Final details remain to be worked out, but the Lakes timber supply area (TSA) is now home to a second community forest.
The newly minted Chinook community forest, an area-based tenure, will cover approximately 60,000 hectares of land throughout the Lakes TSA. Its annual allowable cut is expected to be 150,000 m3.
It will have a similar legal and organizational structure as the existing Burns Lake Community Forest, but the details are not yet finalized.
Information regarding who will make up the first board, and who that board will be answerable to, is not available, although Wet’suwe’ten First Nation Chief Karen Ogen confirms that she has been named the interim first president for now.
Stakeholders include the Village of Burns Lake, the Regional District of Bulkley Nechako, and local First Nations.
The new community forest comes out of the commitment made by the province to ensure that there would be enough timber available in the Lakes TSA to justify Hampton Affiliates rebuild of the Babine Forest Products sawmill in Burns Lake, which was destroyed in January, 2012 in a terrible explosion that took two lives and injured many more.