VICTORIA – The Forest Practices Board will conduct a pilot audit this fall looking specifically at how forest activities affect soil conservation.
Forest practices can have serious environmental impacts on soil. Poor forest practices can erode surface soils, causing landslides that harm fish and water sources and can endanger public safety and property. Soil damage from forest road construction, harvesting and mechanical site-preparation treatments — such as using heavy machinery to cultivate soil for improved seedling survival and growth — can also impair future productivity of the forest. Soil conservation has been identified as a key environmental value in the Forest and Range Practices Act.
The Mackenzie Forest District was chosen at random for this audit. The audit area covers four landscape units totalling more than 620,000 hectares surrounding the southern end of Williston Lake down to the community of Mackenzie.
The audit will assess the level of licensee compliance with the Forest Practices Code, and assess the effectiveness of forest practices in conserving soil and site productivity. The audit will examine all forestry activities with the potential to harm soils for the period between Sept. 1, 2001 and Sept. 1, 2003 for two major forest licences held by Slocan Forest Products Ltd. and Abitibi Consolidated Inc., as well as various small-scale government timber sales licences and salvage permits. Soil rehabilitation activities dating back to Sept. 1, 1999 will also be subject to audit.
The four-member audit team includes two professional foresters, a soils specialist and a chartered accountant. They will be in the area for about 10 days, beginning Sept. 2. Once the fieldwork is done, the audit team will report its findings to the board. Any party that may be adversely affected by the audit findings will have a chance to respond. The board’s final report and recommendations will then be released to the public and government.
The Forest Practices Board is an independent public watchdog that reports to the public about compliance with forest practices legislation and the achievement of its intent. The board’s main roles are:
Jacqueline Waldorf
Communications
Forest Practices Board
Phone: 250 356-1586 / 1 800 994-5899
VICTORIA – The Forest Practices Board will audit the forest planning and practices of government’s BC Timber Sales program in the Chilcotin Forest District.
The B.C. Timber Sales program used to be called the Small Business Forest Enterprise Program. The audit will look at a number of operations scattered throughout the Chilcotin Forest District, as the timber sales program has no specific operating area in this district. Alexis Creek, about 110 kilometres west of Williams Lake, is the largest community within the audit area.
A number of forest fires are burning in and near the audit area, most notably the 30,000-hectare Chilko Lake fire. That fire is now 100 per cent contained.
Auditors will examine a full scope of forest practices carried out during the past year, including timber harvesting; road construction, maintenance and deactivation; forest protection; silviculture; and operational planning.
The four-member audit team includes three professional foresters and a chartered accountant. They will be in the area examining plans, cutblocks and roads for about one week, beginning Aug. 18. Once the fieldwork is done, the audit team will report its findings to the board. Any party that may be adversely affected by the audit findings will have a chance to respond. The board’s final report and recommendations will then be released to the public and government.
The Forest Practices Board carries out periodic independent audits to see if government and forest companies are complying with the province’s forest practices legislation. Once an operation has been audited, it is removed from the pool of eligible auditees for the next three years.
The Forest Practices Board is an independent public watchdog that reports to the public about compliance with forest practices legislation and the achievement of its intent. The board’s main roles are:
Jacqueline Waldorf
Communications
Forest Practices Board
Phone: 250 356-1586 / 1 800 994-5899
VICTORIA – The Forest Practices Board will audit the forest planning and practices of Western Forest Products Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Doman Industries Ltd., along the west coast of BC, from the Queen Charlotte Islands to Jordan River on southern Vancouver Island.
The audit will look at Western Forest Products’ operations on Tree Farm Licence (TFL) 25, which has five separate operating areas. The operating areas are near Jordan River on southern Vancouver Island, west of Sayward on northeast Vancouver Island, east of Knight Inlet on the mainland coast, a large area on the central mainland coast north of Bella Bella, and an area on South Moresby in the Queen Charlotte Islands.
Auditors will examine a full scope of forest practices carried out over the past year, including timber harvesting; road construction, maintenance and deactivation; forest protection; silviculture; and operational planning. This is the board’s second audit of TFL 25. The first audit, conducted in 1999, was limited to roads and timber harvesting and included only the operating areas on the central coast and in the Queen Charlotte Islands.
The Forest Practices Board carries out periodic independent audits to see if government and forest companies are complying with the province’s forest practices legislation. Once a forest licence has been audited, it is removed from the pool of eligible forest licences for the next three years. TFL 25 was returned to the pool in 2003, and was chosen randomly and not on the basis of location or level of performance.
