Setting the Harvest Rate in BC’s
Forests
British Columbia
has about 60 million hectares of forestland. About 95 per cent
of this is publicly owned and managed by government on behalf of all
British Columbians.
British Columbia's
Chief Forester is required by law to determine how much wood can be
harvested sustainably in each of the province’s 70 management units.
This sustainable harvest level is called the allowable annual cut, or
AAC. After an AAC is determined, the Minister of Forests and Range
apportions the cut to a variety of short and long–term tenures.
Provincially, the
70 management units include 37 timber supply
areas (TSAs) and 33 tree farm licences (TFLs).
Provincial map of TSAs and TFLs
The
Chief Forester reviews the timber supply in each management unit on a
regular basis, normally every five years. Following that review, the
Chief Forester may increase, reduce or leave the AAC unchanged. As a
result of the mountain pine beetle, many AACs have been increased to
allow for the sale of damaged pine before it degrades to the point of
being uneconomic.
Because of
government’s land use objectives and the need to maintain a sustainable
timber supply in the future, not all dead pine will be available for
harvest in the next 20 years. Some will protect water quality, some
will be retained to meet visual quality objectives, biodiversity
objectives and some have an advanced understory of trees that will form
the next crop of trees 30–50 years from now.
As a result, of
the roughly 1.1 billion m³ of mature pine in BC, less than 500 million
m³ is available for near term harvest. At the current rates of
harvest, the available pine will all be harvested in roughly 10 to 12
years. However, as the rate of degradation is highly variable, it is
impossible to predict with any certainty how much of that 500 million m3
will be of interest to existing tenure holders and how quickly they will
shift their harvest focus away from those stands.
Tenure System
The tenure system
allows government to transfer specific rights to private corporations,
communities and individuals for the use of public forests. In return,
they pay fees to government and in many cases are responsible for forest
management activities.
Over
a dozen forms of timber tenure have been developed to reflect forest
uses, from Christmas tree permits to industrial scale timber harvesting
and road building. This diversity in tenures supports the many
different needs of society and of timber users, whether they are large
or small operators, First Nations, communities or individuals.
Tenures vary in their duration. Many large timber harvesting tenures
are replaceable, providing forest companies with a long–term supply of
timber. Others, may have terms from a few weeks up to 20 years.
Tenure
holders must comply with B.C. forest laws that govern sustainable timber
harvesting activities, such as the Forest and Range Practices Act,
the Wildfire Act, the Land Act, the Heritage Conservation Act and
the Wildlife Act, and relevant federal laws such as the Fisheries
Act and Species at Risk Act.
A forest licence
provides the right to harvest a given amount of timber in a timber
supply area each year for the term of the licence and can be issued for
up to 20 years. These licensees are responsible for operational
planning, road building, fire hazard abatement, reforestation and
stumpage payments.
Figure
1. Existing
licensees have first rights to the timber.
In most cases,
licensees operating within one timber supply area have negotiated
separate operating areas to simplify planning and forest management
operations. However, there are situations where operations may overlap.
A tree farm
licence is a replaceable, area–based licence with a term of 25 years.
The third most
common tenure in B.C. is a timber sales licence, which is issued to
smaller corporations and individuals by
BC Timber Sales through a competitive auction, and provides the
holder with rights to harvest timber in a specified area. BC Timber
Sales generally undertakes operational planning and road construction
but in some cases those responsibilities are included in the tenure.
Timber Sale Licences generally have a term of two years and are not
replaceable.
It is important to
remember that existing timber tenure holders, along with having the
right to harvest timber, also have an obligation to meet government’s
land use objectives, mitigate the fire hazard created by harvesting,
maintain or deactivate roads, ensure the safety of persons involved in
industrial operations and to reforest the land they have harvested from.
Many other forms
of tenure exist but they represent a relatively small percentage of the
total timber harvest.
