In recent years, public concerns have focussed on:
In 1992, the British Columbia Forest Resources Commission recommended the establishment and management of a code of forest practices for British Columbia to help address some of these issues. A multi-agency initiative with representation from the Ministry of Forests, the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, led to the introduction of a new Forest Practices Code in the British Columbia Legislature in May of 1994. The Code consists of enabling legislation, regulations, and guidebooks that collectively or individually govern forest practices in the province.
The Forest Practices Code of British Columbia Act (Bill 40), which passed Third Reading in the British Columbia legislature on July 7, 1994 and was proclaimed as law on June 15, 1995, provides the legal basis for the regulations which set out the more detailed provincial and regionally-specific requirements. The Code also establishes enforcement and penalty provisions, a mechanism for appeals, independent audits, as well as a Forest Practices Board and Forest Appeals Commission. The stated intent of the Forest Practices Code of British Columbia Act is to ensure the "sustainable use of the forests British Columbians hold in trust for future generations" where sustainable use includes:
As one of a number of new land use initiatives in British Columbia, the Code will bring about significant changes in the way forest land is managed in the province. Public discussion and debate continue surrounding the structure and organization of the Code, how specific practices or components will be handled, and the way the Code is to be administered and enforced. Given the importance of the forest land base within the province, and the differing views regarding appropriate land use, it is not surprising that numerous questions and controversies remain.
The list of jurisdictions for review is considered to be representative of North American, Australian, European and Scandinavian jurisdictions having regulated forest practices. During the early development stages of the British Columbia Forest Practices Code (1992-1993), British Columbia's Chief Forester made a worldwide request for examples of documents prepared in other jurisdictions for the same or similar purposes (Stewart & Ewing Associates Ltd., 1991). This survey and subsequent follow-up efforts lead to the selection of the following jurisdictions:
CANADA
UNITED STATES
EUROPE
AUSTRALIA
An overview of available documentation revealed that forest practice regulations in the various jurisdictions are organized, administered, enforced, and monitored in different ways to achieve specific land use and management goals. For example, while some jurisdictions have developed a comprehensive regulatory program administered by a lead agency, similar to that of British Columbia's Forest Practices Code, other jurisdictions operate within a multiple-authority regulatory structure wherein a number of laws and/or agencies concerned with land and resource use together govern forest practices (Ellefson, 1993). Such variation is, in part, a result of the distinctive environmental, social, political, and economic contexts from which forest practices have evolved as well as the specific regional needs which they have been designed to address.
Without a thorough understanding of how each jurisdiction's forest practices code or related regulatory structures are integrated with broader land use legislation, policy, planning, and management processes, it is difficult to accurately determine the specific intent of the regulations. There is no single set of criteria which can be uniformly applied to determine a "best option". Audits or reviews of successes achieved in terms of Code implementation and compliance over time may eventually prove the most useful, but even then, differing contexts will continue to make direct evaluative comparisons difficult.
For these reasons it was deemed inappropriate to attempt an evaluative comparison of regulatory practices among jurisdictions. Instead, the intent of this study is to focus on the particular characteristics and distinguishing features of a wide variety of codes.
This review is intended to provide general background information on a large number of jurisdictions in different parts of the world. For each jurisdiction, answers to the following key questions are presented:
An attempt was made to examine all jurisdictions at a similar level of detail and to balance the overall comprehensiveness and readability of the report. Although in some instances it was deemed necessary to retain a level of technical detail for purposes of precision, the style of the writing in this report is intended to be non-technical in nature.
The main body of the report is arranged by review topic and then by jurisdiction (alphabetically) for ease of referencing.
In addition to the literature review, the primary research instrument employed for data acquisition was an extensive questionnaire administered either by telephone or in writing, by the study team members. A copy of the questionnaire is presented in Appendix C. This questionnaire was used both to verify existing documentation and to obtain any additional required data. The focussed analysis involved additional use of follow-up telephone interviews, facsimile and electronic mail communications, and travel for face-to-face interviews where appropriate. All material prepared for a jurisdiction was compiled and sent back to the jurisdiction representative for their final review and acceptance before it was finalized in this report. A complete record was maintained of all contacts established during the course of the study and this contact list is included in Appendix A to this report.
