After two years on the board of B.C.’s independent forestry watchdog, Tara Marsden, or Naxginkw, felt compelled to write about her experiences. 

She wanted to name the challenges she’d seen at the Forest Practices Board: “undue government influence” over chair appointments, “top heavy” and inefficient organization, a lack of engagement with the public and a lack of partnerships with Indigenous Peoples. 

The board, created in 1994, is mandated to audit and investigate government and industry to ensure the province’s forestry and land management rules are being followed.

But Marsden found systemic problems with the organization were preventing the board from truly protecting the public interest when it comes to B.C.’s forests.

In May, she sent a five-page memo outlining her concerns to the board and other agencies and politicians, including Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development Doug Donaldson. 

“This is an important function, now how can we improve it?” Marsden, who is from Wilp (House) Gamlakyeltxw and works as Wilp sustainability director for the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs Office, said in an interview with The Narwhal. 

“In the year 2020, how can we work with Indigenous people a little better? How can we really show we’re a public watchdog and be even more transparent?”

For every challenge, Marsden laid out recommendations. She suggested practices for more transparency and independence. She recommended annual surveys to find out more about what the public wants from the watchdog, more recruitment of Indigenous staff and working with First Nations on audits.

“I see the above changes as being critical to a new path forward in a new century and era of climate change uncertainty,” Marsden concluded in her memo.

Board chair Kevin Kriese received Marsden’s memo. He told The Narwhal she had made significant contributions to the board, including drafting an Indigenous engagement strategy. 

Kriese, who served eight years as assistant deputy minister with the Ministry of Forests, said the board is taking steps to “modernize” in the face of challenges related to forests such as species at risk, watershed integrity and climate change mitigation. He said he wants to complete reports faster and increase public engagement.

“I think the organization is up for it,” he said. “But I also don’t underestimate the challenges.”

An arm’s-length relationship

In 1993, the War in the Woods — a mass public action to protect old growth in Clayoquot Sound — became one of the largest acts of civil disobedience in Canadian history. 

The following year, the Forest Practices Board was born as an arm’s-length observer of government and industry. But while the board can investigate and report on industry and government compliance with the Forest and Range Practices Act — the rule for management of all of the province’s forests and wildlife habitat — it cannot enforce the law.

One major criticism Marsden wrote in her memo is that the government holds “undue” influence over the appointment of the board chair, whose term is “at the sole discretion of cabinet or the minister.” 

“If the government does not approve of the direction a certain chair is taking, their term may not be renewed,” she wrote.

She recommended cabinet give up its authority to appoint the chair and board members and delegate that authority to a committee to create “a more non-partisan and balanced” process.

Rachel Holt, a B.C.-based ecologist and former vice-chair of the board, questioned “how somebody who basically has been a government bureaucrat his entire life can be the chair of the independent watchdog.”

B.C.-based ecologist Rachel Holt served as vice-chair of the Forest Practices Board and said it needs “airing out” and a fresh mandate. Photo: Anneke Rosch

Holt also expressed concern that some board members and staff have come directly from the industry they are tasked with investigating.

Kriese, who is two years into his four-year term as chair, said he welcomes “healthy skepticism” but has never felt undue influence.

“I don’t feel I have to keep the government happy,” he said. “I feel I have to be fair [in] making recommendations.” 

He referenced the board’s 2019 report on the government’s compliance and enforcement program, which concluded there were “major weaknesses and gaps” in it, including a lack of data and limited resources.

“I never received any negative impact for that,” he said.

Board ‘captive’ to existing regulations

Kriese said he took the job as chair with a simple goal: “to make forestry better.” He also knows many people want the board to do more. 

“We’re a small organization,” he said. “We try and really focus on a specific enough thing [so] we can make meaningful recommendations. We don’t try and boil the ocean.”

Expanding the board’s mandate to do more investigations and look beyond compliance would require more resources and approval from the government, he added. 

