A8 Terrace Review — Wednesday, August 29, 1990

Fo restry n si g hts _ Continued from page AT A

produce 7.25 cubic meters of wood
per hectare per. year, 30 percent
medium sites that produce 3.5
cubic meters of wood per hectare
per year, and 50 percent poor
growing sites that can only pro-
duce two cubic meters of wood per
hectare per year.

With this knowledge, let’s do
things a little differently. First, you
don’t have to be a rocket scientist
to figure out that with 500 cubic
meters of wood per hectare on the
good sites we have 10 million
cubic meters of good timber grow-
ing on 20,000 hectares of our TEL.
If we cut nothing but the best
wood, then, at a rate of 350,000
cubic meters per year, we'll have
cleared the best land in a little less
than 30 years. And even if we
have successfully replaced every
one of the trees we cut, they won’t

be mature for another 50 years and .

that means we cut inferior trees for
five decades while the next batch
of good timber matures. Obviously
our first strategy of going after a
quick buck wasn’t too bright.

Let’s change our plan of action a
little. In the first year we'll stick to
our AAC of 350,000 cubic meters
and cut 60 percent of the best
timber, 30 percent of medium and
10 percent of poor timber. In other
words we’re going to cut and
replant 210,000 cubic metres of
good timber, 105,000 cubic meters
of medium timber and 35,000
cubic meters of poor timber.

Now what have we done? By
doing a few calculations, using the
rated ability of each type of site to

grow a new forest, we discover
that in the 84th year we have
ready to harvest 252,278 cubic
meters of timber on our good sites,
101,491 cubic meters on our
medium sites and 28,998 cubic
meters on our poor sites. As you
can see, we’ve gained 42,278
cubic meters on our good sites but
we lost volume on the medium and
poor sites. We still need to de a
little juggling, then. What’s the
point in logging the medium and
poor sites beyond their capacity to
regenerate a new forest?

Even with more juggling, how-
ever, you may have noticed we’re
still living in the land of assump-
tion. We somehow arrived at the
fact that our best sites can grow
7.25 cubic meters of new timber
per hectare per year, and that led
us to our assumption that we were
going to gain 42,278 cubic meters
of wood in the next generation of

trees on our best land. But what if
we were wrong? What if we some-
how damaged the soil and there-
fore the productivity of our land?

What if the average rainfall over
the next eight decades is less rain-
fall than in our original calcula-
tion? What if there is more of an
insect or porcupine problem than

management. But our duties here
are minimal and we've already
assumed that we've done all this in
our calculations above. We
replanted, brushed and weeded
until the trees were considered
free-growing. That is, for the first
eight to 14 years of the life of the
new trees. After that, the trees
were on there own for about 70
years, when we would return for
the next harvest.

There is nothing stopping us
from doing more than what’s
required, however, and in fact if
we do we might even convince the
Ministry of Forests to increase our
AAC, We can better manage our
trees by using techniques like
pre-commercial and commercial
thinning, and better manage our
land by fertilizing the soil. If we
decide to invest more in our TFL
than is required, and if we can
demonstrate to the government that
we have in fact increased the mean
annual increment (productivity) of
our land, we can apply for an
increase in our AAC under Section
52 of the Forest Act.

But here too we have to be care-
ful. Our success in actually im-
proving the productivity of our
land depends on the site we choose

to better manage. Let’s say, for

example, we choose a 10,000
hectare area and succeed in
improving the productivity there
by 1.5 cubic meters per hectare per
year. We could apply for, and
probably receive, a 15,000 cubic
meter increase in our AAC, Now
our AAC is 365,000 cubic meters,
and that could be a mistake.

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In the first place, the 10,008

_ hectares we’ve improved won't be _. :
ready for harvest for about 80:~

years, and in the second place, the
increased AAC doesn’t apply to
just the area we improved anyway.
We can apply our new AAC where
ever we like, even on the poorer
sites.

nd it could be worse.

What happens to our

AAC if our efforts to
increase productivity fail miserably
and we actually decrease the pro-
ductivity of our 10,000 hectares
instead? Nothing at all. Decreases
‘aren't monitored and even though
the productivity of our TFL is now
less, we can still continue cutting
at the rate of 350,000 cubic meters
per year. |

Obviously we have a few prob-
lems in managing our TFL. There
are complex problems to be con-
sidered and no guarantees at all.
We don’t even have the tools we
need to work with. We have no
good soil or productivity data
specific to our TFL. It simply
doesn’t exist. And those test trees
used by the ministry may have
litte in common with our logging
site. In fact, in our little example,
we don’t even know where the test
trees are. We simply accepted the
ministry’s guess of 3.5 cubic
meters of growth per hectare per
year and prayed they were right.
Because if they weren’t, we may
learn some hard lessons in the Fall
Down Effect on our TFL much
sooner than we thought.
Next week, we will consider a

few other forms of forest tenure.

< No new AIDS, HIV. |

cases in Northwest

It's a good news-bad news scenario: while the number of
reported cases of AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome) continues to increase in B.C., those reported in the
Skeena Health Unit area have not. —

Dr. David Bowering, Skeena’s chief medical health officer and
the health unit administrator, sald last week there have been no
new cases of AIDS or HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus,
the microbe that causes AIDS) infection reported in the region
over the past several months. The Skeena Health Unit covers
the area bounded by Houston, the Queen Charlotte Islands,
Kemano and the Yukon border.

Bowering remarked that although he can’t explain the absence
of new cases he {s pleased about the situation and keeping his
fingers crossed. , | Oo

The Ministry of Health reported on Aug. 7 that the provincial
Centre for Disease Control has confirmed 3,919 positive tests
for HIV out of 117,024 samples tested since it began the
voluntary testing program in the fall of 1985. B.C. has had 766
people with AIDS. Of those people, 425 have died.

During 1989 there were 205 new cases reported. In
comparison, there were 179 new cases in 1988 and 124 new
cases in 1987. . a

The ministry estimates that between 5,000 and 8,000 people in
B.C. are infected with HIV.

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anticipated? It’s a bit like roulette,
If the productivity of our good
land drops to only six cubic meters
per hectare per year, we'll at least
break even. But if it drops below

that. number, we'll lose. Our next
harvest will be jess than the first.

Of course there are things we can
do that might help to ensure better
productivity on all our sites, and
that brings us to the second part of
the responsibility we inherited with
our cutting licence - forest

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TAKING COURSES AT NORTHWEST COMMUNITY COLLEGE, SHE
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