More
information about B.C.’s timber tenure system is available at
www.for.gov.bc.ca/hth/timten/documents/timber-tenures-2006.pdf
In
those units which the Chief Forester has increased the AAC due to the
mountain pine beetle epidemic, volume and term limited tenures have been
and are being advertised, typically for terms of 2–15 years. As a
result, the majority of this “uplift” AAC is already under tenure.
Not
all of the MPB impacted management units have experienced a timber
supply review since the beetle epidemic began. One should not conclude,
however, that an AAC increase is certain as new reviews are undertaken.
Each decision by the Chief Forester must stand on its own.
Mountain Pine Beetle Killed Timber: A Potential Sources of Biofuel
It takes one to
five years for mountain pine beetles to move through a stand of trees.
While many trees die in the first year of attack, others can survive for
several years and occasionally even longer. As a result, many trees in
one stand may have value as sawlogs while others from the same stand are
no longer suitable for making lumber so they may be left standing, they
may be harvested and used for making engineered wood products, chips for
a pulp mill or pellets, etc. Where such markets do not exist, they may
be piled near the road to be burned at a later date as there are
contractual obligations to mitigate the fire hazard and reforest the
harvest sites. It is this latter situation that may present a new, low
cost biofuel source for independent power producers.
Figure
2. Severe
checking associated with MPB. No value as a sawlog. Source: FERIC
2006.
Beetle killed pine
trees tend to degrade quickly for the first two years after death and
then degrade more slowly for the next several years until the tree
finally succumbs to fire, wind or rot. The moisture content of these
trees reaches equilibrium with the local climate within a few years of
death and in doing so becomes a comparatively efficient source of
energy.
Common Forms of Wood Residues and how to access them
1) Mill Residues:
Mill residues come
in several forms:
- Hog fuel consisting of bark, and damaged pieces of wood;
- Chips most of which are sold to pulp and paper mills;
- Sawdust and shavings from the sawmill and planer mills, some of which
are used for energy production or engineered wood products. Independent
power producers will
need to secure fibre supply arrangements with the mill owner or tenure
holder to access this opportunity.
2) Roadside
Accumulations:
In areas dominated
by dead pine, licensees often find it worthwhile to pull the entire tree
to the roadside so that they may recover the portion of the tree that
can be used as furnish for the mills they supply (sawmills, plywood
plants, engineered wood plants, pulp mills and more recently, pellet
plants). Where the demand for low quality wood is less than the supply,
large piles of residual or waste biomass may result. The residual or
waste piles near the road present a fire hazard and occupy land that
must be reforested. As above, the securing access to these piles is
via fibre supply arrangements with the existing forest tenure holder.
Figure
3.
Roadside biomass accumulations.
3) Standing
Timber:
While some stands
of dead pine are best left standing for social and ecological reasons,
others could become a potential energy crop subject to the price of
energy being high enough to cover the costs associated with holding a
harvesting tenure
(e.g.: planning, roads, logging, reforestation and stumpage). These
costs may reach $50/m³ or more. Access to standing timber on Crown Land
requires the independent power producers to hold a forest harvesting tenure or again, enter into
a fibre supply agreement with an existing forest harvesting tenure
holder.
Figure
4. MPB
attacked pine forest.
Securing Tenure to Harvest Crown Timber
To gain authority
to harvest standing timber on Crown Land, an independent power producer would have to be
awarded a harvesting tenure. The Ministry of Forests and Range follow a
competitive process of advertising for bids to award such tenures.
The potential for securing a harvesting tenure on Crown land only exists
in management units with unallocated AAC.
As of March 2007,
only Lakes (Burns Lake) and Prince George TSAs have volumes of
unallocated AAC while large accumulations of roadside biomass have been
observed from 100 Mile House north to Prince George and west to Houston.
To find out more
about the status of unallocated AAC in the area you are considering,
please contact the
Regional Executive Director at the appropriate Regional Office.
Figure 5. Pine sawlog with blue stain sapwood, but no serious cracks.
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