The five-member audit team includes professional foresters, a professional engineer, and a chartered accountant. They will be in the licence area examining plans, cutblocks and roads for about two weeks. The southern operating areas will be audited the week of Aug. 11 and the northern operating areas the week of Aug. 25. Once the fieldwork is done, the audit team will report its findings to the board. Any party that may be adversely affected by the audit findings will have a chance to respond. The board’s final report and recommendations will then be released to the public and government.
The Forest Practices Board is an independent public watchdog that reports to the public about compliance with forest practices legislation and the achievement of its intent. The board’s main roles are:
Jacqueline Waldorf
Communications
Forest Practices Board
Phone: 250 356-1586 / 1 800 994-5899
VICTORIA – The Forest Practices Board will audit the forest planning and practices of Revelstoke Community Forest Corporation beginning next week.
The audit will look at the corporation’s operations on Tree Farm Licence 56, about one hour north of Revelstoke. TFL 56 consists of about 120,000 hectares in the Downie Creek and Goldstream River drainages, in the Columbia Forest District.
The Revelstoke Community Forest Corporation was formed by the City of Revelstoke in 1993 to manage and operate TFL 56. This form of corporation allows the city to take some control over the local forest resources for social and economic reasons, as well as to ensure a high standard of forest management and environmental protection in the area. Auditors will examine a wide range of forest practices carried out over the past year, including logging; road construction, maintenance and deactivation; forest protection; silviculture; and planning.
The Forest Practices Board carries out periodic independent audits to see if government and forest companies are complying with the province’s forest practices legislation. Revelstoke Community Forest Corporation’s forest licence was chosen randomly and not on the basis of location or level of performance.
The five-member audit team is composed of three professional foresters, a professional engineer and one certified management accountant. They will be in the licence area examining plans, cutblocks and roads for about one week, beginning July 14. Once the fieldwork is done, the audit team will report its findings to the board. Any party that may be adversely affected by the audit findings will have a chance to respond. The board’s final report and recommendations will then be released to the public and the government.
The Forest Practices Board is an independent public watchdog that reports to the public about compliance with forest practices legislation and the achievement of its intent. The board’s main roles are:
Jacqueline Waldorf
Communications
Forest Practices Board
Phone: 250 356-1586 / 1 800 994-5899
VICTORIA –The Pas Lumber Company Ltd. is carrying out good forest practices in the Fort St. James and Prince George forest districts, the Forest Practices Board reported today.
The audit looked at The Pas’ operations on Forest Licence A18171. About 80 percent of the company’s operations are within the Prince George forest district and 20 percent in the Fort St. James forest district. The Prince George operations are centred near the community of Bear Lake, 50 kilometres north of Prince George. The Fort St. James operations are centred east of Fort St. James and around Witch Lake. The Pas’ operations on that land complied with the Forest Practices Code in all significant respects.
“Overall, this is a good audit result,” said acting board chair Liz Osborn. “There was one minor problem with firefighting tools, but The Pas addressed it right away. The only reason we raise the issue here is because the board has seen this in a number of audits recently, and we are concerned about the risk to public safety if fire tools aren’t available or working at a logging site – particularly as we enter forest fire season.”
The board also encourages government to speed up landscape-level planning to ensure that larger cutblocks - which are appropriate for the forest types the Pas operate in - take the overall forest landscape into account, and promote harvesting patterns that reflect the way nature would clear the forest. For most of the audit area, no landscape-level analysis was done to factor biodiversity values into cutblock size. Government has primary responsibility for landscape-level planning, so this issue is not considered a non-compliance on the part of The Pas. In light of the continued beetle outbreaks in the Prince George timber supply area, it’s important that this level of planning takes place.
The audit area was selected randomly and not on the basis of location or level of performance. The board audited The Pas’ operational planning; timber harvesting; road construction, maintenance and deactivation; silviculture; and fire protection practices for compliance with the code, for the period from Sept. 1, 2001 to Sept. 18, 2002.
The Forest Practices Board is an independent public watchdog, established in 1995, that publishes reports about compliance with the forest practices legislation and the achievement of its intent. The board’s main roles 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.
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Jacqueline Waldorf
Communications
Forest Practices Board
Phone: 250 356-1586 / 1 800 994-5899
Victoria - A Forest Practices Board study has found that forest licensees, government and forestry professionals have done an excellent job of ensuring most trees replanted in 6,488 cutblocks across the province are growing into healthy forests.