The board’s investigation into compliance and enforcement found natural resource officers lacked training and there weren’t enough of them, with 83 officers across the province going into the field to respond to reported violations but not routinely patrolling Crown lands. That, combined with the board’s limited mandate, concerns Marsden.

“Who is actually enforcing and monitoring effectively the forestry industry in B.C.?” she asked. “That’s a huge question.” 

Holt said B.C. forestry laws are lacking, and therefore the board is lacking, since it can only check if companies are compliant.

“If the law is weak, it’s meaningless,” she said. 

B.C.’s forestry laws have frequently come under scrutiny for being lax. Holt co-authored a report that found the little amount of productive old growth that remains in the province is at risk of being logged. Last year, the Ancient Forest Alliance found BC Timber Sales was violating old-growth logging rules by auctioning off Crown land. The province recently opened forest on the Sunshine Coast — home to some of the oldest trees in Canada — to logging and approved 312 new clearcuts in habitat of endangered spotted owls.

Since the board was created, its mandate has remained largely the same, but the province has made major policy changes. The government introduced “professional reliance” in 2004, which reduced its responsibility for environmental monitoring. This left companies to hire professionals to manage monitoring — some of whom told The Narwhal they faced pressure from those companies to alter their recommendations to ensure a project went forward.

Holt said the new legislation’s wording was murky with more room for interpretation, which didn’t fit well with the board’s prescriptive role. Auditing compliance became more complicated. 

“The entire framework of forest management changed over the 20 years of the board,” said Holt. “The mandate of the board didn’t keep up with that shift.”

For example, the board recently investigated old-growth logging on West Thurlow Island by TimberWest in response to a citizen’s complaint that the logging wasn’t meeting the intent of the Great Bear Rainforest land use order to preserve 70 per cent of old growth over time. The citizen said the company was using loopholes to target the forest’s most productive old trees.

Holt says the board’s report “completely sidestepped” the issue of productivity and its investigation found the company was compliant. Kriese admitted debate about the definition of productivity is one the board “doesn’t weigh into.”

The Great Bear loophole: why old growth is still logged in B.C.’s iconic protected rainforest

‘It’s not your role to question’

Marsden said she didn’t feel input from new board members was always welcome by senior staff at the board. She said she would ask questions about the audit process, or whether an investigation could show more evidence, only to hear from staff, ‘It’s not your role to question our investigators or to question the evidence of this investigation.’

“Being told to not ask those types of questions didn’t sit well,” she said.

Marsden also faced challenges as the sole Indigenous voice on the board. She was often keenly aware of how she had a very different worldview. 

“You’re always this kind of lone voice,” she said. “They really don’t understand what you’re saying a lot of the time.”

Tara Marsden is calling on the Forest Practices Board to improve transparency, public engagement, and Indigenous relations. Photo: Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs Office

Kriese said the board is “tightening up” its governance structure to make clearer roles for staff and board members, but details are not available yet.

The board also created a strategic plan for 2019-22 that set several priorities including improving Indigenous relations, enhancing communication with the public, monitoring its impact and focusing more on climate change.

‘Opportunity to shine light on the good’

The board still plays an important role in keeping foresters accountable, but Holt recommends bringing in new staff and board members and a fresh mandate. “They need airing out. They need their policy and their mandate broadened,” she said.

She would also like to see the board start looking at the cumulative effects of various industry activities and natural processes on ecosystems.

Ken Wu, executive director of the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance, agrees the board should take on an expanded ecological scope. He said he’s grateful for the board and it plays an important role despite its “deficiencies.”

“It’s not strong enough, its mandate is not broad enough,” he said. “But it’s sure as heck better to have than not to have.”

Marsden would like to see the board expand its mandate to audit how industry and government are meeting their duty to consult with First Nations. She said this could help the board implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which calls on states to “consult and cooperate in good faith” with Indigenous Peoples in order to obtain free, prior and informed consent for development projects.

