January 23, 2003

Working Forest to Replace 140 Provincial Forests

Minister of Sustainable Resource Management, Stan Hagen, has released a discussion paper on "working forests" and has given the public until March 14th to respond. The style of "consultation" in the New Era is to post a document on the Internet and then provide the public with a very tight timeline for making submissions. It is possible that Hagen's paper is the first step towards eliminating some existing forest tenures so as to move towards the market mechanisms demanded by the US.

The most important question to ask when reading Hagen's discussion paper is "what difference does this make?" One view is that the new designation is nothing but a feel good title aimed at sending a message to resource dependent communities that some land is protected for jobs rather than parks; however, cabinet or the Legislature can still designate protected areas and parks. Furthermore, the paper makes it clear that a great deal of work must still be done to draw boundaries for the "working forest".

The paper goes into detail to explain how Crown land in the Provincial Forest can now be converted to private-land status (e.g. leases, licences or other private legal rights). It then notes that the decision making procedure for converting Crown land to private-land status will change under legislation that designates the working forest "with the Minister of Sustainable Resource Management playing the primary role."

The paper says that "Crown forest land in B.C. will be legally designated as Working Forest. At that time, the current Provincial Forest designations will be rescinded." Currently there are 140 Provincial Forests which encompass 75 million hectares. The proposed "working forest" will include about 45 million hectares. The paper is not clear on what the effects will be from excluding 30 million hectares from the designation of Provincial Forest without capturing that land in the new definition.

When discussing Provincial Forests, the paper complains that "Maintenance of the boundaries (e.g., maps and legal descriptions) is costly. Not only do the outer boundaries need to be maintained in response to changes in land status, but all changes within a Provincial Forest (e.g., a change in a municipal boundary, or the disposition of a piece of Crown land) must also be reflected in maps and legal descriptions." The implication is that the new "working forests" will not require boundary maintenance although the paper offers no explanations of why that would be the case.

The paper concludes with an attempt to summarize what a "working forest" is by saying "The Working Forest, like the current Provincial Forest, is an administrative system for maintaining a land base for forestry and other resource-dependent sectors. It does not itself convey management or harvesting rights to forest companies - that remains the function of Crown forest tenures granted by the Minister of Forests or officials in the Ministry of Forests." The new administrative system, however, will place primary responsibility with the Minister of Sustainable Resource Management for decisions related to converting Crown land in the Provincial Forest to private-land status. The Minister has on many occasions stressed his role in encouraging economic development. The Ministry is part of what used to be called the Ministry of the Environment; however, its focus has changed.

Trust in the government is very low. The government should clearly state whether the new designation will convey powers that will be used to satisfy the US with respect to changes in how BC manages its forests. The people of BC deserve to know, in straight forward terms, the reasons why government intends to make the change to "working forest" and eliminate "Provincial Forests". What difference does this make and what can the people of BC expect to see over the next ten years as the result of the change?