Each year, more than 200 million seedlings are planted in B.C. Following the logging of public land, forest companies are required to reforest sites with native tree species to establish a new crop of trees. The companies are then required to tend those trees for a number of years, to ensure they survive and grow into a healthy new forest by a specified date. Once they reach this stage, called free-growing, the companies are relieved of their responsibility to look after the trees and they become the responsibility of the Crown.
The board study looked at the first 6,488 cutblocks required to be free-growing since the current rules were established in 1987. Overall, the results of the study are excellent. Across the province, 85 per cent of cutblocks are free-growing, and on average, these cutblocks reached free-growing status three years early. The board also found that, of 291 cutblocks with a high risk of not reaching free-growing status, 99 per cent of the area was indeed free-growing.
“Behind this success is a system of strong professional training and information exchange between foresters, government and silviculturalists. We encourage all involved to keep this up,” said board member John Cuthbert. “Replacing logged forests is one of the greatest concerns the public has about forest management in B.C., which is why the board decided to undertake this study, and we’re pleased to report these positive findings to the public.”
For 15 per cent of cutblocks that did not completely achieve free-growing status, the main reason was patches of competing brush. A failure to achieve free-growing status on time accounted for 220 cutblocks, and 918 had the deadline extended. The fieldwork indicates that most of these sites are likely free-growing, but a portion of the cutblocks has competing brush that needs to be removed before the whole site can be considered free-growing.
Achievement of free-growing status is also an example of results-based forestry and provides an interesting assessment of this approach to forest management. Forest companies are required to achieve free-growing status within a certain time period, but they are not told how to do that. It is up to the companies to meet the free-growing standard however they choose. In this case, the approach is working.
The study consisted of a combination of field review and analysis of the Ministry of Forests’ silviculture database, which keeps track of reforested sites across the province. The study covered 6,488 cutblocks that were logged between October 1987 and December 1992 and required to be free-growing by August 2002. Over 291 cutblocks were examined on the ground.
The Forest Practices Board is an independent public watchdog that publishes reports about compliance with forest-practices legislation and the achievement of its intent. The board’s main roles 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.
Jacqueline Waldorf
Communications
Forest Practices Board
Phone: 250 356-1586 / 1 800 994-5899
VICTORIA –The results of an audit of the forestry activities of six licensees, five woodlot tenure operators and the Kispiox Forest District’s small business forest enterprise program and district-manager obligations were released today.
The board report commends Bell Pole Company, Kispiox Forest Products Ltd., Kitwanga Lumber Co. Ltd. and the Ministry of Forests small business forest enterprise program for their good forest practices.
However the audit found some poor forest practices in the area, despite harvest levels being about one-quarter of what was allowed. The Forest Practices Code was not followed by C GED Forest Products Ltd. for road construction, road maintenance and silviculture activities, nor by Canema Timber Ltd. and Skeena Cellulose Inc. (now New Skeena Forest Products Inc.) for road maintenance activities. Both Canema Timber Ltd. and New Skeena Forest Products Inc. have action plans in place to address the concerns found in the audit.
The audit also examined the appropriateness of government’s enforcement of the Forest Practices Code. While the board found generally good enforcement by the Ministry of Forests, there were two areas of weakness: the forest district did not conclude investigations into allegations of poor forest practices quickly enough, and when it did, senior officials took too long in making determinations on that evidence. In one case, it took more than two years for a road construction investigation to be presented to a senior official for a determination.
The slow pace of district investigations into allegations of Forest Practices Code contraventions was followed by the bankruptcy of Skeena Cellulose Inc., and government negotiations that absolved the company of any remediation obligations.
“Skeena Cellulose went bankrupt and all obligations—other than reforestation—were extinguished as part of the negotiations to sell the company,” said board member Fred Lowenberger. “That means the public could be left to bear environmental and economic costs of the bankrupt company’s past practices.
The audit also found that the Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection was not actively involved in code enforcement in the audit area. The board has come to this conclusion in each of its five area-based audits, and remains concerned that the ministry is not fulfilling its stated and legislated intent to be involved in enforcing the province’s forest practices laws.
The board is recommending that C GED, Skeena and Canema inspect and maintain roads under their responsibility, that the Skeena Stikine Forest District establish timelines for completing investigations, and that the Minister of Forests set policy on legal obligations when forest licensees go bankrupt so it’s clear who bears the environmental and financial costs of abandoned forestry obligations.
The audit area covers about 42 percent of the Kispiox Forest District, including portions of the Kispiox and Cranberry River drainages and most of the Skeena River drainage south of Hazelton. The entire Cranberry timber supply area and a portion of the Kispiox timber supply area fall within the audit area. All forestry activities carried out between July 1, 2001, and July 25, 2002, in the audit area were assessed for compliance with the Forest Practices Code.
