Wells Gray Community Forest Corporation’s main priority this year is salvaging beetle-damaged pine in Clearwater’s watershed.
That was the report from president Ted Richardson to the community forest’s advisory committee’s annual general meeting on Jan. 27.
Despite being a volunteer, new WGCFC board member Dave Meehan has been working almost full-time on the planning, he said.
The community forest has also been doing an extensive analysis of its operating area, hoping to be able to justify an increase in its annual allowable cut.
General manager George Brcko told the meeting that the consultants they have hired to do the analysis are making use of new, high resolution (30 cm per pixel) aerial photography for the job.
By putting on a pair of 3D glasses while viewing the photographs it is possible to identify individual trees by species.
Quite a bit of the operating area was logged in the 1950s, Brcko said and is now 100 per cent balsam fir.
By getting more detailed growth data from the photographs plus high intensity ground sampling, they hope to convince the Ministry of Forests to give them permission to cut more trees in their existing operating area.
They also hope, by demonstrating good forest management with the analysis, to make the case that the community forest should be enlarged.
The community forest advisory committee’s slogan “Keeping the community in community forest” pleased Bas Delaney, a person who has been involved in the organization of the community forest from the early days.
“I think that summarizes the role of CFAC and how it seeks to engage citizens to ensure the community forest is managed in accord with the values and aspirations,” he said.
CFAC member Heather MacLennan reported that Clearwater Farmers Market is proving to be an effective place to meet and tell the public about the community forest.
“Go to where the people are. Don’t ask them to come to us,” she said.