In researching response to changes to the Forest Act introduced last week by the province I’m left with a few observations that didn’t find a way into print.
To recap, the province has made it possible for Hampton Affiliates, and by extension, other logging license holders to apply to have their current timber volume-based licenses converted into area-based tree farm licenses (TFL).
With an area-based license comes greater corporate responsibility.
For some, relying on corporate responsibility to manage natural resources is asking the fox to keep an eye on the chicken coop. But there’s no natural or formal contradiction between the corporate need for profit and the need for responsible conservation.
Maybe the corporation can be a good steward of natural resources, especially if the company’s continued health depends upon the health of those resources.
But you can’t blame a person for being a little skeptical of the idea that turning over vast tracts of forest to individual companies to manage will lead to a better future for all involved.
Here’s where it seems that the province might be doing the right thing by introducing legislation that is mostly just a framework for future policy. The province has kept two things in its back pocket.
First, it’s an invite-only affair. A company will be able to apply for a forest license conversion only after it’s been invited to apply. This isn’t the province kicking the door off its hinges and giving out TFLs like candy.
Second, the province can use the findings of a proscribed public consultation period to amend the application. So if it turns out that the original criteria that defined the initial application were flawed, the province still has a way to correct glaring errors.
Hampton Affiliates will be the first company offered an opportunity to apply for a conversion, and I’d certainly be surprised if more offers were made before the dust has settled in Burns Lake.
Another detail about the legislation that’s interesting is that the minister of forests will be required to set an annual allowable cut (AAC) that doesn’t exceed the AAC of the licenses turned over for conversion.
So Hampton won’t be cutting down more trees; it will just have more control over the future health, and profitability, of the forest it manages under a TFL, assuming that the whole process goes swimmingly.
It doesn’t sound like there’s much to be afraid of in this new legislation as it stands, even if only because it doesn’t say much specifically about how the new TFLs will look, or how smaller players will fit in and find their fair share of opportunity.
For some, it’s the bare-bone nature of the legislation along with its potential impact on provincial forest policy that has them calling for its repeal should the liberal government fall in the spring election. Critics include real and life-long experts in forest management; I’m not trying to take away from their position.
Like a lot of us out here, I’m just another person listening to smarter people try to sort out forest policy after the mountain pine beetle and disasters like the Babine mill explosion.
I’d like to see what the province and Hampton Affiliates come up with in the Lakes District. We’ve got to do something, right?
