unsound.
In the fall of 2009, the Forest Practices Board conducted a special investigation into how well forest companies are meeting their obligations to maintain roads and bridges under the Forest and Range Practices Act. The investigation took place in the Campbell River, South Island and Squamish forest districts in the Coast Forest Region.
The Board looked at how road maintenance obligations were being met by 8 licensees holding road permit tenures associated with 11 forest licences. The licensees were Aat’uu Forestry Limited Partnership and TimberWest Forest Corporation in the Campbell River Forest District; Coulson Forest Products Ltd. and Teal-Jones Group in the South Island Forest District; and C.R.B. Logging Co. Ltd., Northwest Squamish Forestry Ltd., Squamish Mills Ltd. and Halray Logging Ltd. in the Squamish Forest District.
In British Columbia, use of Crown range is regulated by the Range Act and the Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA). The Range Act provides the authority to grant range agreements, including permits and licences. These agreements include things like the tenure area and the amount of forage that can be consumed by livestock on Crown land. Similar to the former Forest Practices Code, FRPA provides the necessary authority for government to manage the Crown land resource. This includes authority to require the agreement holder to prepare a range plan and follow practice requirements.
The investigation found that the current framework for range planning under FRPA is not working well for agreement holders, MFR range staff or for management of the range resource. First, there is widespread uncertainty about what the objectives for range mean and what is required to achieve them. Second, agreement holders are expected to write measurable and enforceable plans, yet may not have the necessary qualifications and experience to do so. Finally, the preparation and approval of RUPs is a time consuming and challenging task for agreement holders and the MFR, and it is not clear if range planning is achieving any measurable benefit in managing the range resource.
This Forest Practices Board report presents the results of an investigation of fish passage at stream crossings in 19 watersheds in the central and northern interior and on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. In total, 1,159 crossings of fish-bearing streams were examined. Each watershed had a mix of crossings built before the implementation of the 1995 Forest Practices Code of British Columbia Act (the Code), after the implementation of the Code, and also after the replacement of the Code with the 2002 Forest and Range Practices Act.
The number of stream crossings within British Columbia is constantly increasing due to new road development. Government estimates that there are approximately 370,000 stream crossings in the province, of which about 76,000 are culverts on fish streams (BC MOE, 2008). For this reason, fish stream crossings may be the single most important habitat impact affecting fish.
There have been numerous studies of stream crossings in the province. Nearly all of these studies have focused on fish passage through closed bottom structures (CBS). However, watersheds also contain a variety of other crossing types, including open bottom structures (OBS) such as bridges, log culverts, arch culverts, and open box structures. This study is the first to examine fish passage in context: on a watershed scale, in a large number of watersheds, reporting on the overall fish passage through road crossings.
