Goals, Key Outcome Indicators and Core Business Areas — Continued

Goal 1: Sustainable Forest Resources

As stewards of British Columbia’s forest and range resources, the Forest Service has the responsibility to ensure that the use of the forests to generate economic benefits is balanced with the long-term health of the forest and range resources. We will ensure the use of appropriate forest and range management practices to maintain and improve the long-term sustainability and health of the province’s forest and range resources.

Healthy forest ecosystems sustain the quality and quantity of soil, water and timber, and these will therefore be used as key outcome indicators of our sustainable forest resources. These indicators are linked to national forest criteria and indicators of global forest sustainability, of which there are several approaches used. Although, the indicators presented here are chosen to represent key elements of healthy ecosystems, these indicators are only meaningful at the ecosystem level, need to be considered over time, and no one indicator can be taken by itself as a sufficient indicator of sustainability. The ministry intends to present more comprehensive information in a “State of the Forests” report published periodically.

Goal 1: Sustainable Forest Resources
Key Outcome	Indicator	2002/03 Projection	2003/04 Projection	2004/05 Projection	2005/06 Projection
Sustainable forest land base	Area of provincial forest in millions of hectares	47 M	47 M	47 M	47 M
Sustainable timber productivity	Ratio of area reforested to area harvested or lost to fire and pest (unsalvageable losses, based on a 5-year rolling average)	1.04	≥1.0	≥1.0	≥1.0
	Total area of Crown forest lost to unwanted wildfire annually (in hectares, on a 5-year rolling average)	17,096	<30,000	<30,000	<30,000
Healthy forests — Soil Quality	% of annual harvest area with soil loss due to establishment of permanent access roads (based on a 5-year rolling average)	5%	≤5%	≤5%	≤5%
Healthy forests — Water Quality	Percentage of community watersheds with active logging for which watershed assessments have been completed	100%	100%	100%	100%
Healthy forests — Ecosystem diversity	Area of forests >140 years of age within the province in millions of hectares	26 M	26 M	26 M	26 M
Effective forest protection and manage- ment by forest operators	Percentage of forest operators’ compliance with standards that regulate forest practices	94%	≥94%	≥94%	≥94%

There are four Core Business Areas that support this goal:

Core Business: Forest Protection

To help ensure the forest will continue to contribute to a strong forest economy, the ministry prevents and suppresses wildfire to protect natural resource inventories and investments in the forest land-base. Our forest fire response is primarily focused on protecting lives and government forest assets, particularly timber. Without fire protection, some 500,000 hectares of productive forest would be lost annually costing the province billions of dollars in potential direct revenue.

Forest Protection also includes the detection and management of insect pest outbreaks on areas under the responsibility of the province. Of key significance recently are bark beetles and gypsy moth infestations. Other defoliators, endemic pests and outbreaks of local significance are also managed.

Changes from 2002/03

In 2002/03 this core business was “to protect and manage the asset” and included managing encroachments by invasive alien plant species (including noxious weeds) on rangelands.

In 2003/04 all rangeland treatments are included as part of the Stewardship core business.

Planned Changes for 2003/04

Forest protection will remain a core ministry business. The ministry plans to significantly increase the cost sharing of fire protection activities with the forest industry, utility companies and landowners. The cost sharing mechanisms to cover fire suppression costs are being developed for implementation. Legislative and regulatory changes are required both as part of the new regulatory regime for the forest industry and as part of general de-regulation and streamlining. This will include the implementation of a new Wildland Fire Act in January 2004.

Forest licensees will take on greater responsibilities for protecting the health of forests under their management. The province already relies on industry to a large extent to help manage pest epidemics, including the current bark beetle situation, and this will continue. However, government continues to have a significant obligation to manage infestations in BC Parks and protected areas, and manage defoliator outbreaks that span multiple jurisdictions.

Core Business: Stewardship of Forest Resources

The functions in this core business area are fundamental to ensuring sound environmental stewardship of forest and range resources to ensure that they are used in a sustainable way. This in turn supports global recognition of environmental stewardship for BC and BC companies by ensuring that an appropriate regulatory framework is in place. This can also provide a foundation for forest certification of company operations.

Stewardship includes the regulation of forest and range practices, timber supply planning and determination, range planning and management, control of invasive alien plant species, recreation resource management, applied research, and forest gene resource management. The ministry continues its deregulation initiative that will reduce forestry regulation by one-third by 2004/05 without compromising environmental standards.

Provincial investments in forest productivity, which are largely managed by forest companies, also assist in this goal while supporting the long-term value of the Crown’s forest asset base.