The audit area was selected randomly and not on the basis of location or level of performance. The audit examined operational planning, harvesting; construction, maintenance and deactivation of roads; silviculture; fire preparedness activities; consistency with requirements of the Kispiox Land and Resource Management Plan; and government enforcement of the code.
The Forest Practices Board is an independent public watchdog established in 1995 that publishes reports about compliance with forest-practices legislation and the achievement of its intent. The board’s main roles are:
Jacqueline Waldorf
Communications
Forest Practices Board
Phone: 250 356-1586 / 1 800 994-5899
VICTORIA – The Forest Practices Board will audit the forest planning and practices of Dunkley Lumber Ltd. near Strathnaver beginning next week.
The audit will look at Dunkley Lumber’s operations on Tree Farm Licence 53, about 80 kilometres south of Prince George and 40 kilometres north of Quesnel, just east of Highway 97. TFL 53 consists of about 87,600 hectares east of the Fraser River, in the Prince George forest district.
Auditors will examine a wide range of forest practices carried out over the past year, including logging; road construction, maintenance and deactivation; forest protection; silviculture; and planning. This tree farm licence contains a severe mountain pine beetle infestation, which has recently prompted the chief forester to increase the allowable annual cut by 109 per cent.
The Forest Practices Board carries out periodic independent audits to see if government and forest companies are complying with the province’s forest practices legislation. Dunkley Lumber’s forest licence was chosen randomly and not on the basis of location or level of performance.
The five-member audit team is composed of four professional foresters and one chartered accountant. They will be in the licence area examining plans, cutblocks and roads for about one week, beginning June 16. Once the fieldwork is done, the audit team will report its findings to the board. Any party that may be adversely affected by the audit findings will have a chance to respond. The board’s final report and recommendations will then be released to the public and the government.
The Forest Practices Board is an independent public watchdog, established in 1995, that reports to the public about compliance with forest practices legislation and the achievement of its intent. The board’s main roles are:
Jacqueline Waldorf
Communications
Forest Practices Board
Phone: 250 356-1586 / 1 800 994-5899
VICTORIA– The province’s independent forest practices watchdog says on-the-ground forest practices continue to improve in B.C.’s public forests, but government still needs to provide direction to forest companies to ensure the protection of threatened wildlife habitat.
In its 2002 annual report, the Forest Practices Board also comments on changes to forest legislation, the board’s continued role in monitoring forest practices, and the issues and trends noted in the course of the year’s work.
"A lot of change is taking place in forestry in B.C., but the board will continue to provide the public with independent assessments of forest and range practices," said acting board chair Liz Osborn.
The report, tabled in the legislature yesterday, identifies several areas in which the board’s work has led to measurable improvements in forest practices – from government’s decision-making processes to communications among forestry professionals ensuring risk to the environment is well-managed.
Some highlights:
The Forest Practices Board is an independent public watchdog, established in 1995, that publishes reports about compliance with the forest practices legislation and the achievement of its intent. The board’s main roles are:
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Jacqueline Waldorf
Communications
Forest Practices Board
Phone: 250 356-1586 / 1 800 994-5899
VICTORIA – On June 2, the Forest Practices Board will begin an audit of West Fraser Mills Ltd.’s Chasm Sawmills Division, in the 100 Mile House Forest District, for compliance with the Forest Practices Code.
The audit will look at West Fraser’s planning and practices on forest licence A20002, southeast of Williams Lake. The licence area stretches northwest from Clinton to Lac La Hache and the Eagle Lake area. It is bounded on the east by Bonaparte Lake, Lac des Roches and Drewy Lake.
The Forest Practices Board carries out periodic independent audits to see if government and forest companies are complying with the Forest Practices Code. West Fraser Mill’s forest licence was chosen randomly and not on the basis of location or level of performance.
Board auditors will examine forest practices carried out between June 1, 2002, and June 9, 2003, including logging; road construction, maintenance and deactivation; forest protection; silviculture; and planning.
The four-member audit team, composed of a chartered accountant and professional foresters, will be in the licence area examining plans, cutblocks and roads during the week of June 2. Once the fieldwork is done, the audit team will report its findings to the board. Any party that may be adversely affected by the audit findings will have a chance to respond. The board’s final report and recommendations will then be released to the public and government.
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 are:
Jacqueline Waldorf
Communications
Forest Practices Board
Phone: 250 356-1586 / 1 800 994-5899
