Morice SFM Plan Version 3 Complete

October 21 , 2005

After several months of onerous analysis work and with critical contributions from the public, Version 3 of the Morice & Lakes IFPA’s Sustainable Forest Management Plan (SFM) Plan in the Morice has been completed.

According to IFPA manager Jim Burbee, the plan represents a new and effective tool for forest resource management in the Morice. “It’s a challenge to manage for multiple objectives simultaneously within a given forest planning area—this SFM plan helps us manage that complexity and bring it down to ground level.”

Version 3 is a refinement of earlier plans, based on public reviews of alternative management scenarios, as well as technical and management reviews by IFPA partners. The new plan also incorporates knowledge gained from the Morice Land and Resource Management Plan and new information generated from IFPA continual improvement projects.

“With our planning process in the Morice, we have identified key resource values and how they should be measured,” said Burbee. “Now that we have implemented the monitoring and continual improvement processes, we have a working tool to link forestry operations to strategic landscape goals. It’s not perfect, but it’s working, and it will continue to improve over time.”

“The decision scenario minimizes beetle losses while managing for all of the other social, economic and ecological values in the TSA,” said Canfor planning superintendent Carl Vandermark. “And we expect to be able to achieve this without causing midterm harvest levels to fall below the projected long term harvest level.”

The decision scenario uses knowledge and best management practices provided by learning scenarios developed earlier in the planning process. In addition to input from the learning scenarios, information from other planning processes like the Morice LRMP was incorporated into the decision scenario. “We incorporated key management direction identified in the Morice LRMP,” said Vandermark. At the same time, the LRMP was able to make use of some IFPA planning work, like the identification of key recreation features.

During the analysis of learning scenarios, it was possible for scenario planning team members to see how certain values, such as fisheries and timber harvesting, would interact, and decide if these values could be managed together. From here a decision scenario was formulated and analysis undertaken, projecting scenarios into the future.

Version 1 of the Morice TSA SFM Plan was completed in October 2002 and Version 2 was finalized in 2004. Both of these earlier versions were milestones in themselves, and represented considerable efforts by public participants, the supporting analysis group Tesera Consulting Inc., and employees of both participating companies and provincial government ministries.

“This truly was a team effort, and I think the substance of Version 3 of the Morice SFM plan reflects this,” said Burbee.