Changes from 2002/03

In 2003/04 this core business now includes all range and recreation management activities. In 2002/03, some of these activities were in the Stewardship core business and some were in the Pricing and Selling Timber core business.

Planned Changes

In 2003/04, the Forest Service will implement transition to the new Forest and Range Practices Act, with greater reliance on professional and company accountability. Implementation of the defined forest area management model is also expected to provide more operating flexibility and forest management responsibilities for forest companies, support results-based regulation and certification, and allow government to achieve its fiscal objectives.

As part of the planned move to area-based management of the whole forest land-base, forest licensees may develop timber supply analyses for Timber Supply Areas. This is the practice now on Tree Farm Licenses. When forest licensees do not participate in preparing Timber Supply Area analyses, the ministry will complete them. The ministry will continue to determine Allowable Annual Cuts for all Timber Supply Areas and Tree Farm Licenses.

As part of the proposed shift to area based management on Timber Supply Areas, forest licensees would be responsible for carrying out specific forest health activities.

The role of the ministry in managing range use is changing in that Range Act agreement holders will now be required to submit their own operational plan under the new Forest and Range Practices Act. In addition there will be more responsibility placed on them to achieve prescribed results or standards without specific direction from the ministry. The ministry will continue to approve range use plans and range tenures.

The current requirements for control of noxious weeds by the ranching and forest community will be expanded to include other specified invasive plants and responsibilities will be clarified. This will allow less direct involvement by ministry staff, corresponding with the ministry’s reduction of resources (both staff and funding) to the program.

To ensure recreation sites and trails continue to be accessible and well maintained, the ministry will work to establish viable partnerships for their management. Most sites and trails without partnership agreements will remain open to the public and will be managed by the ministry as user maintain. Some sites and trails may need to be decommissioned and closed where there are high risks to public safety or the environment.

The two ministry tree seedling nurseries will be privatized. Having offered its six seed orchards for lease to the private sector, and having received no offers, the ministry will continue its program of propagating improved seed to be used in reforesting Crown land. Through a combination of public and private sector seed orchards the strategy is to expand orchard production so that by 2007 there will be enough improved seed to supply 150 million of the approximately 200 million seedlings expected to be planted in the province each year. In the interests of meeting gene resource management objectives and improved forest productivity, the Ministry and licensees will continue to improve the quality of seed used for reforestation on Crown land.

In addition, as part of the shift to area-based management, reforestation activities on areas lost to fire or pests will be carried out by forest licensees on a discretionary basis using Forest Investment Account funding. Stand tending activities, such as spacing and pruning will not be a regulatory requirement. They will be optional and will occur based on availability of funding and joint assessment of provincial and licensee priorities.

The ministry research program will be focused more directly on work needed to support scientifically based standards of forest practice on Crown lands.

Core Business: Compliance and Enforcement

This core business includes all activities related to upholding BC’s laws related to protecting the province’s forest and range resources under MOF’s jurisdiction. Under Goal 1, this includes:

• enforcing environmental standards under the new Forest and Range Practices Act for forest and range management carried out both by the government and by forest and range tenure holders;
• enforcing regulations to minimize fire, pests, and unauthorized activities that threaten the province’s forest and range resources; and
• enforcing rules governing the use of Forest Service recreation sites and trails.

Planned Changes

Compliance and enforcement staff are the basis of the Forest Service’s “field arm.” This is an ongoing core function of government directly related to ensuring the public interest in management of our forests and generation of revenue is protected.

The ministry plans to restructure the compliance and enforcement organization so that a reduced number of staff resources can be more effective by being more highly focused and highly trained.

Core Business: Forest Investment

The Forest Investment Account (FIA) is a new provincial government mechanism for promoting investment in sustainable forest management in British Columbia. It is a separate Vote of the Legislature, authorizing the Minister of Forests to provide funding for certain forest management activities.

Specific amounts in support of Sustainable Forest Resources are dedicated to program elements at the provincial level, including tree improvement, research and land use planning. Other amounts are allocated for disbursement to tree farm license holders and certain tenure holders in each timber supply area, for activities such as inventories, stand establishment and treatment, restoration and rehabilitation.

Administration of most FIA activities will be provided by private-sector firms rather than by government staff. Forintek Canada Corp will provide day-to-day administration for the Research Program and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP will do the same for the Land Base Investment Program.

Changes from 2002/03

The Forest Investment Account is a new Core Business Area for 2003/04. In 2002/03, the Forest Investment Account was identified separately and not included in any of the Ministry of Forests Core Businesses.