General
Industry input supports the suggestions made in the licensee analysis, and repeats points made in the CFLA report on the Forest Service analysis.
Size of the timber harvesting land base
One industry submission states that the reductions made for environmentally sensitive areas are high and that harvesting regulations under the Forest Practices Code might lessen the need for reductions.
Another industry submission states current economic accessibility lines have changed substantially and estimates the operable land base has increased by 10 per cent. It plans to submit representative maps of this area (several mapsheets were received by the District at a later date).
Silviculture
One public submission maintains that the amount of silviculture being done is inadequate and that this may mean that the regeneration assumptions in the Forest Service analysis do not reflect actual practices.
Forest cover requirements
Two industry submissions note that the Forest Service analysis shows an 8 per cent increase above the base case if a three-pass system is modelled. They recommend that short-term violations of the adjacency requirements be allowed to provide for a transition period to move from the old development pattern to a four-pass system. Both also note the large positive impact that small reductions in green-up ages have on timber supply, and that a three-year reduction is possible with enhanced forestry. One submission states that the legislative and policy framework exists between the Forest Practices Code and the Forest Act to enable the government to vary green-up requirements.
A public submission states that the prime considerations determining green-up time and cutblock adjacency should be protection of watershed stability, runoff etc.
Visual quality objectives
Three industry and one local government submission note that visual quality objectives have a significant impact on timber supply. They recommend that flexibility in the application of these requirements should be considered in the short term. The possibilities mentioned include:
• relaxing the visual quality objectives until timber harvesting rates are stabilized, then reinstating them
• re-evaluating the objectives to reduce the area in the more restrictive classifications
• reducing the visual quality objectives in areas that are less travelled by tourists.
One industry submission states the following:
• the visual quality objectives need refining to remove the areas that are not visible from particular viewpoints. The company intends to map several sections of the coastline to determine what the actual visual quality objective areas should be
• because the objectives were set without public input, it is possible that they are much more restrictive than they need to be. The company intends to poll the tourism industry, in particular the cruise ship component, to provide data
• clearcut shapes are now varied (i.e. no longer squares or rectangles) and small patches of timber are being left. This is a strong argument for modelling visual quality objectives to their upper limits.
Input from local government recommends that visual quality objectives be removed from resource management guidelines because of:
• the lack of detail on whose objectives they are and what standards are used to identify them, and
• the unnecessary unemployment and hardship they cause for resource-based communities.
The respondents urge more public debate on the issue.
A community submission states that since visual quality objectives were implemented before restrictions on cutblock size were introduced, they are now needed only on the most sensitive viewscapes. Moreover, the community resources board should be allowed to provide advice from local people on visual quality objectives in the Port McNeill forest district.
One submission cites the importance of maintaining visual quality along waterways, but states that the application of the objectives should not be extreme. It adds that reducing the number of straight boundaries on clearcuts would do much to minimize the visual impact of harvesting.
One submission from an environmental group states that the green-up and visual quality provisions were put into place to protect forest values such as landscape, soils, and salmon habitat, and therefore they are much needed.
