Is the B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations (MFLNRO) about to approve a transfer of timber supply licenses within the Morice timber supply area (TSA) between Canfor and West Fraser before it has completed its current timber supply review?
This pressing question, along with the implication that timber supply management is chugging along with the cart before the horse, were concerns raised around the Regional District of Bulkley Nechako (RDBN) board table in Burns Lake on Jan. 9, 2014 as members of the RDBN committee of the whole digested an update provided by MFLNRO Nadina resource district stewardship officer Agathe Bernard.
A timber supply review is underway for the Morice TSA in the leadup to a new chief forester’s determination of the area’s allowable annual cut (AAC). The AAC sets the timber harvest level for a region, in effect determining the economic engine for the local forest industry.
At least once every 10 years the province’s chief forester is mandated to provide a new AAC for every TSA in the province. The previous determination for the Morice TSA was made in 2008, when the AAC was set at 1.265 million cubic metres of harvest per year. That AAC represented a continuation of the uplifts put in place throughout the B.C. interior ravaged by the mountain pine beetle epidemic.
Uplifts were put in place to make the most of a sea of dead pine - 32 million cubic metres in the Morice TSA alone - left behind once the beetle had run its course. Salvaging that dead timber while it was still merchantable has been a priority since then.
As of last August 2013, 11 million cubic metres of that dead pine in the Morice TSA has been harvested. What remains has a shelf-life, with estimates calling for it to lose its merchantability within the next five years or so.
Stands of dead pine don’t exist in isolation from non-pine species, and mills can’t run on a diet of dead pine alone. So a partition system was put in place to preserve non-pine species from been scoured during the uplift while at the same time respecting the industrial need for a mixed harvest.
In 2008, the province assigned a portion of the AAC to non-pine species. In the Morice, of the 2.165 million AAC, only 550,000 million cubic metres was supposed to be taken from standing non-pine.
“Has the non-pine designation been respected?” asked RDBN chair Bill Miller.
The short answer is no.
The last three years, Bernard reported, have seen an over-harvest of non-pine stock to the tune of 1.3 million cubic metres in total in the Morice.
Percentage-wise, this means that since 2011, 40 per cent of timber harvested has been non-pine stock.
“Why has there been such an over-harvest of non-pine,” asked Smithers Mayor Taylor Bachrach.
Bernard explained this harvest decision as one made at the corporate level by the license holders. The province monitors partition quotas after it’s been harvested, not prior to its harvest during the block layout process.
Until 2011, Bernard reported, licensees had been very successful in maintaining the partition with harvest levels of non-pine stock coming in below the provincial target of 25 per cent.
The province did take steps to address the over-haul of non-pine as soon as it was recognized in 2011. By early 2013 a partition order was put in place for the Morice TSA which included possible fines for over-harvest of non-pine stock, but by May 2013 the order was rescinded.
Administrative difficulties associated with compliance made it impossible for, in this case West Fraser, to operate under the order while bringing in enough volume to keep their Houston mill running.
The decision to rescind the order was, Bernard explained, a ministerial one.
Whatever the reasons for the inability of licensees to abide by the non-pine partition since 2011, one thing is certain. The commercial viability of what now remains standing is in question, a fact highlighted by the recent announcement of mill closures in Houston and Quesnel.
The current timber supply analysis, Bernard said, continues with a priority on harvesting dead pine for the next five years. The ministry expects to provide a public information package regarding the current analysis within six weeks. This second public information package - the first was available last September - will allow for sixty days of important public input and consultation.
Although the RDBN board welcomed an in-depth analysis of the Morice, there was concern around the table that major timber supply decisions were already being made without the benefit of the information the current analysis would provide.
“My concern,” said Houston Mayor Bill Holmberg, “is that you are in the middle of a timber supply review and you’re allowing license holders to move large amounts of wood around. It seems to me you’re putting the cart before the horse.”
“If this timber supply review comes out and it’s determined that we’re going to have a downturn in our AAC, why are we allowing these mills to take the standing timber they have now and move it around?”
That question, Bernard said, would be better directed to the ministers responsible for those decisions. Holmberg will have the opportunity to raise those matters again with the minister of forests, Steve Thomson, when he visits Houston on Feb. 3, 2014.
Holmberg is opposed to the planned timber swap between Canfor and West Fraser that will see volume from the Morice TSA transferred to West Fraser’s remaining mill in Smithers, outside of the Morice TSA. But he was not alone with his concern regarding the state of forest management.
“The fear is that decisions are being made without the proper inventory numbers,” Vanderhoof Mayor Jerry Thiessen said. “The viability of our communities over the next 15 or 30 years depends upon how much non-pine species we have left to harvest.”
It behoves the province, Thiessen added, “to develop legislation that will protect the interests of the communities that rely on sound forest management legislation.”
The current timber supply review for the Morice is not as extensive as the one almost complete for the Lakes TSA. A complete type-four silviculture analysis, which includes comprehensive aerial photography of the entire TSA, has begun in the Morice, but it will not be complete for at least another two or three years.
The current timber supply review is based on field audits of on-hand timber supply numbers. Those audits have confirmed that the current review is based on sound data.
“We can not wait until 2015 or 2016 for a new AAC determination,” Bernard said. “But if we find [then] that the old inventory was inaccurate, then we will make a new [AAC] determination.”
The Morice TSA neighbours the Lakes TSA, and many Burns Lake based contractors operate within that area.