Application of Forest Practices Code documents such as the Biodiversity Guidebook and the Riparian Management Area Guidebook will contribute to the maintenance of most of the biodiversity in British Columbia, including some of the habitat needs of Identified Wildlife.
The Biodiversity Guidebook addresses the maintenance of biodiversity at both the stand level and landscape level. Stand level biodiversity provisions involve maintaining stand structure through the retention of wildlife trees, coarse woody debris, tree species diversity, and understorey vegetation diversity. Stand level biodiversity is addressed during operational planning (e.g., silviculture prescriptions) whereas landscape level biodiversity is addressed through landscape unit planning. During landscape unit planning, objectives for some or all of the following landscape characteristics are set: seral stage distribution, temporal and spatial distribution of cutblocks, old seral retention and representation, landscape connectivity, stand structure and species composition.
Landscape unit planning is directed by the Guide to Landscape Unit Planning (In prep.). This document outlines current policy for conducting landscape unit planning. In the short term, the focus or priorities are old seral retention and wildlife tree patches.
If the requirements of certain Identified Wildlife (e.g., marbled murrelet and northern goshawk) and placement of WHAs are considered during landscape unit planning, it may be possible to effectively plan for a greater number of species and accommodate their connectivity requirements while reducing the incremental forest impacts. For instance, by identifying the seral stage mosaic required by some Identified Wildlife early in the planning process, species requirements may be partially or completely accommodated by applying intermediate or higher biodiversity emphasis options to landscape units. The selection of intermediate and higher biodiversity emphasis options must still be carried out within the chief forester's policy direction including the apportionment of 45% of the timber harvesting landbase in each sub-regional planning unit to lower biodiversity emphasis, 45% to intermediate, and 10% to higher biodiversity emphasis.
The fine filter component of the Forest Practices Code is the Identified Wildlife Management Strategy. As defined within the Operational Planning Regulations, Identified Wildlife are "those species at risk that the deputy minister of Environment, Lands and Parks or a person authorized by that deputy minister, and the chief forester, agree will be managed through a higher level plan, wildlife habitat area or general wildlife measure."
Wildlife habitat areas are areas of limiting habitat that have been mapped and approved by the chief forester and deputy minister of Environment, Lands and Parks. Wildlife habitat areas are designed to minimize disturbance or habitat alteration to a species' limiting habitat or to a rare plant community. In most cases, the WHA contains a core area that is protected from habitat alteration and a buffer to minimize disturbance (i.e., WHA includes both the core area and the buffer). All species and plant communities in volume 1 have WHA provisions, except fisher, which is addressed through higher level plan recommendations.
General wildlife measures direct forest and range practices within a WHA, and have been approved by the chief forester and deputy minister of Environment, Lands and Parks making them legally required under the Code. GWMs can address any forest practice as defined under the Code. This includes road construction, road maintenance, grazing, haying and timber harvesting. Practices have been grouped under the following headings: access, range, recreation, restoration and enhancement, and silviculture. A GWM may limit activities partially or entirely.
Because GWMs are legally required, variances are provided for some measures that enable district managers and regional fish and wildlife managers to vary measures. For more information on variances see page 17.
Wildlife habitat areas maintain limiting habitats and cannot always address all aspects of a species' habitat requirements. Some species have large home ranges, occur at low densities, have widely and sparsely distributed limiting habitats, or are sensitive to forest level disturbances. The requirements of such species must be addressed over large areas, such as regions or subregions, in order to effectively manage their populations. For these reasons, some species habitat requirements are not appropriately managed as WHAs and cannot be adequately addressed by coarse filter provisions. Therefore management of these species is best addressed through higher level plans.
For the purposes of this document, a higher level plan is a resource management zone (RMZ) objective approved by the three ministers responsible for the Code (MELP, MOF, MEM). The definition of higher level plans has been restricted because setting RMZ objectives involves significant socio-economic considerations. During RMZ objective setting, the regional or landscape level requirements of these species will be considered in context with other species' habitat needs, measures to conserve biodiversity, other resource values, and social and economic issues. These recommendations may be considered by ongoing strategic land use planning tables who have not yet passed the scenario development stage in situations where it would not cause backtracking of the progress accomplished to date.
This document provides higher level plan recommendations for planning tables to consider for three species: fisher, bull trout and grizzly bear. Government is not recommending any other volume 1 species be considered within higher level plans at this time. Should conservation assessments indicate that one or more other volume 1 species cannot be adequately managed through the current provisions of the Identified Wildlife Management Strategy or other Code mechanisms, government may amend the strategy to include higher level plan recommendations for the additional species.
For any species to be considered in a higher level plan, government planning teams should develop a range of management options for the species before tabling this information with non-government planning team members. The government planning team should also evaluate the environmental, social and economic impacts associated with the range of options and present this information to the non-government planning team members.
The effectiveness of the fine filter management approach is dependent on the adequacy of the coarse filter mechanisms as well as the development of species-specific conservation assessments that will provide guidance on where and how much is required to maintain a species or plant community.
A conservation assessment, prepared by government, will examine the spatial arrangement of existing land use designations (e.g., protected areas, riparian reserves, ungulate winter ranges) and how these contribute to the conservation needs of a species or plant community. Conservation assessments will indicate where placement of WHAs would be most effective and will assist the regional rare and endangered species specialist (RES) in evaluating WHA proposals. They will also provide objectives for the management of the species or plant community within the context of government policy regarding the impacts of WHAs on the forest, range, mining and petroleum industries.
An important part of the Identified Wildlife Management Strategy is a program for inventory and monitoring of Identified Wildlife populations. Monitoring takes three forms: compliance monitoring, effectiveness monitoring and population monitoring.
Compliance monitoring confirms whether the recommendations are being followed in the field. Compliance monitoring is carried out by the Ministry of Forests and Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks. Effectiveness monitoring evaluates the response of the habitat to the management practices within and adjacent to a WHA. Population monitoring evaluates the effectiveness of maintaining populations of Identified Wildlife. Without adequate baseline inventory information, it will be difficult to carry out population monitoring or to know when to modify the WHA design, placement, frequency or measures.