Since her term ended, Marsden has returned to devoting her time to developing Gitanyow’s environmental monitoring program, working with the Gitanyow Lax’yip Stewardship Guardians. But she still believes in the board’s potential.

“There’s an opportunity to shine light on the good and also on what the challenges are,” she said.

The province is planning a series of changes to the Forest and Range Practices Act, but the introduction of those changes in the house has been delayed due to COVID-19. The province told The Narwhal it couldn’t comment on the proposed changes until they’ve been introduced.

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On April 7, 2012, Brian Cecil Parke ignited an enormous burn pile on his property near Pavilion Lake, west of Cache Creek, B.C. 

The fire burned for two days before he left his property without extinguishing it.

The fire spread 140 hectares over the next 36 days before a call came into the RCMP, which notified the Kamloops Fire Centre of the blaze. 

Parke’s actions landed him in front of a secretive, quasi-judicial body under the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations that, in 2017, ordered him to pony up almost $1 million in provincial firefighting costs, according to freedom of information documents obtained by The Narwhal.

The documents shed light on the little-known work of the ministry to track down firestarters and hold them accountable for their role in creating costly wildfires, which have become increasingly ferocious in recent years due to climate change.

The provincial Wildfire Act allows the B.C. government to recover “fire control costs and related amounts” from those who start wildfires. Those considered responsible have the right to an “opportunity-to-be-heard” proceeding before a “delegated decision maker” in a secretive process known to few outside the system.

The details surrounding the Ministry of Forest’s investigations and resulting wildfire penalties are not made public.

It’s not just individuals who are being held financially responsible — corporations have received the lion’s share of firefighting bills, with one penalty totalling more than $16 million.

And while seeking compensation for damages may be fair and good, some are raising concerns about the need for greater transparency around the penalties and who, ultimately, is responsible for handing them out.

‘No efforts were made to suppress the fire’

Parke’s hearing found he ignited a Category 3 fire — defined as larger than two metres high by three metres wide — and left his property while it was still smouldering. 

According to regulations outlined in the Wildfire Act, a fire of that size requires a fuel break (a gap in vegetation to slow a fire), someone monitoring it to ensure it doesn’t spread beyond its intended size and an official burn registration number with the province. 

Parke did not meet any of these requirements.

Crews fought the resulting blaze for more than a month until June 16, although it wasn’t officially declared extinguished until Sept. 1. 

For his role in the blaze, Parke was eventually handed a penalty of $921,958. 

The government’s itemized claim against Parke included $299,448 for wages and overtime, and $237,733 for helicopters. The smallest amount, $616, was to cover the repair and replacement of equipment. A mandatory overhead fee of 20 per cent of expenses was included in the total.

An itemized list of wildfire fighting expenses charged to Parke under the Wildfire Act. These details were released to The Narwhal through a freedom of information request.

In early 2019, the Forest Appeals Commission, an independent body that allows alleged firestarters to dispute decisions, permitted Parke to appeal the fine. He successfully negotiated an agreement with the province to reduce the amount by close to half, down to $500,162.

During his opportunity-to-be-heard hearing, he complained that it took the province 3.5 years to notify him of its intention to recover costs, raising issues of procedural fairness. He also theorized that trespassers lighting a campfire or arsonists may have been to blame for starting the wildfire. 

The documents note an investigation found Parke had a loader tractor, buckets, a hose, pumps and hand tools on site, but “no efforts were made to suppress the fire.”

Parke’s fine is on the higher side, but the general circumstances that led to his financial penalty are by no means unique. 

The documents reveal that other cases involve private landowners like Parke who got careless burning debris piles or waste in a metal barrel. 

In one case, campfires at a multi-day rave on private property attended by around 50 people got out of control, growing to 1.7 hectares. Provincial staff from the Clearwater and Kamloops fire zones attended the scene, and the unnamed owner of the property and party organizer was ordered in 2017 to pay $12,463 to cover firefighting costs.

Other cases involve major companies, deemed responsible for causing fires from train sparks, flaring at oil and gas operations or shoddy wiring at an outdoor work area.

