Introduction and Overviews
About This Report — PDF print versionThe State of BC’s Forests
Introduction and Overviews
About This Report — PDF print version
Forests figure prominently in the well-being of British Columbia’s environment, economy and communities.
The purpose of this report is two-fold:
The four parts following “About This Report” provide an overview of British Columbia’s forests and society, an overview of forest management in the province, and discussions of sustainable forest management and indicators.
Indicators of sustainable forest management form the main body of this report. The selected indicators are based on those found in national-level frameworks, and on issues of particular significance to British Columbia. The indicators are grouped into three broad categories: environmental, economic and social, and governance and support.
Information and assessments are provided for 12 of 24 indicators. Overviews are provided for the remaining 12 indicators that will be fully developed in future editions of the report.
For each indicator, the report provides summary information relevant to several questions, along with links to further information, maps, data, and related international and national indicators. Each indicator ends with the Ministry of Forests and Range’s assessment of the indicator.
The text under each indicator question includes some explanation of the information, but no assessment of implications for sustainability. This is intended to enable readers to make their own assessments of sustainability.
For each indicator, the ministry assessed the state, trend and adequacy of information, as follows:
The symbols used to summarize the assessment are shown in Figure 4.
This report does not describe or assess the Ministry of Forests and Range’s activities, goals, targets or performance, as these are covered in the ministry’s service plans and annual reports. Similarly, it does not examine the activities or performance of individual forest companies. Information about these can be found elsewhere.
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FIGURE 4. Assessment symbols used in this report.
Reader feedback about the 2004 edition led to improvements in this 2006 edition. Endnotes provide more detailed explanations for technically inclined readers. Sources and notes about the data for each indicator are included in the back matter of the report.
Data were updated for several indicators published in the 2004 edition: Timber harvest (13-1, 13-2, 13-3, 13-4), First Nations involvement (19-1, 19-3), Law (21-2, 21-3, 21-4) and Certification (24-1, 24-2, 24-3, 24-4).
The date of data varies from the year 2000 for some indicators to 2006 for others. Readers are urged to note the years for which data are presented.
All parts of the report, individual maps and graphs, and related data tables
are available in printer-friendly formats so that they can be used for overheads
or illustrations for teaching and other applications. Copyright rules apply: be
sure to obtain permission before using any of the material in other
publications or making large numbers of copies for distribution. To obtain
copyright permission, please see the contact on the copyright page.
Maps, graphs and data tables are available online at
www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfp/sof/.
Terms such as “forest” that have a technical meaning specific to this report are
listed in the appendix Glossary. They are underlined
the first time they occur within each indicator.
All links to other internet websites worked at the time of publication. The
complete URL and a description including the organization are provided to assist
readers in finding related websites if the linked websites are changed.
The information presented in this report was collected from a variety of sources, each accountable for the quality of the data it provided. Any errors in the presentation or interpretation of those data are, of course, the responsibility of the authors of this report.
Indicators of sustainable forest management cover a scope that is broader than the direct accountabilities of any individual government agency or company. While each organization is accountable for specific aspects of forest management, no one organization is necessarily wholly accountable for the states and trends shown by the indicators.
An important goal of this report is to inform the ongoing development of forest policy and management.
Readers are encouraged to take action in two ways:
Actions that support progress in achieving sustainable forest management will benefit all British Columbians.
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