BC Spaces for Nature - British Columbia wilderness conservation

Keeping the Special in Special Management Zones
A Citizen's Guide written by Jim Cooperman, published by BC Spaces For Nature

Foreword

**This guide has been prepared so that citizens interested in ecological sustainability can use the tools and resources provided to design appropriate SMZs for their regions and to promote better planning and management of existing SMZs. Written Jim Cooperman and published by BC Spaces for Nature, May 1998 Thanks go to the Vancouver Foundation and the BC Environmental Network for their funding support of this project.**

Executive Summary
This summary first appeared in the BC Environmental Report, Summer 1998 and contains excerpts from Keeping the Special in Special Management Zones - A Citizens' Guide.

The complete document has been distributed to Public Libraries throughout BC.

British Columbia has entered a new era of resource management, in which environmental values and functions will receive greater attention and, hopefully, an improved level of stewardship. The principle of integrated management, in which the entire landscape is managed for all values has been replaced by a new system based on land use plans that delineate zones for specific management goals and objectives. The new zones in these plans range from areas of intensive forestry use to areas that are completely protected as parks and ecological reserves.

As of June, 1998, after years of interest-based negotiations, land use plans have been completed for three regions; Vancouver Island, Cariboo/Chilcotin, Boundary/Kootenay and six sub-regions; Kamloops, Kispiox, Bulkley Valley, Vanderhoof, Fort St. John, and Fort Nelson. During the information gathering stages and the negotiations, it became clear to participants at the land use planning tables that zones were needed to provide greater protection for biodiversity, wildlife habitat and recreation.

The result was the creation of Low Intensity Areas on Vancouver Island; Special Resource Development Zone areas in the Cariboo/Chilcotin; Special Resource Management Zone areas in the Kootenays; and Special Resource Management Zone areas for wildlife habitat, recreation/tourism and community watersheds in the Kamloops Land and Resource Management Plan sub-region. To date, there has been little effort made to standardize the nomenclature, but they are now generally referred to as Special Management Zones (SMZs).

Within the three regions where planning was originally coordinated by the Commission of Resources and Environment (CORE), there are now 97 SMZs, covering more than 3.6million hectares. While the government's intention may have been to achieve many of the objectives discussed at the negotiating tables for these zones, this has not yet occurred. Instead of special management, there is currently an inadequate continuation of status quo management in many of the SMZs.

The government recognized the problems associated with the CORE process to create plans for large regions. With the assistance of CORE, a multi-agency team developed a more localized planning process that focused on sub-regions at the Timber Supply Area (TSA) level. The Land and Resource Management Plan (LRMP) process began first in the Kispiox and Kamloops areas, where it replaced the ongoing TSA planning processes. Besides covering a smaller area, the LRMP process differs from the CORE model by including representatives from all the government agencies at the planning tables along with public, labour and industry representatives. As of July 1998, approved LRMPs include 106 SMZs totaling approximately 4.4 million hectares. The largest SMZ in the province is the Muskwa-Kechika (over 3 million hectares) in the Fort Nelson and Fort St. John sub-regions.

In addition to the zones described above, there are 19 Spotted Owl SMZs in the lower mainland that total 204,000 hectares. However, these spotted owl zones have not been formally designated, nor have the objectives been officially established. Consequently, logging could be approved that will further threaten the survival of the owls. All of the 262,000 hectare Clayoquot Sound could also be considered an entire Special Management Zone, as forest management there must follow the ecosystem based recommendations of the Clayoquot Scientific Panel and be approved by the Central Region Board.

To date, there are 225 Special Management Zones in B.C., totaling over 8.5 million hectares. Unfortunately, for many of these areas, forest management continues to be 'business as usual'. LRMP planning tables are continuing to meet in 12 sub-regions of the province. When these tables arrive at a plan, most of the province (except for the Lower Mainland, the Merritt TSA and the far northwest) will have completed land use plans. When land use plans are in place everywhere, it is possible that 10 to 20 percent of the B.C.'s land base could be in Special Management Zones.

Ecosystem Management Ideas
Special Management Zones are areas identified as containing special ecological or social values, with the overall goal to protect biodiversity and other non-timber values and functions. This goal should be achieved through management systems based on ecology instead of ones based on resource extraction. Unfortunately, significant portions of some SMZs have already been roaded and clearcut. Consequently, for these areas, ecosystem restoration will also be a priority.

In spite of government's current proposals to cap SMZ management objectives with allowable annual cut (AAC) targets, the conservation community needs to maintain the original intention of SMZs by promoting a vision of well managed future forests based on ecological sustainability. In Conservation Biology Principles for Forested Landscapes, co-editor Scott Harrison defined ecological sustainability as the perpetual conservation of ecological process so that the biological productivity of the air, land and water persists without the use of non-renewable input.