But just who decides if people and companies are responsible — and how?

B.C.’s natural resource officers unequipped to deal with forestry and wildfire crimes: special investigation

More transparency needed surrounding penalties, ‘informal’ hearing process

Under B.C.’s Wildfire Act and wildfire regulations, the fines associated with causing and failing to extinguish a fire are clearly laid out. 

The province touts some of the highest fines in Canada.

And yet the process through which cost recovery for fighting wildfires is handled remains comparatively opaque. 

Delegated decision makers run hearings where the accused have a chance to defend themselves. These decision makers, who tend to be regional forest centre managers or deputy managers, act like judges, determining responsibility and the firefighting costs to be recovered. 

The fact that these individuals generally come from forestry, rather than legal, backgrounds isn’t necessarily a bad thing, according to Kevin Kriese, chair of the Forest Practices Board.

“The whole idea was not to plug up the courts,” Kriese told The Narwhal. These decision makers receive special training and have access to legal advice to help guide them in the process.

“If you look at fairness and access to justice, it’s a pretty efficient process,” Kriese said, adding the hearings tend to involve a mixture “of law and facts” and “a matter of some professional opinion” as to whether or not there was harm and its significance.

“It’s not a bad idea to have an actual professional or someone with knowledge of the topic making those decisions.”

In a written statement, the Ministry of Forests told The Narwhal an opportunity-to-be-heard hearing is not meant to resemble a civil court process. Rather, the hearing is “an informal fluid process” without pretrial discoveries or pretrial applications.

Kriese said he would welcome greater openness around the process because the prospect of bad publicity could result in fewer wildfires caused by negligence. 

“If a company knows that someone else got fined $25,000 for doing X, that may have deterrent value,” he said. “Companies don’t like these on their books.”

As of April 16 “most open burning activities have been prohibited throughout British Columbia,” according to the BC Wildfire Service. Photo: BC Wildfire Service / Facebook

Vancouver lawyer Steven Wallace, who represented Parke, said there may be a perception that the hearings are biased since they are run by a provincial official seeking to recoup firefighting costs for their own ministry.

Even so, he said, the Forest Appeals Commission, where individuals and companies can fight against fines, is a separate and independent body. 

Further appeals to decisions made by the Forest Practices Board can be brought to the B.C. Supreme Court.

The Forest Practices Board recommended in 2014 that the province create a publicly available, searchable database of penalties that have been handed out by the Ministry of Forests, including those under the Wildfire Act, to increase transparency. Currently, fines are only made public if they’re challenged at the Forest Appeals Commission. 

But the province has been slow to act. 

In its statement, the Ministry of Forests said the recommendation is being considered in light of legislative reform to the Forest and Range Practices Act “to enhance transparency and the public trust.” 

(In light of this opportunity for reform, the Forest Practices Board reissued an appeal in 2019 for greater public disclosure.)

Parke had insurance to cover his bill, but that’s not always the case for landowners, putting them at serious financial risk. 

“Frankly, some [fines] are going to bankrupt people,” Kriese said.

And not all appeals are as successful as Parke’s.

In 2017, the Forest Appeals Commission rejected Madeline Oker’s appeal of an order to pay $113,777 in firefighting costs and a $600 administrative penalty after her debris piles torched 8.7 hectares of Crown land near Fort St. John. 

The commission said in its decision that “although Ms. Oker was experiencing financial hardship and may be unable to pay those costs, the legislation does not recognize an inability to pay as a basis for not ordering a person to pay for fire suppression costs.”

The overriding message from these hearings is that anyone conducting burns in or around a forest must appreciate the serious financial consequences should that fire get out of control, Wallace said. 

“Anybody who is a major landowner with forests or who is working out in the forests must be very mindful of the requirements when dealing with fire.” 

‘Indicative of a truly corrupt system’: government investigation reveals BC Timber Sales violating old-growth logging rules

Corporate offenders make big showing on firestarter list

The freedom of information documents show corporate firestarters are by far the worst — and most stiffly penalized — offenders.

