Massive swaths of B.C. forestry land are in need of replanting.
The question is just how much of it is there?
The amount of unrestocked forest in B.C. may be over 12 times higher than Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations estimates, according to veteran forester Anthony Britneff.
According to the ministry, 730,000 hectares of B.C.'s forest land as not satisfactorily restocked (NSR). But Britneff said his estimates put the number closer to 9.1 million hectares - 2.3 million hectares of which could realistically be replanted while the rest presents challenges.
In September the Forest Practices Board, the province's independent forestry watchdog, launched a special investigation, and today, Forest Practices Board special investigations manager Marvin Eng is expected to give an update on the investigation at the Western Silvicultural Contractors
Association's AGM in Kamloops.
"Up to 20 per cent of the forested area is not growing trees to the productive potential of the land," Britneff said. "Is the timber
landbase shrinking?
We don't know until you've done the [forest] inventory. The answer to that question has enormous implications ... to the annual
allowable cut."
Cuts undermine
land survey
Cuts in 2002 to reforestation programs and the B.C. Forest Service means the province doesn't have the resources to adequately survey B.C.'s 55 million hectares of forest, said Britneff.
A December 2010 report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and Sierra Club of B.C. reported the province cut 1,006 positions, 25 per cent of the total work force, of the B.C. Forest Service between 2000 and 2010 - and field
inspections dropped by 46 per cent.
"During this decade we've had the largest insect infestation in the history of this province and four severe years of forest fire," Britneff said. "If you don't know what the NSR area is ... how can the public have confidence the province is acting in the best interest of the people?"
Research has shown that 20 to 25 per cent of the 16.25 million hectares of interior forest attacked by the mountain pine beetle could be classified as NSR, he said.
Over 242,000 hectares of land was burned by wildfire in the 2009-10 fire season alone, he added.
Forest Practices Board researcher Marvin Eng said he doesn't plan to announce an estimate of the NSR forest at his presentation in
Kamloops today.
"The report itself will be in the spring," Eng said. "[But] my point about the numbers is they get in the way here. We have a very large problem out there. Exactly how big it is doesn't help you know what to do about it."
Part of the problem of deciding how much NSR forest there is in B.C. is figuring out a common definition of what not satisfactorily
restocked means, he said.
"We're trying to find a common understanding of what NSR means."
The report is expected this spring, he said, and will attempt to clarify the terms used to discuss NSR, describe what is know and unknown about the NSR situation and provide a best estimate on what the current NSR situation is.
-- see related story, page 5
