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Central to the functioning of the timber tenure system is the way in which permissible harvest
rates are established, distributed and monitored.
This "Regulating the Harvest" is sometimes called Allowable Annual Cut determination and
apportionment. The rate of harvest or "Allowable Annual Cut" (AAC) that can occur
within a particular geographic area is determined by the province’s chief forester in accordance
to rules set out in the Forest Act. The basic land management units upon which an AAC is
determined are timber supply areas (TSA) and tree farm licence areas (TFL).
Technically, once the AAC for a TSA is determined, the volume is distributed or
apportioned
by the minister of forests to various forms of agreement that share rights to
harvest crown timber within the TSA. These typically include forest licences and the British Columbia
Timber Sales (BCTS) program. A small volume is apportioned to the "forest service reserve"
to provide for salvage and other tenures such as the forestry and occupant licence to cut and free use
permits.
In most TSAs, almost all of the AAC has been
committed to long-term replaceable licences. Therefore,
the apportionment exercise is very important when AAC levels change within a TSA. Where the minister
changes the apportionment to reflect a change on the TSA's AAC, the minister may proportionately
reduce or increase the AAC specified in major licences.
Conversely if a licence expires, thereby making rights available for sale, the minister must decide
under what form of agreement that should occur.
A new AAC has been determined to be 1,625,000 m3
in the recently released (Nov 10, 2006) Fort Nelson TSA
Rationale for TSR3 AAC Determination. This is an increase from the TSR2 AAC of 1,500,000
m3. Also, the requirement for separate harvest flows from the conifer
and deciduous forest components has been removed. The AAC is fully allocated among the agreements in
place in the TSA.
The Forest Act specifies 10 forms of agreement, commonly referred to as "tenures",
under which timber maybe sold or harvested in British Columbia. Of these 8 are currently in use in the
Fort Nelson Forest District. The key features of these tenures are summarized in the
table
on the
Tenure Summary Page.
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