Goals, Objectives, Strategies and Results

Overview

Board Overall Goal

The Board’s independent watchdog function will promote the continuous improvement and application of sound forest and range practices to achieve the sustainable management of the public resources of British Columbia.

Management and conservation objectives set by government provide the framework for assessing sustainability of forest and range practices.

Linkage to the Five Great Goals

"Lead the world in sustainable environmental management..."

The Board provides credible, objective and independent verification of sustainable industry and government forest and range practices. Board audits and investigations are objective, thorough, field-based and are extensively checked before reports are published. While the Board occasionally finds it necessary to report on inadequate practices, its approach is to recommend improvements to forest and range practices and government enforcement, consistent with industry’s continuing efforts to adapt and improve.

Cross Ministry Initiatives

The Board is working in cooperation with the FRPA Resource Evaluation Program (FREP) to develop means for assessing the effectiveness of forest practices. FRPA is intended to be results-based legislation. This means that government sets outcomes it wants to achieve — in the form of government objectives — and leaves it to forest companies and licensed professionals to decide how best to achieve them. Consequently, the Board is continuing to test effectiveness audits to test if government’s objectives are being achieved.

While FREP and the Board will both evaluate the effectiveness of forest practices, they will do so for fundamentally different purposes. FREP’s intent is provincial-level monitoring, to identify trends over time and assess the state of the forest. The Board’s intent is to provide a “snapshot” that looks at the effectiveness of a licensee’s forest practices at a specific place and time.

Performance Plan

The objective includes:

• legislation effective in fostering sustainable forest practices;
• forest and range licensees developing and continuously improving practices to achieve the resource objectives set by government; and
• regulatory agencies fostering continuous improvement of forest and range practices through their compliance, enforcement and evaluation programs.

Strategies:

• Conduct random audits of forest and range licensees to assess compliance with FRPA;
• Conduct random audits to assess the appropriateness of government enforcement;
• Develop the Board’s capacity to assess the effectiveness of forest practices in achieving objectives set by government;
• Increase audit focus on First Nations, Small Business and Community operators with less professional forestry management experience;
• Consider information arising from third-party forest certification to increase the efficiency of audit procedures;
• Monitor and assess whether regulatory agencies and licensees have adequately implemented audit recommendations for improved practices, following up as necessary to ensure responses are adequate;
• Publish an annual report summarizing audit trends, recommendations and results;
• Monitor administrative penalties and appeals to identify those that address fundamental forest and range practice issues, or involve interpretation of important provisions of legislation;
• Initiate or participate in administrative appeals when the Board believes that doing so is in the public interest;
• Monitor whether Board interventions in appeals and penalties are effective in upholding standards of performance expected of license holders; and
• Publish summaries of the results of appeals.

Performance Measures

Strategies:

• Deal with all participants in a transparent and non-adversarial manner during complaint investigations.
• Seek informal opportunities to resolve complaints where possible.
• Focus complaint investigations to first address issues directly raised by, and relevant to, the complainant, and second address underlying or thematic issues of public interest.
• Provide parties that are adversely affected by investigation findings with an opportunity to respond, before the report is finalized.
• Improve complaint investigation processes through surveys of participant satisfaction.
• Monitor and assess whether regulatory agencies and licensees have adequately implemented recommendations for improved practices, following up as necessary to ensure responses are adequate.

Performance Measure

Strategies:

• Assess prevailing trends and conditions to annually identify issues of major public importance.
• Regularly discuss strategic issues with the heads of regulatory agencies, industry licensees, researchers and interested non-government organizations to determine those worthy of investigation.
• Conduct and publish special investigations where appropriate, which may include recommendations for improving forest practices.
• Monitor and assess whether regulatory agencies and licensees have adequately implemented recommendations for improved practices, following up as necessary to ensure responses are adequate.

Performance Measure

Board Performance Plan Summary