The federal and provincial governments and the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation are investing $8.7 million into the Ancient Forest – Chun T’oh Whudujut Provincial Park, located near Dome Creek. A press release says the money will go towards building new hiking trails, a sweat lodge, a pit house and a gazebo in the park. The Lheidli T’enneh are contributing $870,000 to the project. The project is expected to take three years and will also improve existing boardwalks, access roads, washrooms, parking and signage. “We are just actually putting our history back together and we want to showcase that to the world,” Lheidli T’enneh Chief, Dayi Clay Pountney, said Tuesday on the CBC program Daybreak North. Pountney said residential schools interrupted their cultural practices and traditions. “A lot of the medicines were lost … so we are trying to revive that,” said Pountney.

Forest service firefighters have some unexpected idle time on their hands so far this summer. The Kamloops Fire Centre reports there are currently 45 fires burning within the region, covering an area of 123 hectares. That compares to last year at this time when 96 fires were occurring, burning up 993 ha. “It is certainly an unusual summer compared to what we have experienced in recent years,” said Madison Smith, fire information officer with the BC Wildfire Service. “I can’t recall looking back on the last 10 years when we’ve had a summer forest fire situation like we have this summer. Our average in that time has been 125 fires and 148 hectares burnt, so we are well below average right now. ”

B.C. is removing the “recreational trail” designation from a 67-kilometre stretch of the Columbia and Western Trail between Fife and Castlegar, saying that maintenance along that corridor is best left to logging companies who use the rail grade as an access route to cut blocks. The change reclassifies the stretch as a resource road, opening the way to logging trucks. “With this change, if a road permit is issued to a logging company, that company would be required to undertake and pay for maintenance on the section of the route covered by that permit,” the province said in a July 16 release, which pointed to “challenging” features along the corridor including trestles, culverts and terrain that the province says are difficult to maintain under the current structure. …Logging companies such as Interfor have already been permitted to use the corridor, and were active on the trail this past winter too, hauling timber and repairing damaged infrastructure.

Richard Hamelin

Asian gypsy moths feed on a wide range of important plants and trees. White pine blister rust can kill young trees in only a couple of years. But it’s not always easy to detect the presence of these destructive species just by looking at spots and bumps on a tree, or on the exterior of a cargo ship. Now a new rapid DNA detection method developed at the University of British Columbia can identify these pests and pathogens in less than two hours. …“Sometimes, a spot is just a spot,” explains forestry professor Richard Hamelin, who designed the system with collaborators from UBC, Natural Resources Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. “Other times, it’s a deadly fungus or an exotic bug and has the potential to decimate local parks, forests and farms. So you want to know as soon as possible.”

A B.C. First Nation continues to move ahead with fire rehabilitation work south of Burns Lake following devastating wildfires two years ago. The Cheslatta Carrier Nation is removing fire damaged trees so that the wood can be used after receiving a $1.25-million grant from the Forest Enhancement Society of B.C which will help their wholly-owned Cheslatta Forest Products cover the costs of shipping the residual fibre to a pellet plant or bio-energy facility. Forestry co-ordinator Ben Wilson said they had started work to begin clearing the 50-hectare area which consists of around 35,000 trees late this February. “It’s great to see it happening,” he said. …Cheslatta First Nation has also received funding through Forests for Tomorrow Program to remove younger damaged stands in which the first round of seedlings will be planted in 2021 Wilson added.

There is a growing disconnect between forestry workers, and the average British Columbian who does not understand this great renewable resource. At the end of 2018, BC had 50 million hectares of certified forested lands obtained through CSA, FSC and SFI programs (third party auditors). Almost 64 per cent of the province, about 60.3 million hectares, is forested. Less than one-third of one per cent of BC’s forest land is harvested annually (pwc, 2016). Forestry workers planted 211 million trees in 2019 and are forecasted to plant 308 million in 2020. The BC forest industry is a cornerstone of the provincial economy, contributing an estimated $12.9 billion to the total provincial GDP. …There needs to be a secured harvestable landbase for our future  generations. A renewable resource is just that, renewable. If we continue to erode the harvestable landbase, our province, and our small rural communities, will cease to exist in the same way as we know them today.

The Valemount Community Forest and the Valemount Industrial Park held their Annual General Meetings last week at the Valemount Community Hall and the news is mixed: progress is happening at the industrial park, but earnings are down in forestry. Total net earnings of the Valemount Community Forest Limited Partnership for 2019 were $129,940. The structure of the community forest changed this year to become a Limited Partnership, but “falling markets, poor weather conditions and the loss of Canfor Vavenby and Interfor Adams Lake as purchasers has very negatively affected our business,” said General Manager Craig Pryor in his overview of 2019. …Last year they logged about 80,000 cubic metres using four different logging contractors. In 2019 they planted 350,000 trees.

Skeena Sawmills plans to plant more than 400,000 trees in 2020, split between two of its forestry areas.  In the spring, Skeena Sawmills contracted Terrace-based Little Trees Reforestation to plant 117,800 trees at their Tree Farm Licence 41 Kitimat Valley site.  “We would prefer and go with local contractors, we don’t necessarily put out big tenders like some of the larger companies and solicit companies from out of town really, we try to support our local businesses,” said Mark Reiter, planning superintendent at Skeena Sawmills.  In September, Windfirm Resources Inc. in Smithers will be planting 286,000 trees for Skeena Sawmills in the larger Nass Timber Supply Area.  Reiter said that Skeena Sawmills usually plants around that number of trees every second year, depending on harvest levels. The company is obligated to pursue reforestation through their licence with the government because the projects are on Crown land.

Since most of the articles on the government site on fertilization were prior to the wildfires of 2017/18, beetle impacts were stated as the main reason for creating severe mid-term timber supply problems in many management units.  According to one of the latest government publication on fertilization of B.C. forests: “The current forest fertilization program in the British Columbia Interiorfocuses on treating stands of Douglas-fir and spruce that range from about 20 years of age up to 70 years or older. “…A single fertilizer treatment can be expected to add about 15 cubic metres of wood per hectare within 10 years. Fertilization is considered one of the most effective treatments to maximize volume production and financial return. There are benefits to the forest under story as well. Shrubs and forage plants absorb some of the nitrogen not taken up by conifers, providing nutritional benefits to wildlife and livestock.