This is the Board’s report on a compliance auditof Tree Farm Licence 44 (TFL 44) held by MacMillan Bloedel Limited (MacMillan Bloedel), subsequently acquired by Weyerhaeuser Company Limited (Weyerhaeuser), and administered by its West Island Timberlands unit. TFL 44 is located in the South Island Forest District in west-central Vancouver Island in the vicinity of the communities of Port Alberni, Ucluelet and Bamfield.

This is the Board’s report on a compliance audit of Tree Farm Licence 54 (TFL 54) held by International Forest Products Ltd. (Interfor). The licence area is located on the West Coast of Vancouver Island in 24 separate geographical blocks. Ninety-two percent of the area of TFL 54 is located in Clayoquot Sound.

In July 1999, the Board received a complaint from an individual who works as a faller. He was required, as part of his job, to cut down small trees in a specific cutblock, but was concerned that was not a sound forest practice.

In June 1999 the complainant was hired by a contractor to work on a cutblock in Tree Farm Licence 46, administered by TimberWest Forest Ltd. (“the licensee”). The cutblock was beside the McClure River, a tributary of the Caycuse River, 35 kilometres west of Lake Cowichan on Vancouver Island.

In May 1997, the Friends of Clayoquot Sound-Forest Watch provided written review comments to International Forest Products Ltd., Westcoast Division on its Catface Planning Area forest development plan for Tree Farm Licence 54. They expressed concern that a proposed road was located within a 50-metre riparian reserve zone required by the Clayoquot Sound Scientific Panel Recommendations and identified in the forest development plan for Pineetle Creek. Encroachment by roads in riparian areas is generally discouraged by both the Forest Practices Code of British Columbia Act and the Clayoquot Sound Scientific Panel Recommendations.

A resident of Hillcrest Road, a forest service road near Lake Cowichan village on Vancouver Island, complained that the road was not adequately maintained by the South Island Forest District and industrial users during the winter of 1996-97. The resident maintained that this had resulted in unsafe conditions for those living on the road. He asked that the road be graded before and after every timber sale and that the Ministry of Transportation and Highways take over responsibility for maintaining the road.