Managing forest recreation values
Destination BC photo
Outdoor recreation has likely never been more valued by communities in BC than it is now, yet the planning and management of outdoor recreation on Crown land has been woefully neglected for decades, and we see little effort to address the real issues.
After much anticipation from the recreation community, the Forest Practices Board finally released its special report Managing Forest Recreation Resources Values under FRPA in May last year. We were greatly encouraged by the findings and recommendations in the report, as they support many of the issues we have experienced for years.
Today we sent a letter to Minister George Heyman, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy and Minister Katrine Conroy, Minister of Forests, to inquire if and how the Province will respond to the findings and recommendations.
Key findings in the report include:
Government staffing
Recreation Sites and Trails BC’s mandate is focused on established sites and trails
Staffing effort is very stretched for this part of their mandate with very little capacity for managing recreation on the broader land base.
Forest harvesting
Impacts of timber harvesting on recreation.
Focus mainly on managing the impact of harvest on designated sites and trails; not on the broader recreation resource
Access management
Deactivation of forest service roads
Conflicting demands
User group conflicts
Motorized and non-motorized - commercial and non-commercial
Recreation planning
Inventories and Information lacking or outdated
Strategic land use planning: Little planning for 20 years
Many recreation sites have no objectives and those with objectives are mostly outdated.
We know that there is broad recognition within government, forest licences, recreationists and the public that the Province’s forest recreation staffing is very lean, and we believe that there is an urgent need to provide more operational resources for Recreation Sites and Trails BC to ensure that they have the adequate staffing capacity to properly manage existing sites and trails and that they are mandated and resourced to also deal with recreation values on the broader Crown land base. We asked the ministers and the Chief Forester to ensure that the objectives that must be considered in the new forest landscape planning process will include detailed consideration of recreational values as well as the voices of recreation groups operating locally, regionally, and provincially.
Read the Forest Practices Board’s report here and watch a webinar about the findings by past Forest Practices Board Chair, Kevin Kriese, which was hosted by ORCBC last year.
