An invasive plants pilot project has been approved in principle by the Cariboo Regional District board. The pilot would trial a new 50/50 cost share landowner assistance program to supplement invasive plant management.
CRD Chair Al Richmond said Friday the CRD currently has an invasive plant program where it dispenses herbicides and loans equipment to landowners.
“We make sure we have some of our own crews that go out and do some spraying. We will do a one-time treatment for folks, and after that, they are on their own,” Richmond explained, adding some people are not physically able to do the treatment on their own.
Some landowners are aging, however, they still want to manage land on their own yet are not able to do the work themselves.
“We are looking at a pilot project and perhaps hiring a contractor to help our staff. We have allocated an additional $6,000 to the existing weed program to do that and we’ll look at it afterwards to see how it went,” Richmond said.
A second motive for pursuing the pilot is to encourage more contractors in the region to become involved with invasive plant management.
“We want to encourage that type of industry in our area to develop local expertise to do the spraying. We don’t have very many contractors that do that,” Richmond added.