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Chief forester cuts back Interfor’s harvesting blocks in West Boundary

Chief Forester Diane Nicholls published her rationale in a Feb. 10 report
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The Chief Forester’s decision reflected long-terms concerns for Boundary Creek, shown above. Photo: Kristie Steele

The province’s top forester has scaled back annual timber harvests across two blocks of the West Boundary leased by Interfor, citing area First Nations’ interests and concerns about sustainability.

The decision cuts by nearly 15 per cent the company’s allowable harvests in Tree Farm Licence 8 (TFL 8) — roughly 78,000 combined hectares of forests north of Greenwood, Midway and Rock Creek and northeast of Beaverdell, according to a Feb. 10 report by Chief Forest Diane Nicholls.

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Chief foresters in B.C. act independently of the forests ministry and have the authority under the Forest Act to determine yearly timber harvests, known as “annual allowable cuts” (AAC). AACs set the volume of timber that can be cut in TFLs leased by the provincial Crown.

The West Boundary’s Tree Farm Licence 8 is shown in this map from Chief Forester Diane Nicholls’ Feb. 10 report. Graphic: Ministry of Forests’ “Tree Farm 8: Rationale for Allowable Annual Cut (AAC) Determination”
The West Boundary’s Tree Farm Licence 8 is shown in this map from Chief Forester Diane Nicholls’ Feb. 10 report. Graphic: Ministry of Forests’ “Tree Farm 8: Rationale for Allowable Annual Cut (AAC) Determination”

As of Feb. 10, 83 per cent of the timber that can be harvested in TFL 8 can only be logged on slopes at or less than 45 degrees, Nicholls wrote.

Steep cut blocks and logging roads are a concern to Indigenous stakeholders in the region, who highly value area waterways impacted by logging, she continued. To this point, Nicholls’ report draws on the 2020 findings of the B.C. Forest and Range Evaluation Program (FREP), which monitors and evaluates forest practices.

The FREP report found that Boundary Creek, which runs through much of Interfor’s southerly harvest block, was “not properly functioning,” mostly due to human caused disturbances upstream.

According to Nicholls, “Forestry was identified as the main development activity upstream in all but one” of the water systems across the Kootenay-Boundary region as a whole, with farming associated with upstream disturbances in the outstanding case.

Neither Nicholls, nor the FREP findings mentioned in her report attribute the region’s poor watershed health to Interfor. Rather, Nicholls stated that she was “pleased to learn” Interfor had hired a hydrologist to come up with a full watershed assessment for the company’s Boundary Creek block.

The chief forester then pointed out that some timber hauls within TFL 8 had left clear-cuts over the 40 hectares specified in forestry regulations.

“It is my expectation that the licensee will not create openings over 40 hectares in size because of the issues with wildlife, biodiversity, water, terrain stability and road density,” Nicholls stated.

Interfor purchased the logging rights to TFL 8 from Pope & Talbot in 2008.