By Bill Bourgeois
The recently released Mid-Term Timber Supply Action Plan, titled Beyond The Beetle: A Mid-term Timber Supply Action Plan, by the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations (MFLNRO) in response to the Legislative Special Committee on Timber Supply recommendations is disappointing.
At best, the plan sends a clear message of ministry defensiveness (“we are currently conducting, for the most part, the management recommended by the Committee”).
The committee provided 19 recommendations related to forest management issues within the mountain pine beetle heavily impacted areas of British Columbia, plus one recommendation specifically related to the Burns Lake sawmill.
The committee chose to stay within the limited terms of reference, preventing innovative recommendations on key forest policy issues identified by experts and communities during the Healthy Forests-Healthy Communities: A conversation on BC forests (HFHC) dialogues.
The MFLNRO further marginalized priority actions through its responses in areas essential to moving towards a sustainably managed forest and resilient communities (e.g., adequate community diversification funding, adequate resource inventories and monitoring, long-term strategic planning, etc).
No mention was made regarding availability of additional resources or re-prioritizing existing activities.
The MFLNRO responses to the 19 recommendations included: 12 that maintained the status quo of ministry operations and policy; five were accepted in whole; and two identified some positive planned action.
The status quo responses focused on statements by the ministry that these recommended actions have been ongoing.
If this was the case, why did the committee just recommend continuing what is being done?
The committee was well supported by ministry staff and former B.C. chief foresters who would, or should, have informed them of ongoing activities. It can only be assumed the committee was not aware of these activities or felt they were inadequate to address the issues.
The positive responses to recommendations included: “developing a framework for a science-based review of sensitive areas” and the creation of an industry-ministry committee to look for ways to “grow more fibre.”
These are welcomed, but with no details, it is hard to support, trust and monitor fulfillment of the commitments.
The fully accepted recommendations by the ministry are in the areas of timber harvesting procedural issues, infrastructure opportunities and continued funding for tree genetic research and seed production. All welcome public commitments with performance that can be monitored.
The commitments by the ministry to developing forest treatment strategies and frameworks for community engagement, in protecting sensitive areas based on science, separating marginally economic stand types in the Allowable Annual Cut determinations, building criteria for assessing areas suitable for reforestation and piloting wildfire landscape-level fuel break planning are encouraging.
However, the combination of commitments being general in nature, with no future details offered and what appears to be a “Victoria staff produced plan” without input from operations staff, has not generated confidence within a skeptical public that the ministry is adequately addressing the mid-term timber supply issues.
Given the cost, time and expert and community input into this process, one would have expected more in an action plan.
Bill Bourgeois is a professional forester with 38 years experience in industrial forest management and forest policy and currently the coordinator for the HFHC, a non-partisan, volunteer-supported initiative focused on identifying concerns and recommendations of experts and communities regarding the future of B.C. forest lands and providing recommendations to decision-makers.