On the morning of June 11, 2015, CN workers cutting a rail line on the tracks near Lytton in the Fraser Canyon sent sparks into nearby grass. The fire danger rating that day was extreme, and rail-cutting is considered a high-risk activity.

Fuelled by dry conditions, strong winds and steep terrain that hampered firefighting efforts, the so-called Cisco Road fire grew stronger. It eventually ravaged 2,200 hectares of Crown land — more than five times the size of Stanley Park — and prompted an evacuation order for the Lytton First Nation.

The blaze wasn’t considered fully extinguished until October but continued to smolder for years — ending with a very pricey outcome for CN. 

In May 2018, CN was ordered to pay the province a whopping $16.28 million in cost-recovery fees and penalties for the fire.

CN disputed the amount to the Forest Appeals Commission, which actually increased the amount on March 20, 2020, to $16.61 million due to new information presented on the extent of wildfire damage.

The upgraded penalty included $169,065 for silviculture and reforestation, a $75,000 administrative penalty, $52,189 for loss of Crown timber, $9.37 million for other forest and grassland resources and $6.94 million for firefighting costs.

CN did not provide The Narwhal with a response.

The penalty against the railway may be the biggest of its kind in B.C.

Fighting forest fires takes a ton of time, resources and money. If you start a blaze in B.C., you could be on the hook for hundreds of thousands — even million — of dollars. Photo: B.C. Wildfire Service

“It’s certainly the largest one I’ve seen,” said Vancouver lawyer Ryan Morasiewicz, who specializes in law related to outdoor adventure. “People have to take these things seriously. I don’t think people realize, holy shit, if you’re negligent, you can be on the hook for a lot of money.” 

In 2013, Telus was found responsible for a tree falling on a power line along a forestry service road in 2006, which created a 380-hectare fire. The company was forced to pay in excess of $2.1 million for fire-control costs and the loss of Crown timber.

The documents also show CN’s problems were not isolated to the Cisco Road fire. The company received a penalty of $321,929 after one of the company’s trains ignited a wildfire that burned 171 hectares of winter habitat for mule deer and an old-growth management area near Williams Lake in 2014.

Forty-four per cent of that fine was for mature Crown timber damaged or destroyed by the fire. The rest was to cover other affected forests and grasslands. 

The Forest Appeals Commission reduced the company’s penalty to $203,597 in 2017.

CN was also ordered to pay $142,974 in 2017 for three wildfires within a span of about two months near Spences Bridge, Chetwynd and Hansard — a railway point northwest of the junction of the Fraser River and Bowron River. 

The company paid an additional $199,727 in 2019 for six fires — near Houston, Burns Lake, Kumsheen, Boston Bar and two near Lytton.

CP has also had its troubles. In 2019, the company was ordered to pay $155,247 for two fires, about two months apart, north of Spences Bridge and south of Lytton, the latter caused by rail-cutting.

Climate change making fires worse and more expensive to fight

British Columbia stands to face an ever-growing threat from wildfires due to global warming. 

The last decade was the hottest on record. Warmer temperatures mean drier forests, more dead trees from drought and beetle infestation and more frequent lightning strikes. These conditions are causing bigger wildfires that burn hotter and faster. 

The province got off relatively lucky in 2019, when 21,138 hectares burned at a firefighting cost of $182.5 million.

That came as a relief after two back-to-back record-breaking wildfire seasons. In 2017, 1.21 million hectares at cost of $649 million and in 2018 an estimated 1.35 million hectares burned at a cost of $615 million.

In those two years, humans caused 41 per cent and 25 per cent of the fires, respectively.

Fighting climate change is a tough uphill battle. Taking personal and corporate responsibility for ensuring fires do not get out of control is well within our reach.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Imagine a complex forestry violation. Say a timber company fails to adequately replant a logging site or to ensure that the contours of a clearcut are not visually jarring from a distance. Now imagine the provincial law-enforcement officer assigned to investigate those violations of provincial laws has no training in how to gather evidence.

