Skip to content

Foresty officials discuss Williams Lake’s timber supply area with city council

Forestry officials met with city council recently to discuss ways to prepare for the pending reduction of Williams Lake’s Allowable Annual Cut (AAC).
web1_170606-WLT-M-170606-WLT-ForestryMeetingDSC_4868
Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Opeartions regional executive director Mike Pedersen (left), Cariboo Fire Centre manager Krista Dunlevy, district manager Harold Stolar, Forest Enhancement Society’s operations manager David Conly and director of resource management Rodger Stewart met with city council during a committee of the whole meeting to talk about the future of forestry in the region. Monica Lamb-Yorski photo.

Forestry officials met with city council recently to discuss ways to prepare for the pending reduction of Williams Lake’s Allowable Annual Cut (AAC).

During the committee of the whole meeting Tuesday, May 30 Ministry of Forests’ regional executive director Mike Pedersen, district manager Harold Stolar, director of resource management Rodger Stewart, Cariboo Fire Centre manager Krista Dunlevy and the Forest Enhancement Society’s operations manager David Conly made presentations.

“As a regional management team we have started to centre ourselves around communities and the role we play in those communities in the area of economic development,” Pedersen said.

The ministry is also wanting to know how communities are approaching the issue of diversification and what are ways the ministry can support them, he said.

Williams Lake’s timber supply area presently has an AAC of three million cubic metres, Stolar said. Half of it was partitioned for 50 per cent live wood and 50 per cent dead.

When Mayor Walt Cobb asked if there was still dead pine available, Stolar responded it is there, but the question is whether it is economical.

Within the AAC, Stolar added, the minister of forests has the responsibility to apportion it into category types.

Partition monitoring done in 2015 and 2016, showed the ratio of harvesting was 60 per cent dead wood and 40 per cent live equalling close to 5.2 million cubic metres.

In the first four months of this year the trend has been to more of a live harvest than a dead, he added.

“That also has to do with a lot of the Douglas-fir logging going on around town and the companies staging timber on the land base so they can bring it in,” he said, noting the ministry is meeting with licencees every two weeks for an update on harvesting.

As the operations manager of the Forest Enhancement Agreement Society, formed in 2016, Dave Conly told council the society is working with government to develop economic opportunities.

Projects that are eligible include reducing wildfire risk, improving low value forests, improving wildlife habitat with a focus on fibre recovery, which Conly said is critical for the Cariboo-Chilcotin region.

“We’ve approved 17 of the 27 proposals we received for this region,” Conly said.

Rodger Stewart, Director of Resource Management, told council the region is developing a charter on how the ministry will engage with local communities.

“We all need to look at what is possible if we recover the ecological function of our forests and realize optimum growth potential,” Stewart said.

Cariboo Fire Centre manager Krista Dunlevy encouraged the City to make the Fire Smart Program and wildfire municipal interface mitigation top priorities.

“You can apply for funding through the Strategic Wildfire Prevention Initiative through the Union of B.C. Municipalities for interface work,” Dunlevy said.



Monica Lamb-Yorski

About the Author: Monica Lamb-Yorski

A B.C. gal, I was born in Alert Bay, raised in Nelson, graduated from the University of Winnipeg, and wrote my first-ever article for the Prince Rupert Daily News.
Read more