Should the primary goal of Wells Gray Community Forest be to create employment by enhancing the value-added sector of the local forest economy?
Or should it be to provide grants to worthy community groups and projects?
Those were the sorts of questions participants were asked to tackle during a pair of community input open houses organized by the community forest on Thursday, March 27.
Between 15 and 20 people attended the afternoon session and about the same number were at the one in the evening.
The open houses were held in the Community Resource Center in Clearwater.
Wells Gray Community Forest has achieved quite a few successes during its short history, said Grant Thompson, the event’s facilitator.
A resident of Summerland, he formerly managed West Bank First Nation’s forestry program, including its community forest.
Wells Gray Community Forest Corporation was incorporated in 2004, and applied for a forest tenure in 2005.
In 2006 a five-year probationary licence was awarded. This had an annual allowable cut of 20,000 cubic meters per year plus another 13,500 m3 “uplift” to salvage wood damaged by mountain pine beetle.
Harvesting started in 2008 and since then loggers have taken about 240,000 m3 out of the community forest.
This has provided six full-time equivalents of employment since then, including staff, development contractors, logging contractors, and reforestation.
It has also generated about $9.8 million in economic value to the community. Of this, $487,000 has been disbursed as grants.
A new forest inventory and analysis was completed in 2011. This showed that there was more wood available within the tenure area than previously thought, and that it was growing faster than expected.
These finding allowed the government to permanently increase the AAC to 33,000 m3 per year.
“This community forest has gone one step above what the provincial standard is,” Thompson said, referring to the forest inventory and analysis. “Very few operators in the province have what you have here. It’s definitely paying off for the boys in the bush.”
Future plans include adding about 160 hectares to the existing 13,000 ha community forest by taking in some land around the existing boundaries.
The present community forest consists of three large areas to the north, south and west of Clearwater.
The community forest also hopes to acquire about 3,000 ha further to the south.
Eventual goal is to get the AAC to 50,000 m3 per year.
Objectives include managing the community forest for climate change, forest fuel management, and forest health.
Next steps in the community input process include accepting public comments until the deadline of Friday, April 4.
By April 8 the collected information will be collated and posted on the WGCFC website, www.wgcfc.ca.
In June the WGCFC board will develop a draft strategic plan for the community forest, which will be posed on the website for review and comment on June 16.
The period for public review and comment on the draft strategic plan will end on July 11.
On July 31, the final strategic plan will be posted on the WGCFC website.
