BC Timber Inventory a Guessing Game?

ForesterBlog.com

I don't envy those whose job it is to conduct timber inventories and calculate annual allowable cuts on large tracts of land, such as a Forest District or Region.  There are so many variables to consider on the amount of sustainable cut a land base can bear.

For starters, you need accurate areas of all your forest cover polygons.  You need to take out non-productive areas (e.g.: rock, brush), roads, water bodies, private land, etc.  You need to consider the effects of forest health issues, such as mountain pine beetle and hemlock looper.  One large outbreak could throw everything off.  And even if all that data is accurate, you still need to estimate how much the trees are growing every year, and what is being cut.  I have no doubt there are sophisticated models and equations to do this, but how accurate can they really be?

If the calculations are not accurate, more timber could be annually harvested than is sustainable.  At some point there will be a falldown, and mills that depend on a certain amount of timber won't be able to find it.  Conversely, if less timber is cut every year than is sustainable, this could lower economic productivity and reduce the number of potential jobs and revenues that could have been achieved.  The problem is that it takes time to find out if you are over or under, and by then the impacts are being felt.

Timber inventories are especially critical in the central Interior of BC where there have been massive losses to pine stands from mountain pine beetle.  There will no doubt be lower annual cuts coming in those areas, but is there an accurate current inventory available?

The article linked to at the bottom of this post discusses this issue.  No doubt there is more effort required by the government to calculate our forest inventories.

A third of the government’s inventory of timber lands is at least 17 years out of date, the Ministry of Forests confirms. That makes it impossible to accurately establish the so-called falldown – the point at which mills in the B.C. Interior start to run out of logs after processing today’s pine-beetle-killed timber.


But the government is expecting a precipitous drop in timber supply in the Interior, according to Ministry of Forests data dated Dec. 31. The “mid-term timber supply” data shows the volume of trees to be harvested dropping by roughly a third over the next two decades.

To read the full article, click below:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/bc-politics/timber-inventory-a-guessing-game-critics-charge/article2343616/

------------

BC Timber Sales Registers with BC Forest Safety Council

Safety is an ever present issue in the forest industry, and the new drive affecting many companies this year is WORKSAFE and the BC Forest Safety Council. Many companies, including licensees and consultants, have registered in the early part of this year. Contractors and consultants working for BCTS will need to register as well for contracts advertised after April 1, 2007.

Here is an April 24 announcement from the government:

VICTORIA – In its commitment to improve safety for forest workers, the BC Timber Sales program has registered with the BC Forest Safety Council, marking its intention to achieve SAFE Companies certification within six months.

“As the province’s largest public land manager, BC Timber Sales has made safety an overriding principle in its activities,” said Forests and Range Minister Rich Coleman. “This move towards certification is an important step in meeting the Province’s commitment to improve safety for all those who work in our forests.”

Under its new safety program, all BC Timber Sales fieldwork contracts advertised after April 1, 2007 require operators to be registered with the BC Forest Safety Council. All employers working on fieldwork contracts, such as road building or silviculture, must be registered.

In addition, all timber sales licences advertised by BCTS after April 1, 2007 require all persons or companies working on a timber sales licence to be registered in the SAFE Companies program, which signals its intent to be certified within six months.

“BC Timber Sales is promoting safe worksites and safety improvements,” said Coleman. “This step and other actions across the industry are helping create a culture of safety and helping ensure workers arrive home safely at the end of the day.”

The SAFE Companies program of the BC Forest Safety Council provides registrants with clear, practical standards so they can establish and maintain successful health and safety programs that fit their needs. To date, over 1,000 forest licensees in B.C. have voluntarily applied for SAFE Companies certification.

As part of the Province’s forest safety commitment, BC Timber Sales and the Ministry of Forests and Range continue to work closely with the BC Forest Safety Council and WorkSafeBC on a wide range of operational and policy issues aimed at improving worker safety.