One overarching concept that must be applied to SMZ management is the 'Precautionary Principle', which says that management must be cautious and err on the side of maintaining forest ecosystem values and functions, rather than on the side of timber economics devoted to maintaining fibre flow. The Precautionary Principle recognizes the dynamic nature of ecosystems and humanity's current limited understanding about the interrelationships between parts of the system and how they function.

The first step towards sustaining the ecological and social values in SMZs is comprehensive, ecosystem-based planning at sub-regional, landscape and stand levels. In order to develop these plans, inventories are required for all forest values and processes. Detailed information is needed on fish and wildlife populations and habitat, watershed hydrology, existing forest conditions, recreational and tourism values, and cultural values. The sources for this information should include local knowledge and First Nations, as well as government inventories and assessments.

The actual planning process should involve the balanced participation of all sectors, including conservationists and First Nations. This shared decision making process could begin as a technical exercise at the agency level, before public sectors become involved. At the final stage, it is critical that these detailed plans be approved by both the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks (MOELP) and the Ministry of Forests (MOF).

Plans should incorporate respect for all forest uses, values and functions through a balanced, holistic process. Ultimately, planning must protect the ecological integrity of the forest and should balance human needs with those of nature. This balance can be achieved through the designation of sub-zones within each SMZ to accommodate incompatible forest uses or situations where uses are compatible but one use predominates. Ideally, the landscape level or watershed level plans for SMZs need to be for a full, natural successional cycle, rather than the artificial timber rotation cycle used to set AACs.

Long term SMZ plans should also include access management, visual quality objectives, road development and deactivation, strategies for pest and disease management, locations for logging and silviculture treatments, locations for recreation development, protected forest ecosystem networks, protected old growth reserves, and special habitat requirements. This type of planning has been called total-chance planning and is now referred to as total-resource planning.

Where comprehensive inventories and planning have identified areas within SMZs that are suitable for logging, the management practices should be innovative, ecologically responsible and socially acceptable. In B.C. to date, few examples exist of non-conventional logging practices that could be deemed to meet the criteria for 'special management.' Rather, the majority of the staff in the MOF, forestry consulting firms and forest companies still appear largely resistant to techniques other than conventional clearcutting. However, some on the ground examples do exist both on the coast and in the interior to demonstrate that alternative practices are feasible.

One key management system that should and can be applied to logging within all SMZs is the Variable-Retention Silviculture System (VRSS), as defined by the Clayoquot Sound Scientific Panel. The VRSS places the emphasis on what is left after logging by providing for the retention of forest structures as needed to protect and maintain multiple values and ecosystem functions. For cutblocks with significant values other than timber, VRSS calls for the retention of 70 percent of the forest with cutting limited to small openings 0.3 hectares or smaller. For cutblocks without significant values, 15 percent of the forest should be retained, with windfirm trees well dispersed throughout the unit. Site level plans are prepared on the basis of what structure should remain after logging, rather than what timber is to be removed. Logging systems should be restricted to lower-impact yarding systems such as hoe forwarding, suspension cable or helicopter logging.

Existing Management Direction
The Forest Practices Code (Code) serves as the baseline for forest management in B.C. and includes the Act and the Regulations which are mandatory and legally enforceable. The Regulations describe how to develop operational plans, implement forestry activities, and carry out enforcement actions. Special Management Zones fall under the Code classification system as Higher Level Plans, and, as such, they receive special consideration throughout the operational level planning process. SMZs are land use categories that are classified under the Code as a type of resource management zone. Other possible resource management zones include enhanced resource development zones and community watersheds. The Forest Practices Code Act requires all operational plans, including forest development plans, logging plans, silviculture plans, and range use plans to be consistent with relevant higher level plan objectives. In July of 1997, the B.C. Government made approximately 157 amendments to the Forest Practices Code Act and the Forest Act. Included in these amendments is a new definition for Higher Level Plans that restricts these plans to only objectives. These changes, however, are not retroactive and existing plans will continue to be in force. Two of the three existing Higher Level Plans (Cariboo/Chilcotin and Kamloops LRMP) include more details than just objectives. Higher Level Plans encompass objectives for:

For the remainder of the province, higher level plan direction under the Code will have to wait until ongoing and future LRMPs are completed and approved. The key lesson for those involved in these processes is to develop SMZ objectives and strategies that are specific enough to provide explicit direction for forest development plans and other operational plans. Specifically worded objectives will require the least amount of interpretation by the forest district staff and forest companies.

