A report by B.C.'s independent forestry watchdog is levelling criticism at the Ministry of Forests for failing to develop an adequate strategy to conserve habitat for a threatened seabird.
"The provincial government needs to set clear targets as to what constitutes 'recovery' and 'survival' in terms of the marbled murrelet," said Forest Practices Board (FPB) chair Bruce Fraser in a recent press release. In April, the board released its third report since 2003 on B.C.'s efforts to conserve murrelet habitat in B.C. Gibsons biologist Paul Van Poppelen explained the marbled murrelet is "really a seabird that nests on land." It prefers nesting on wide, moss-covered branches found near the top of old-growth coniferous trees and will go as far as 80 kilometres inland to find a suitable location. Their dependence on old growth has made them a flagship species in forest preservation.
"To be murrelet habitat, it has to be pretty good-sized timber," agreed Al Blatler, production manager for Interfor's Sechelt Division.
The FPB report stems from their 2006 investigation of Interfor's work to protect the seabird's habitat within the Sunshine Coast Forest District. The board found Interfor "is doing its best to set aside valuable habitat for the bird" but says "the company's effort is constrained by government."
Through helicopter surveys conducted between 2005 and 2007, Interfor identified 35,000 hectares of marbled murrelet habitat within the Sunshine Coast Forest District, most of it located within old growth areas.
In 2004, Interfor submitted their forest stewardship plan pursuant to the Ministry of Environment's "section 7 notice" - a mechanism that requires forest licensees to set legal targets for amount and distribution of conservation habitat. The mechanism is essentially the province's response, under the Forest and Range Practices Act (FRPA), to the 2003 federal Species at Risk Act (SARA), said Blatler.
Interfor's plan outlined 23,000 hectares to be protected for the marbled murrelet within what's called their non-contributing land base (NCLB) - usually steeper slopes that don't often provide the best habitat for the marbled murrelet. This is the problem with the province's approach, says the Forest Practices Board - it's encouraging licensees to create conservation areas largely outside their timber harvesting land base (THLB), beyond where the best habitat is found. Within the THLB, the province has set a cap of just one per cent to be set aside for species at risk, notes Sunshine Coast Conservation Association executive director Dan Bouman.
"If federal guidelines were applied, we'd have a much larger impact to the harvestable land base," he said. The report echoes his sentiment and berates the province for failing to respond to the draft plan now being pitched by the federal marbled murrelet recovery team - a plan that would see 29,750 hectares, or 85 per cent, of the seabird's habitat protected on the Sunshine Coast. It's up to the provincial integrated land management bureau (ILMB) to make final conservation decisions for the province to carry out, and so far they haven't. To force the province to comply, the federal government would have to "invoke extraordinary powers" under the SARA, says the report.
Ultimately, the ILMB is overseen by Minister of Agriculture and Lands Pat Bell, who said the marbled murrelet's recovery is going so well it could be removed from B.C.'s "red list" of species qualifying for special protection. Last week, Bell told Victoria's Times-Colonist newspaper the murrelet's population has jumped from 66,000 in 2002 to 106,000 in 2007 - numbers Van Poppelen said are not reliable.
"We still know so little about the bird, and it's so badly surveyed, you can boost the numbers if you want to," he said.For forest operators, the conservation question is simply a matter of complying with provincial regulations, said Blatler."Our forest stewardship plan says we'll comply with the B.C. government's direction," he said, adding Interfor has left "lots of leeway" between their FRPA conservation obligation and the stricter federal recommendation, he says.
The report also suggests the lack of government-designated protected habitat puts Interfor's conservation efforts at risk of being logged by other volume-based tenure forestry operators who occupy the same land base. While he agrees in principle, Blatler said in practice it's an unlikely scenario.
"In theory, we and other licensees could move around a lot more," he said. "But administratively, it would be difficult."