Or, think about a suspicious wildfire. Nearby there’s a vehicle that may be connected to the blaze but officers in the field are so poorly equipped they can’t even conduct a check on the vehicle’s registration.

This is the state of affairs for natural resource officers in B.C., the individuals who patrol the province’s forests to enforce a broad suite of natural resource rules, covering everything from trail maintenance to fire bans to monitoring wildlife closures to inspecting logging operations.  

According to a “special investigation” by the Forest Practices Board, a government watchdog on provincial forest operations, oversight of two key pieces of legislation — the Forest and Range Practices Act and the Wildfire Act — is suffering due to major gaps at B.C.’s Compliance and Enforcement branch where natural resource officers are housed.

Kevin Kriese, chair of the Forest Practices Board, said there is a concern that officers responsible for monitoring forestry are catching the small, easily handled infractions and missing the big-picture investigations.

“It’s almost like you’re hiring a cop when what you need is a detective,” Kriese, who served eight years as an assistant deputy minister with the province, told The Narwhal.

“Forestry is complicated and you need a mix of people with different skills. They need more of the professionals to handle the complexity of forestry.

“We don’t want to worry about jay walking, to be honest … stepping over the dollars to pick up the pennies and nickels. We’re more worried about the more complex transactions. That’s where the energy should be focussed.”

The Forest Practices Board, a government watchdog on provincial forest operations, emphasizes that the public has the right to expect regular inspections of forestry operations to hold logging companies accountable for their practices.

But there’s no evidence of this happening — despite repeated warnings to government.

The public ‘cannot be confident’: report

“It’s cause for concern,” Doug Donaldson, Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, said in response to the report.

“Forests are a publicly held natural asset and the public wants to feel confident there’s proper oversight on the activities we approve on the land base,” Donaldson told The Narwhal.

In 2013 the Forest Practices Board complained about a reduction in forestry inspections, and in 2014 reiterated problems with the compliance and enforcement program — both during BC Liberal administrations.

This latest report concludes that the public “cannot be confident” with the branch’s enforcement actions and that “major weaknesses and gaps” still exist.

“Unfortunately, this most recent investigation finds that the situation has not improved and the concerns raised in those earlier reports remain,” the board finds.

NDP plans for improvement

Donaldson said his ministry is already implementing a new “delivery model” in which some duties of natural resource officers such as campfire bans, recreation site and trail patrols, and wildlife area closures — are transferred to the Conservation Officer Service, within the Ministry of Environment.

Twenty new conservation officers with the environment ministry were sworn in one year ago, bringing the total to 164 around the province, including those in administration.

“[Natural resource officers] will move away from patrol work and focus on inspections and investigations … rather than just waiting and reacting to potential violations,” he said.

“This is legitimately what the public wants to know about: are the major licencees in compliance?”

4,000 complaints between 2017 and 2018

B.C.’s Compliance and Enforcement Branch employs about 150 staff province-wide, including 83 natural resource officers conducting inspections, patrols, and investigations.

The officers received almost 4,000 complaints in the 2017-18 fiscal year — virtually all of those involving four pieces of legislation: Wildfire Act (1,185), Land Act (1,060), Water Sustainability Act (930), and Forest Resources Practices Act (722).  

B.C.’s Natural Resource Officers spent nearly two-thirds of their time enforcing the Forest Range and Practices Act and the Wildfire Act, 2017-2018. Source: Forest Practices Board. Graph: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

Officers spent relatively little time investigating woodlots, archaeology and foreshore issues despite these being listed as among the board’s priorities for 2017-2018.

As part of its special investigation, the board heard from natural resource officers that the Compliance and Enforcement branch “has not fully committed to being a fully equipped enforcement agency with all the training, tools and policies needed for all types of enforcement issues they may encounter.”

