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Forest Stewardship Plans (FSPs)
are necessitated by recent legislation - the
Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA). FRPA legislation came into
effect on January 31, 2004 requiring all major licensees and BCTS operations
throughout BC to have FSPs in place by March 31, 2007.
FRPA legislation sets out
practice requirements that licensees must meet when doing harvesting, road
building or silviculture activities. In our district this also includes not
damaging or rendering ineffective karst caves, significant surface karst
features and important features and elements within high or very high
vulnerability karst.
FSP maps show large areas where
a forest licensee may carry out forest development activities (such as
harvesting cutblocks or building roads) over a period of up to five years. FSP
maps do not generally show the actual location of planned cutblocks or roads.
FSP’s set out results or
strategies that forest companies must achieve as they conduct forest development
activities to manage and protect forest values such as cultural heritage
resources, soils, timber (including forest health), fish and wildlife, visual
quality, water quality, and biodiversity. As well, these plans
contain results or strategies for objectives found in higher level plans such as
Landscape Unit Plans and Land and Resource Management Plans (LRMP’s).
Currently, for the Central Coast Land and Resource Management Plan such
objectives are found in two Orders – the South Central Coast Order (effective
August 2, 2007) and the Central and North Coast Order (effective January 3,
2008). A Vancouver Island Land Use Plan Higher Level Plan Order is also in
effect (December 1, 2000) for the Vancouver Island portion of our forest
district.
FSP’s also contain stocking
standards and specify measures to prevent the introduction and spread of
invasive plant species and may contain measures to maintain natural range
barriers. Cutblocks harvested under the Forest Practices Code of British
Columbia Act (FPC) will still be managed - under either the standards of the
FPC or under the standards specified in FSPs.
It is important to note that
FSP’s are just one of the tools used to ensure stewardship of our provincial
forests, and as such they do not address the variety of stewardship-related
activities that are undertaken on the forested land-base, nor do they speak to
forest company certification practices.
FRPA
Government Objectives:
The FRPA planning framework requires that forest tenure
holders must submit various operational plans to government for approval prior
to carrying out forestry activities.
Operational plans include Forest Stewardship Plans, Woodlot Licence Plans, Range
Use Plans or Range Stewardship Plan.
The content of these operational plans are guided by government established
objectives. Government agencies with
authority to establish these objectives include the Ministry or Forests and
Range, the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry Tourism, Culture and the Arts
and the Integrated Land Management Bureau.
While the establishment, filing and
maintenance of government objectives remain the responsibility of the individual
authorized agency(s), the North
–Island Central Coast Forest District office has information available to
assist forest and range tenure holders with identifying government objectives
applicable to their specific tenured area.
For assistance contact
Christina Mardell,
Stewardship Forester at (250)
956-5089 or
Christina.A.Mardell@gov.bc.ca.
Some useful links for those
preparing or implementing FSPs:
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