Regional District of Bulkley Nechako (RDBN) received an update on the future of the Lakes Timber Supply Area (TSA) from representatives of the provincial forest ministry on Jan. 11.
Anthony Giannotti, pricing and tenure director, Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations’, informed board that the current allocations of allowable annual cut in the Lakes TSA have 970,000 cubic meters, which were decided in 2021.
He added that the harvest did not reach the threshold to uplift it between 2001 and 2010. He addressed that Minister Bruce Ralston recently cautioned the Lakes TSA by an 18 per cent reduction in its forest licenses, which resulted from 2021.
Giannotti said the Lakes TSA goes back to 1996 with 1.5 million cubic meters of harvest, which was uplifted to over 3 million cubic meters in 2001.
The forest ministry’s update was met with concerns from RDBN directors.
Michael Riis-Christianson, RDBN’s Burns Lake director said he was concerned about the shelf-life of burnt and mountain pine beetle-killed timbers and how these volumes can vary from the 2018 wildfires.
Neal Marincak, Nadina Natural Resource District’s resource manager, said from his understanding that Fraser Lake is still salvaging the 2018 wildfire burnt timbers and addressed that the shelf-life remains only for a year. He said that he doesn’t have the scientific background to make this statement more precise and will update board on the timber volumes later.
Shane Brienen, Houston’s mayor, addressed his concerns about community struggles from drought and severe wildfires and asked for future solutions.
Marincak said that a welfare risk reduction program had been designed over the last six months to address these issues. He is looking forward in this program’s expansion to tackle, salvage and recover burnt timber.
Clint Lambert, RDBN’s Francois/Ootsa Lake director, was concerned about burnt timber sales and questioned where it could be salvaged quickly. He addressed that licensees like Canfor do not want to run burnt wood chips through their pulp mills and capitalize from it.
Marincak said that BC Timber Sales (BCTS) has an expectation to keep the burnt timber volumes undercut by 10 per cent. He said that even though he does not follow up with BCTS closely, he hopes that the coming years will open more opportunities for timber salvage.
Tara Dunphy, Skeena Region’s strategic initiatives and forest landscape planning director, also updated board on Morice and Lakes TSAs’ pilot project. She said the project has two objectives, which are the legal objectives that amend the state sustainable resource management plan and the other is the forest landscape plan which will have its draft completed by the end of this year. Then, it will undergo a legal public review, which is expected to be completed by 2025.
After hearing all the updates, Mark Parker, RDBN’s chairperson, thanked the presenters and said that board would look into these for future perspectives.