A guide to writing effective resource management plans will soon be available from the Land Use Coordination Office. The draft guide recommends that objectives consider existing government policies, conform with existing plans, take into account existing lower level plans (such as Local Resource Use Plans), reflect the proposed land use category (such as special or enhanced), be internally consistent and achievable. Effective resource management plans should answer the five key questions relating to resource use: what, where, when, how and who. Objectives should relate to issues of concern and be prescriptive and measurable. Strategies can be incorporated into objectives, where they are technically sound and fundamental to attaining the objective and it is unlikely that they will need to be amended.

The Biodiversity Guidebook, when implemented, is intended to provide some degree of improved protection and maintenance of old growth forest values and forest ecosystem processes across all forested landscapes. The Guidebook assumes logging will occur and focuses on the design of landscape level plans to achieve a future forest with a similar level of diversity as existed in the past. However, the implementation of the Biodiversity Guidebook is limited to having no more than a 4 percent impact on the province's short-term timber supply. Implementation is also limited by agency staff discretion.

In August, 1997, the government released a new policy directive that weakens the Biodiversity Guidebook in order to reduce impacts on the province's already depleted timber supply. Targets for maintaining old-growth forests, which are the most critical elements for the maintenance of biodiversity, were relaxed. More recently, in a draft of government technical guide to landscape unit planning, there is a letter from the chief forester that further weakens the Biodiversity Guidebook. This letter directs district managers to 'not consider representativeness at a scale finer than the biogeoclimatic ecosystem classification variant level when establishing landscape unit objectives'.

While the impacts of this direction to biodiversity have yet to be quantified, the long term implication could be substantial. This direction is a clear indication that the chief forester considers economic concerns to be more significant than risks to biodiversity. The recent chief forester direction follows previous policies that direct that old growth management areas (OGMAs) be established in the non-contributing landbase (i.e. inoperable areas first, constrained areas second). The likely result will be that valley bottom site series forests would not be protected in OGMAs in proportion to their distribution over the landscape, while site series on steep rock bluffs will be over-represented.

Although there are strict limitations to the overall impact of biodiversity planning, landscape units still provide the best opportunity to achieve the goals for SMZs. For the three regions where land use plans have been completed (Cariboo/Chilcotin) or are near completion (Kootenay/Boundary and Vancouver Island), landscape unit planning provides the final opportunity to achieve improved protection of non-timber values and processes. Citizens can contact those agency staff responsible for preparing the regional landscape unit planning strategy to determine how they can provide input.

The protection of non-timber values within SMZs can also be accomplished through the establishment of Sensitive Areas and wildlife habitat areas. While these designations will not preclude logging, they will provide opportunities to protect key values with constraints on development and through the use of alternative silviculture practices. In sub-regions where LRMPs are underway, participants can work to ensure that landscape unit planning will work to achieve the goals identified for proposed SMZs.

Conclusion
The overall goals for SMZs are to protect biodiversity, wildlife habitat, recreation and tourism opportunities, clean and reliable sources of water and other non-timber values through management systems emphasizing ecological health. To best protect these values, ongoing long-term planning is needed at the landscape, sub-regional and regional levels that involves the cooperative partnership of all interest groups. Only in this fashion can the commitments made for SMZs in the CORE and LRMP land use planning processes be honoured. An important opportunity for more comprehensive SMZ planning exists through the Forest Practices Code landscape units. Landscape Unit planning begins at the regional or sub-regional planning level through the establishment of biodiversity emphasis designations. Citizens concerned about ensuring that resource use in SMZs is ecologically responsible, need to become involved in the landscape unit planning process.

Current management in many SMZs, particularly those in the regional land use plan areas, is too often 'business as usual'. Problems include continued high rates of logging, continued use of clearcutting, inadequate respect for non-timber values, and the dearth of more detailed, long term planning. To overcome these problems, citizens and organizations concerned about the continued status quo management in SMZs need to advocate for change.

Only a few years ago, British Columbia society was deadlocked in conflict over our forests. Tensions ran high and communities were at risk of being torn apart in the controversy. Both jobs and the environment were threatened. To its credit, the government chose to try to diffuse this situation by establishing the participatory CORE and LRMP land use negotiation processes. Contrary to the expectations of the skeptics, so many citizens showed the courage to sit down with their adversaries. Rather than fighting, they engaged in negotiating land use plans in good faith. In region after region of the province, they succeeded, thereby enabling confrontation to be replaced with cooperation. These land use plans were workable compromises achieved through extensive public effort and increasing good will.

While these plans incorporated several land use designations, from complete protection to intensive development, the Special Management Zones were especially critical to bridging the differences between opposing viewpoints in sensitive areas. In many ways, these zones epitomize the spirit of innovation and cooperation which enabled the land use processes to achieve consensus. Given that land use plans represent an extraordinary investment over the years in time and trust by countless members of the public, the B.C. government must honour the promises it made when the land use plans were officially endorsed by cabinet. Government staff must now fulfill these commitments by working to ensure that resource use in Special Management Zones becomes truly special.