Survey Guide: Private Managed Forest Land Program

This guide is a helpful companion to the BC government’s survey on the Private Managed Forest Land Program.

Please answer according to your experience and values—but, if helpful to you, this guide has Wildsight’s suggested answers to the survey’s questions.

Take the survey now.

 

(1) The broad goals for the Private Managed Forest Land Program are still relevant.

Agree.

Please provide additional information for why you chose your answer above.

The program’s goals are generally good, but they should go beyond “encouraging” to “ensure” that landowners to meet environmental and long-term forest management objectives.

Weak regulations have failed to protect key environmental and community values and ensure long term management on private managed forest in areas like Vancouver Island, the Sunshine Coast, the West Kootenay region, and the Elk Valley—so the Managed Forest Council isn’t achieving its goals

 

(2) The key public environmental values specified in the Private Managed Forest Land Act are sufficient.

Strongly Disagree

Based on your answer above, please share what key public environmental values you feel are well protected under the Private Managed Forest Land Act and/or those that you feel could be better represented?

Current environmental values need to be updated to include clear and meaningful language, strong objectives, and to add new environmental values, including:

Protection of wildlife habitat.  There is no objective to protect general wildlife habitat which is major regulatory gap for managed forest in areas like the Elk Valley and Vancouver Island, where much of the region is owned and managed by Managed Forest landowners and wildlife populations are dependent on the health and function of private managed forest land.

Protection of Water. Water quality protections should be applied broadly to water quality and not just drinking water. Water quality, stream and riparian health should be included as an objective that applies to all streams, lakes, and wetlands regardless of whether they are fish bearing or used for human consumption.

Cumulative Effects Land Management. As the demand for natural resources grows, we must consistently and effectively assess the combined effects that logging activities have on BC’s environmental, social and economic values so that we make sound decisions for our future. We can’t manage private forests in a vacuum.

 

(3) The current regulatory framework is effective in supporting achievement of the management objectives specified in the Private Managed Forest Land Act.

Strongly Disagree

Please provide additional information for why you chose your answer above.

The current regulatory framework is not effective to protect environmental or community values on large managed forests.

With two of five of the Private Managed Forest Council members from the industry and the third member jointly appointed by government and industry, the Council is dominated by industry interests. The Council is supposed to be an independent public regulatory and enforcement agency, but the significant presence of industry represents a major conflict of interest and makes the Council an ineffective regulator. An independent body such as FLNRORD or the BC Forest Practices Board should be responsible for overseeing compliance and enforcement on large-scale managed forest operations.

Current regulations do not protect public resources affected by logging on private land or allow for community, local government or First Nations input into decision making. The Private Managed Forest Lands Act must be amended to bring regulations in line with those on Crown land, including requirements for sustainable harvest, protection of wildlife habitat, water protection, protection of viewscapes, and community input.

 

(4) The current benefits of being in the program are adequate to encourage new entrants into the program.

Agree

Please share how you feel incentives within the Act are working well to encourage landowners to enrol in the program, or any additional incentives you would suggest.

Current incentives for large landowners are very clear and in some cases too generous. For landowners with thousands of hectares of land the tax incentives are significant. However, the benefit to the public are becoming less clear as the public often suffers from impacts to water, recreation, tourism and community visuals.

Incentivizing landowners to reserve ecologically valuable parts of their properties as wildlife habitat areas or conservation lands would help the program meet its environmental objectives and reduce the cumulative impacts of private land logging.

 

(5) The current benefits of being in the program are adequate to the continued participation (retention) of currently enrolled land owners.

Disagree

Please share how you feel incentives within the Act are working well to retain landowners currently enrolled in the program, or any additional incentives you would suggest.

For large landowners, the program should generally not allow land to be removed from private forest for development. The Forests Land Reserve Act (FLRA) should be reinstated to ensure privately managed forests remain managed forests rather than being sold for urban development.

For smaller landowners the incentives are not quite as clear. The MFC administrative fee was more than doubled this year and smaller landowners are increasingly seeing less of an incentive to stay within the program as incentives for rural farm tax status may be better.

 

(6) The exit fee is an adequate way to persuade landowners to remain in the program and encourage long-term participation in the provincial forest sector.

Strongly disagree

Please share how you feel the use of the current exit fee is working well, or potential new disincentives that could discourage exit from the program.

The exit fee is not working to keep land in the program as it does not apply on land that has been in the program for more than 15 years and is insufficient in other cases. Forest management is a long-term practice and 15 years allows owners to profit from logging and then land sales without any significant environmental benefit or long-term contribution to the forest industry.

The Forests Land Reserve Act (FLRA) should be reinstated to ensure privately managed forests are not sold for urban development.

 

The remainder of the questions are about your personal experiences.