Little resources, little training for officers

Forestry laws are complicated and natural resource officers can join the branch without knowing how to properly conduct investigations — and they don’t necessarily receive proper training on the job, either.

Donaldson puts the blame on the former Liberals for gutting the B.C. Forest Service.

“I take the report seriously,” he said. “The legacy of the last government was a decrease in oversight in the forest sector. We’ve got to turn that around for people to feel we’re managing the forests for the benefit of the public.”

Natural Resource officer Denise Blid posts a seizure notice to poached timber. Photo: B.C. Compliance and Enforcement Branch

A report by Sierra Club BC and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in 2010 noted that in less than a decade, the forest service had lost 1,006 positions, or roughly one quarter of its workforce, and that from 2001/2002 to 2004/2005 field inspections by compliance and enforcement staff fell by 46 per cent.

This latest Forest Practices Board report reveals that new natural resource officers often “do not have experience in natural resource management” and are not supported with adequate training opportunities.

“They do not possess the knowledge and experience to identify and investigate the more complex aspects of provincial forestry legislation.”

Eye should be more on the forestry ball: board chair

With experienced staff retiring, mentorship opportunities are also diminishing.

New officers “prefer to issue violation tickets for straight-forward non-compliances, rather than investigate complex non-compliances,” the report says, adding there is a perception among some officers that forestry and wildfire investigations “are too complex, time consuming and difficult to pursue.”

The investigation also found officers have trouble connecting with specialists within the ministry who can help gather evidence and decide if a contravention has occurred.

During summers when patrols are busy reacting to wildfires, oversight of forestry infractions is put on the back burner.

“We think they need to keep their eye on the forestry ball more than they have,” Kriese, who was appointed by Minister Donaldson, said.

The board’s investigation also found the branch “does not have a transparent compliance and enforcement program. It does not regularly or comprehensively report its activities, enforcement actions, outcomes or compliance rates to the public.”

Kriese said the board is not suggesting more money and staff for the branch because there is not enough information available to make that conclusion.

“Without data to analyze compliance rates we don’t know if that’s enough,” Kriese said.

He did note that when the board itself conducts audits of individual forest company operations, it observes “fairly high industry compliance with the legislation.”

Fewer inspections causing frustrations all around

In February this year the board audited BC Timber Sales and licensees in the Dawson Creek timber supply area and found practices generally complied with Forest Range and Practices Act and the Wildfire Act.

The audit also found room for improvement to BC Timber Sales’ bridge maintenance, and found problems with two timber sale licence holders related to excessive soil disturbance and the need to complete fire hazard assessments.

Mina Laudan, vice-president of public affairs for the Council of Forest Industries, said in a written statement: “The B.C. forest sector is one of the most highly regulated industries in the province, with the majority of industry’s operations meeting internationally-recognized criteria for environmental management systems.”

However, the Forest Practices Board report makes it clear that industry has its own beefs when it comes to compliance and enforcement issues.

Forest companies see natural resource officers less often in the field these days, resulting in fewer inspections of their operations. When issues do arise, officers are more likely to write enforcement tickets rather than seek a resolution over the phone. Logging companies, the board found, would appreciate being notified when an inspection reveals they are doing a good job.

The board report is troubling news to B.C.’s environmental movement.

Joe Foy, co-executive director of the Vancouver-based Wilderness Committee, is not impressed that under-resourced, inadequately trained officers are tagged with protecting B.C.’s forests, water and wildlife from illegal acts.

The report noted not all officers can query police systems to identify the owner of a motor vehicle or the background of a person of interest in the field.

Foy allows that the NDP minority government inherited a ministry “decimated” by the former Liberals, but says he is still waiting for change.

“Even under the new provincial government the big timber companies are still running the show,” he laments.

The board has asked the Ministry to report back on efforts to improve forestry compliance and enforcement by December 31.

Update: Thursday, May 2 9:21am PST. This story’s first paragraph was updated to clarify the nature of violations under the Forest and Range Practices Act. 

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