The Healthy Forests – Healthy Communities Clearwater organizing committee has compiled the views and perspectives of local participants who attended a public session held at the Wells Gray Inn on Jan. 19. About 60 participants brainstormed possible short- and long term actions to address the five key challenges that are impacting the communities in the North Thompson Valley compiled from the November 2011 HF-HC community dialog session.
• Sustainable and stable employment. The lack of stable jobs impacts housing, family lifestyle, schools, social services, etc. To promote stable employment it is important to understand the current opportunities. In the short term, creating an inventory of major resources and industry and their employment opportunities will assist is this. A forestry vision for the North Thompson will keep this on track.
• Centralization of government decision making. Recent changes involved the merger of the Clearwater Forest District into a larger district centred in Kamloops and the loss of the resident senior manager position. Wells Gray Park is the third largest in the province yet there are no resident employees. These two situations make decision-making on local issues removed from local expertise.
In the short term it was suggested that an evaluation of the true costs of centralization (travel time, range of services, carbon footprint) be carried out and the report provided to District councils and Ministry senior managers. In the long term there is a desire to make Clearwater the service centre for the North Thompson.
• More local influence in forest land decision. There is a lack of public consultation in resource decision making. Short term goals that would give more local influence in making decisions on forest lands would be to identify what types/kinds of decisions require public input, what local decisions the public can participate in, what opportunities already exist for local input and identify the gaps that should have local input in forest land decisions.
For the tourism sector the BC Parks Advisory Committee needs to be re-established with the District of Clearwater as sponsor and there is a need to revisit the Wells Gray Park Master Plan to ensure that the local objectives are being met. Long term goals would be to bring back open houses for FSP review and land use planning, educate the public on how to become involved in resource management planning and develop a process for local government to be informed by land resource managers of decisions that are being made. There is a need to change the management framework such that forest professionals and resource managers are based in Clearwater where the resources are. It is expected that local knowledge and public input would result in better decisions and ultimately better land based outcomes.
• Changes to Current Timber Tenures. The present timber allocation is an obstacle to growth and diversification of the forestry sector. In the short term, actions that would contribute to the consideration of changes to the tenure system in B.C. include: 1) asking candidates in the upcoming provincial election campaign what their views on timber tenure reform is. This is a unique opportunity and 2) complete studies that would lead to a better understanding of how small tenures like woodlots and community forests contribute to the community.
It is recognized that an important step to changes in the tenure system would be an updated forest inventory. Further, in order to promote new innovative product manufacturing, perhaps a small tenure might be considered for specific raw resources so that entrepreneurs could test a business idea.
• Education and Training. Very few young workers are entering the forestry job market and most pursue careers outside of the community. As the work force ages there is a need for initiatives to provide forestry education in local schools as well as an awareness of opportunities and apprenticeship training. In the short term suggested actions include aligning TRU training facilities to teacher’s environmental training, having field tours with local teachers to show them what happens in forestry, bring back career days, bring technology into schools to excite the next generation. Some long term actions would include matching local people to vacancies in the work force, requiring a labor analysis to see what the employer’s needs are and who is out to do the job and what training is required.
The public session was an opportunity to provide input and send a message to decision makers about the desired future needs for forest management. A summary report will be delivered to District of Clearwater and TNRD area directors.
The full scope of public comments will shortly be posted on the Healthy Forest – Healthy Community website (http://bcforestconversation.com).
