About Forest Stewardship Plans

Under the old Forest Practices Code Act, logging companies were required to put logging plans up for public review every year and demonstrate that all forest values were being adequately managed and conserved. In 2004 the BC government brought in a package of “reforms” for the purpose of streamlining the approval process while (supposedly) maintaining the province’s environmental standards.

The SCCA was very concerned about this new act (the Forest and Range Practices Act or FRPA--everyone pronounces it “fir-pa”). Under this act, companies replaced their old forest development plans with new forest stewardship plans, which only need to be reviewed every five years and allow the companies to operate largely free of public and government agency oversight.

A phrase in FRPA says: “if the minimum requirements of the Act have been met, the FSP must be approved.” Therefore, while the federal Species-at-Risk Act says it’s an offence to endanger an at-risk species (for instance by killing a marbled murrelet, destroying its nest or disturbing it in any way), the provincial government, by using FSP approvals, can authorize large-scale logging of the birds’ nesting habitat.

In 2006 the SCCA asked the Forest Practices Board to review the approval of Interfor’s Sunshine Coast FSP. The FPB did not intervene with the FSP approval, but did initiate a "Special Investigation" about the treatment of species-at-risk under the new Forest and Range Practices. In the investigation, which took more than a year and a half, the FPB found that adequate management and conservation of this species was not being practiced in the SC Forest District and that this is largely government's failure.

Documents:

March 21, 2006 - letter from SCCA to Interfor re Forest Stewardship Plan review
March 27, 2006 - letter from SCCA to Cascadia Forest Products
Aug. 8, 2006 - SCCA requests Forest Practices Board for appeal
Aug. 16, 2006 - letter from SCCA to BT Timber Sales
Sept. 22, 2006 - letter from SCCA to Sechelt Community Projects Inc.
April, 2008 - Special Investigation Report: Marbled Murrelets on the Sunshine Coast (Forest Practices Board of BC)