Small- and medium-scale forestry operations help communities to diversify their local forest economies. Operations usually hire and buy supplies locally, offer logs to local manufacturers and practise innovative sustainable forest management.

Woodlots, originally created in 1948 to allow farmers to obtain small areas of Crown land to manage as farm woodlots, were later expanded to combine both private and public forest land. They are usually operated by families, individuals, First Nations or public corporations. Operators pay fees for the timber they cut on the public portion of their land. There are more than 800 woodlots in B.C. today.

Community forests, introduced 50 years later, are managed and logged by local governments, community groups, First Nations or specially formed community corporations. Revenues are used for local goals, including employment, forest-related education and skills training. These forests always include Crown land, and may involve private or band-reserve land. B.C. has several community forest pilots, ranging from 418 to 54,000 hectares. Some other communities hold tenures like woodlots, tree farm licences and non-replaceable forest licences.

Currently, woodlots and community forest agreements together account for about two per cent of the province’s annual harvest. As part of its plan to revitalize the forest economy, the province will increase the timber allocated to small tenures by 1.2 million cubic metres – a significant increase over the volume currently harvested under these forms of tenures.

This allowable annual cut reallocation will open up new opportunities for communities and individuals to use their forestry and business experience to manage forest resources in their area. It will also help communities diversify their forest economies and build on opportunities that will arise through other forest policy reforms.

Government has been working with woodlot and community forest stakeholders to discuss how best to administer the expanded program. Once parts of the timber reallocation process are complete, new tenure opportunities are expected to be advertised, fall 2004.

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